What do Chev Chelios, Frank Martin, and Quentin Connors have in common?
Right. They were all characters played by actor Jason Statham in some of his signature action films. Chelios was the lead character in the Crank films, Martin was the lead in Transporter series, and Connors was another of the Statham tough-guy characters in the film Chaos.
Following the title game plan of just one syllable – Statham’s new vehicle called Safe opened yesterday. The word safe has many meanings:
Be Safe: Stay out of harm’s way
Stay Safe: watch your back
Keep it in the Safe: A place to store and keep valuables.
In this case, all three of the above can be included as they make up segments of the film. We can also say that Statham played it safe with this film as it stays within the parameters of what we know and expect in his films.
Sandor Tecsy as Docheski, the Russian mobster
The film starts with the Russian mobster Docheski demanding that a small Chinese girl, the 11 year Mei, tell him what he requires. We then flash back a year to a school in China. Mei is going to be at a blackboard explaining a complex mathematical formula. Her teacher believes that this school is ‘too easy’ for Mei, so he arranges that she be transferred to a school for gifted students.
Catherine Chan as Mei listens as James Hong as Han Jiao lays it out for her
But she’s kidnapped and brought to New York’s Chinatown where she’s told that she has a new father, and she’ll be expected to work for a particular Chinese Gang Boss. His name is Han Jiao and he’s played by James Hong who has played uncountable Chinese gangsters as well as a maitre ‘d that can’t get the Seinfeld gang a table and repeatedly asks them to wait ‘… oh, five, ten minutes.‘
