‘The Butcher’s Blade’

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Xue Buyi (Liu Fengchao) was once a revered swordsman. But he never quite had the cruelty required to profit from the rampant corruption that governs his country. Instead, he bounces between working as an underpaid constable and guarding the treasury. When the treasury is robbed, however, Xue is nearly framed for the crime. His former master, Commissioner Huang (Chunyu Shanshan), a magistrate assigned to investigate the crime, teams Xue with Li Zhen (Yuan Fufu) to find the culprits.

Surprisingly, “The Butcher’s Blade” isn’t necessarily about Xue’s inquiry. The deeper Xue probes, the more he learns about how pervasive bribery and malfeasance are among his enemies and his friends. Rather, the film concerns Xue’s growth from timid lawman into confident enforcer. Xue’s poise increases throughout “The Butcher’s Blade,” locating his most astounding triumph in a fight with his old master whose wide-angle photography takes immense pleasure in the poeticism of Xue’s sword doling out justice.

Based on Mikuru Asakura’s autobiography “Street Legend,” Takashi Miike’s “Blazing Fists” mixes pugilist hopes with gangland realism for coming-of-age thrills. It follows a hesitant Ryoma Akai (Kaname Yoshizawa) and a brooding Ikuto Yagura (Danhi Kinoshita), young men serving time in juvenile detention who, after hearing a famed fighter speak, decide to become kickboxers to compete in a popular tournament. Upon leaving juvie, they discover just how hard it will be to restart their lives: A high school gang led by Jun Kishomaru (Chikashi Kuon) targets Yagura, plunging both men into a larger battle between rival mobs.

Miike’s film, therefore, works in two separate modes. The first is an underdog sports narrative composed of kickboxing scenes whose exhaustiveness — Yagura is incapable of losing, no matter how many times he’s knocked down — often recalls “Rocky.” Outside of the ring, there are no rules. In gangland brawls, Miike’s camera operates with such forcefulness, one can barely see the physical impact of Yagura’s punches. Like the teenage angst and sense of friendship that powers “Blazing Fists,” you can feel each blow’s importance.

Ercell Bodden (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) is a doting mother to her disabled son, Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo), her only child, and a devoted sister-in-law to Lizzy (Safia Oakley-Green). What neither Isaac nor Lizzy know about Ercell, however, is her pirating history under the moniker Bloody Mary. Ercell’s past returns with grave consequences when the savage Captain Connor (Karl Urban), who wants the gold Ercell stole from him, takes her husband hostage, causing this quaint housewife to reawaken her fighting spirit.

Set in 1846, Frank E. Flowers’s swashbuckling adventure rests on Chopra Jonas’s assured shoulders. A formidable action star in India and America, Chopra Jonas moves with immeasurable intensity in skirmishes against Captain Connor’s men that in one instance culminates in her bashing a man’s face in with a seashell. Her sword fighting skills, relying on powerfully balletic choreography, are equally captivating. Her deadly duel with Captain Connor around a ranging bomb fire exemplifies an expertise that would make Errol Flynn blush.

“Sisu: Road to Revenge” is even better than its predecessor. While the first film followed the silent Finnish prospector, Korpi (Jorma Tommila), fending off conniving Nazis attempting to steal his gold, this gory sequel is a postwar fight against the Soviet Union. Angered that Korpi slaughtered their soldiers during World War II, the K.G.B. dispatch Draganov (Stephen Lang), the man who murdered Korpi’s wife and children, to seek vengeance.

Split into seven chapters, “Road to Revenge” is a bruising exploitation picture built on superhuman violence and Tommila’s soulful performance. The mythologizing of Korpi by many in the series as “the man who wouldn’t die” comes to fruition when he confronts Draganov on a train. Korpi is thrown, headfirst through several train cars, only to get back up, ready to swing more punches. Tommila, meanwhile, is not only visceral, but he also grants this quiet man earned empathy — like in a final scene that wonders if this killing machine can finally find peace.

In Rodrigo Valdes’s “Vengeance,” Carlos Estrada (Omar Chaparro) is a Special Forces soldier whose mission to stop the drug trade in Spain is interrupted when corrupt military officials dispatch the unstoppable hired gun the Jackal to kill Estrada’s wife, Alicia (Iazua Larios). Six months after her death, a secluded Estrada literally wins the lottery, granting him the funds to buy weapons and hire his former comrades to seek retribution.

The action in “Vengeance” is tactical and grounded. Estrada raids an Army base to torture the imprisoned drug kingpin Hector Luna (Gustavo Sánchez Parra) for information about the Jackal. Valdes also presents ruthless images, such as Estrada hammering nails into Luna’s knees or an X-ray interior shot that shows a plunged knife blade crushing a person’s organs. In these instances, “Vengeance” is brutally frank, with a cleareyed acceptance of the horrors of its world.