‘John Wick’ Meets Jason Statham’s ‘Crank’ in Netflix’s Newest Action Blockbuster
The appetite for a good martial arts movie is always there, and this year has already delivered two major hits in the form of Blades of the Guardians and The Furious. Now, a third martial arts movie has debuted on Netflix and has established itself among the streamer’s most-watched titles. It comes mere weeks after Blades of the Guardians and The Furious also found an audience at home. The two films occupied opposite ends of the martial arts spectrum, with Blades of the Guardians being a sweeping period epic and The Furious being a contemporary thriller.
The new Netflix movie has more in common with the latter. Most notably, it was shot in the same country: Thailand. But while The Furious didn’t overtly identify its location, choosing instead to appear vaguely Southeast Asian, the Netflix film is set in Thailand and populated by Thai actors. It has big shoes to fill, with Blades of the Guardians and The Furious currently sitting at 94% and 97% critics’ scores on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Both films have also been embraced by audiences, who awarded them 96% and 95% scores on the aggregator.
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The new Netflix film we’re talking about is The Debt Collector, directed by Surapong Ploensang and starring Nadech Kugimiya. The movie follows an ex-con who, after serving a 10-year sentence, is released and then diagnosed with a terminal illness and given a month to live. In an effort to make amends for past mistakes, the guilt-ridden man goes on a vengeful quest against a loan shark and his gangster mother, who are responsible for the death of an elderly woman he had sworn to protect. The movie certainly owes a creative debt to the John Wick franchise, so much so that the film’s villain even describes the protagonist as Keanu Reeves’ iconic character in one scene. The Debt Collector doesn’t yet have an official Rotten Tomatoes score, but according to FlixPatrol, it’s among Netflix’s most-watched movies already. Netflix, on the other hand, revealed that the movie placed third on the latest weekly viewership rankings, raking in 7.6 million views in its first week.
The Debt Collector is streaming now on Netflix. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.