Striking Rescue Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Striking Rescue Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 13, 2025

Striking Distance probably offers virtually no surprises at any point, and is a retread of any number of other films, at least in part, probably most saliently Death Wish, but all of that is not to suggest that the film doesn't possess its own violent, often pretty feral, energy. Tony Jaa portrays Bai An, a guy who, kind of like Charles Bronson's Paul Kersey in the Michael Winner film, witnesses his wife and daughter attacked by thugs, only in this instance Bai An is left with two deceased family members and a surplus of vengeance based rage. Of course Bai An has a "particular set of skills", in this case including Muay Thai, and the film is basically a vignette driven episodic narrative that details that very revenge strategy being enacted, albeit not necessarily always completely successfully or at least without debilitating injury to Bai An.

At least Striking Rescue doesn't waste time with petty necessities like character development and/or even basic setup, and instead we're thrust headlong in media res with Bai An reacting to the murder of his family and vowing revenge. Things get supposedly more "complicated" when Bai An tries to get to the Boss Level (so to speak) by enlisting the aid of the Boss' daughter, He Ting (Chen Duo-Yi), which then leads to a predictable "partnership" of sorts when it turns out the girl is herself in danger. It's all relentlessly rote, but the good news is the film is probably less interested in any putative "plot" developments than in delivering Jaa's trademark smackdown fighting, and in that regard, Striking Rescue delivers more often than not.

Striking Rescue Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Striking Rescue is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. There's next to no technical information on this shoot that I could dredge up online, but this is an appealing looking digital capture that I'm assuming had a 2K DI. There's a somewhat yellow-green cast to a lot of the grading, something that can make things look just a little jaundiced and/or seasick at times, but a lot of the outdoor material in particular pops with nice naturalism, and even in some extremely wide outdoor framings, detail levels are surprisingly intact. Close- ups offer the best fine detail, and some of the battle effects can definitely be squirm inducing.

Striking Rescue Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Striking Rescue features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track advertised as being in Mandarin, but there are smatterings of pretty bad English throughout, though spoken material here is probably ultimately irrelevant to the more convincing side of the sound design which comes into play in the nonstop action sequences. Virtually every fight scene, whether or not it's hand to hand or hand to gun, features a whirlwind of sonic activity, with both discrete channelization and some fun panning effects helping to surround the listener with a maelstrom of bone crunching and skin piercing effects. The result may actually tend to feel like there's relatively little dynamic range, since everything is "turned up to 11" so much of the time, but immersion is outstanding. Optional subtitles in English and French are available (the English subs unfortunately seem as ESL as some of the spoken material, for what that's worth).

Striking Rescue Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:08)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Packaging features a slipcover.

Striking Rescue Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tony Jaa has a devoted fanbase, and it's probably that demographic that this film will most immediately appeal to. There's a lot of bone crunching action in this piece, it's just that there's really not much else, even with the screenplay struggling mightily to have some kind of authentic human emotion. Technical merits are solid for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.