Fistful of Vengeance gives Netflix’s Wu Assassins a messy, gritty wrap-up

polygon.com:

In 2019, the Netflix series Wu Assassins wrapped after only one season, with an ending that was more like sequel-bait than like a real cliffhanger. Although some threads remained open, the show’s main story, pitting San Francisco chef Kai (Iko Uwais) and his friends against the elemental Wu Lords, reached an end. Wu Assassins is a flawed series, suffering from inconsistent writing and occasional odd character behavior, and it struggles to make its derivative fantasy world interesting. But it does benefit from the charm of a strong cast led by Uwais, Lewis Tan, and Byron Mann. Netflix has finally followed up with the series’ feature-length conclusion, Fistful of Vengeance, which fully delivers on the series’ promise — at least in terms of quantity, if not quality.

In Wu Assassins, Kai is chosen by an ancient force called the Dao to become the Wu Assassin, a fighter endowed with supernatural powers and tasked with stopping the Wu Lords of Fire, Wood, Earth, Metal, and Water. The action is bountiful and generally solid, with one caveat: Whenever the show leans too strongly on its supernatural elements, it loses the kinetic energy of Uwais’ fighting style, diluting it with intangible and unengaging CGI superpowers. The show is at its best when it lets the performers show off their skills, and its various directors — including The Dead Lands’ Toa Fraser, Tai Chi Hero’s Stephen Fung, and DTV actioners regular Roel Reiné — generally seemed to understand that.

Reiné returns to helm Fistful of Vengeance, and he seems to have noticed the problem — the fantasy elements and special effects are less prominent this time around. As director, cinematographer, and camera/drone operator, Reiné fully commits to the role of making a film