As a fan of Tony Jaa since seeing the original Ong Bak ten years ago, I’ve been really bummed by his slow output. The worst part is that Jaa, who is one of the most talented movie martial artists I have ever seen, really hasn’t appeared in an awesome film since The Protector in 2005. While both Ong Bak 2 and 3 had some great action sequences, both were major disappointments. So I’m certainly happy that Jaa has a number of films coming up including the fantastic-looking The Protector 2, his first American film Fast & Furious 7, and perhaps most surprisingly, a film with Dolph Lundgren A Man Will Rise.
While A Man Will Rise is already finished and supposed to get a December release (and gave us these hysterically amazing photos of Lundgren dressed as a cowboy), Lundgren must have enjoyed working with Jaa because he decided to return the favor of being cast in Jaa’s film to make another film together, Skin Trade. Though it has yet to go into production, it already has a promo poster that Jaa has released on Facebook:
The IMDb plot summary says: A tough NY cop, Nick (Dolph Lundgren), runs afoul of the Russian mob engaged in human trafficking, and they end up killing his wife and daughter for revenge. Determined to make them pay, he follows the kingpin to Bangkok, the hub of their activities. He teams up w/ a Thai detective, Tony Jaa, and they decide to wipe out the entire organization and terminate their business entirely. Well, I’d definitely see that.
Skin Trade will be directed by Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham from a screenplay written by Gabriel Dowrick, Steven Elder, John Hyams, and Lundgren himself (!). While Dowrick and Elder are relatively new to screenwriting, Hyams wrote Lundgren’s awful Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (you can check out what I thought of that disaster here) so let’s hope the combined power of Jaa and Lundgren overcomes any potentially bad writing. How could it not?
As with all things Tony Jaa, these projects seem to take forever to come out (The Protector 2 has been slated for U.S. release well over a year and only got released in Jaa’s native Thailand last month), so who knows if it’ll make its “late 2014” release date that Jaa put on his Facebook. But hey, anything that guarantees more Tony Jaa movies in production is good news to everyone who likes action movies, right?
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