The Raid star and criminally underrated action star Iko Uwais returns to do what he does best in an all-new action thriller…and he’s facing off with a fellow underrated action star in the process. The actor and martial artist, who has proven his affinity for the genre with not only The Raid franchise but also the likes of The Night Comes for Us and Headshot, has sadly struggled to rise in Hollywood in the way he so clearly deserves. But this latest project could just be the action thriller he’s been looking for, as it could give Uwais his own John Wick.
Titled Survive the Night, the action thriller stars Iko Uwais (Timur, Expend4bles) alongside Mortal Kombat’s Lewis Tan, with the pair going head-to-head in a tale of a hitman on the run. Coming courtesy of writer and director Keoni Waxman, who has plenty of experience in the realm of action B-movies, several of which star Steven Seagal, Survive the Night promises to be the kind of no-nonsense martial arts epic genre fans crave. As the first look images prove…
Survive the Night centers on Uwais as Paine (one wonders whether they would have been better off following in Wick’s footsteps even further and simply title the movie after the character’s hard-hitting name), who, after failing to carry out a hit on rival crime boss, “is forced to flee town and crosses paths at a train station with Valeri, a mysterious pregnant woman also desperate to escape her violent past. What begins as a shared desire for escape turns deadly when Paine’s former boss and the father of Valeri’s child comes looking for her,” according to the official logline.
Survive the Night stars the likes of Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2), Eva De Dominici (Cosmic Sin), Ron Balicki (The Book of Boba Fett), Robert Ri’chard (House of Wax), and Teagan O’Hara (Cocaine Island) alongside Uwais and Tan, and certainly sounds like it’ll give the Triple Threat star the opportunity to finally play his own endearing hitman fighting through endless enemies for a righteous purpose. Much like Baba Yaga, they should have just left him alone.
Not only that, but it will also throw Uwais and Tan at each other once again following the pair’s previous battle in the 2019 series Wu Assassins and its 2022 follow-up film, Fistful of Vengeance. Survive the Night is currently in production in Bangkok, Thailand from Lux Angeles Studios, with both Iko Uwais and Lewis Tan having plenty more action thriller in the pipeline. The former is all set to lead the 70s throwback MRI as a hitman trapped in a hospital under siege, play an enigmatic outlaw in Pendekar: Warrior, and join Jake Gyllenhaal in the Amazon action sequel Road House 2. Tan, meanwhile, will throw down with fellow action icon Scott Adkins not one, but twice in the upcoming martial arts thrillers Brawler and Deadlocked.