June 10: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie — is a Scott Adkins movie.

Scott Adkins film career started when he was offered a role in the Hong Kong martial arts film called Dei Seung Chui Keung. After that he worked for some of teh best action experts in the world, like Yuen Woo-ping, Corey Yuen, Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. But it was his role as Russian MMA villain Yuri Boyka in Undisputed II: Last Man Standing that made him known to action film fans. He fought Van Damme in The Shepherd: Border Patrol, battled Donnie Yen in Ip Man 4: The Finale, took on Jason Statham in The Expendables 2 and was Ryan Reynolds’ double in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

For this movie, Adkins did more than star as Mike Fallon, an assassin who specializes in creating deadly accidents. He also produced and wrote this adaption of Pat Mills and Tony Skinner’s comic book.

After losing his girlfriend to another woman, Mike takes jobs and hangs out at The Oasis, a bar that’s owned by his mentor Big Ray (Ray Stevenson, the Punisher in Punisher: War Zone and Volstagg in the Thor movies). It’s a drinking establishment frequented exclusively by killers like Poison Pete, commandos Mic (Michael Jai White) and Mac (Ray Park), weapons creator Finnicky Fred, axeman Carnage Cliff and Jane the Ripper. Honestly, the quick worldbuilding scene in the beginning of the film is the best part, as all of these characters could be in several films.

Unfortunately for Mike, he’s been set up by Milton (David Paymer), the person who sets up their kills, by an amateur killer who he easily dispatches. That was just to distract him as Mic and Mac were hired to kill his ex-girl, who got too close to exposing the seamy side of the oil industry.

Now, Mike wants revenge. And he has plenty of targets, because everyone at the Oasis has been hired to kill him.

I’ve never seen any of director Jesse V. Johnson’s films before, but now I’m going to track them down. This was an absolute thrill of a movie and I enjoyed every second. That means that I have to start checking out Adkins work as well. Thanks Junesploitation for introducing me to a whole new bunch of movies!

You can watch this on Tubi.