Name ten actors who aren’t Jackie Chan.

You know a film is going to be great when it gets a nearly two month head start in the United Arab Emirates before heading west, while being a Chinese-filmed movie set in the middle east with an American wrestler. Yep, that’s movie business for ya.

Hidden Strike comes to us from director Scott Waugh, whose name is synonymous with “received mostly negative reviews from critics.” I can’t say I’ve seen any of his prior films like 6 Below, 2014’s Need For Speed, or 2012’s Act of Valor, so I won’t comment too much on the guy’s history. He is directing the upcoming Expend4bles movie which I’m kinda hoping won’t be total shitass but I’m not holding my breath. It has the same screenwriter as Children of the Corn. The awful remake.

I have to wonder how much Netflix paid for a movie with an $80 million budget that brought in roughly $917 grand in the box office.

Jackie Chan plays “Dragon” Luo Feng, head of a private security company tasked with evacuating employees of a Chinese-owned oil refinery. The attacker? You guessed it. Frank Stallone. Nah I’m just kidding. The bad guy of the film is Owen Paddock, played by Pilou Asbæk or as you know him; Euron Greyjoy. Paddock is initially teamed up with Chris Van Horne (John Cena), a man who simply wants what’s best for the small village he protects. At least until Paddock betrays him because that’s what bad guys do in these films.

Hidden Strike is a dumb film, and I say that in the sense of it’s a fun dumb film. A Chinese Jackie Chan movie through and through, this film has a lot of really ridiculous, over-the-top, and dumb action sequences. I loved it. It knows precisely how to toe the line between silly and serious, carrying fight scenes with Chan’s signature bodily injury humor as well as long unbroken fight sequences. You can tell that John Cena can’t quite hold up like Chan and some of the Chinese actors, but he does fine just the same.

What’s really enjoyable about this film is that John Cena being a wrestler and Jackie Chan being a martial arts guy, the two have very distinct fighting styles. So you’re really looking forward to the point where the two finally square off early on. Because it’s not just John Cena in a Jackie Chan movie, it’s John Cena being John Cena in a Jackie Chan movie.

Now this is a Jackie Chan special ops film so it does have the hallmarks of such a movie. Chan’s character has a poor relationship with his daughter? Check. She’s an integral part of the film? Double check. Dead wife? Triple check. Chan talking constantly about how he does everything for his country? Checkarooni. But you know what? Whatever. Because it’s all just set dressing and a vehicle to get us where we need to go; Jackie Chan having a battle in a big foam pit with a bad guy where both of them are on bungee cords.

It’s definitely an hour and forty minutes, but I didn’t come out of it feeling like my time was wasted. Chan and Cena have a great chemistry on screen and I’m kinda glad that Sylvester Stallone pulled out at the last minute. Stallone is 77 years old, and I don’t think he could have done this film without very obvious body doubles. He also doesn’t have the same energy Cena brings to the screen anymore given he’s been on his “I’m too old for this shit” arc for the last ten years.

Watch the movie. It’s free on Netflix. Ma Chunrui is cute as a button.

Rating: B