High Risk, JCVD, One Cut of the Dead, Nightshooters, We Will Not Die Tonight: a rich vein of meta genre films about film crews thrust into deadly scenarios looms over the latest flurry of fists from director Yudai Yamaguchi, actor Tak Sakaguchi and choreographer Kensuke Sonomura. A screed on action cinema philosophy and the worth of an action star as well as a relentless showcase of its lead’s action prowess, One-Percent Warrior (or by its more fitting original title, One Percenter) is 85 minutes of lionizing, self-aware commentary and shattered bodies, for better and for worse.
(It should be noted that sexual assault allegations against Tak, in conjunction with Sion Sono, have surfaced in the lead-up to the film’s release.)
Whether it was his “Zero Range” style in 2016’s Re:Born or his hour-plus one-shot gauntlet in 2020’s Crazy Samurai Musashi, Tak has always been a cult star looking to test his distinct presence. One Percenter leans into that approach more strongly than any of his past work, opening with a pseudo-real behind-the-scenes interview with Takuma Toshiro (aka Tak as a thinly veiled proxy of himself) lamenting the dancelike fakery of screen fighting and his desire to make a real “100% pure action film.” Years later, the plot finds a still unfulfilled Takuma halfheartedly performing wire-work swordfights for a Rurouni Kenshin-style actioner; the send-up makes it abundantly clear how Tak feels about the popular stylized action of Japanese director/choreographer Kenji Tanigaki.
Alongside his devoted protégé, Akira (Kohei Fukuyama), Takuma end up on an abandoned island factory to scout locations for that fabled pure action film. Then a yakuza gang war crashes the party, and suddenly the action star who hungers for realism has a very real scenario in which to perform his craft. Much like Re:Born, the next hour is one blistering fight after another, loosely connected by more meta beats and criminal menace. The first act’s pointed commentary largely disappears in favor of nonstop goon annihilation, all while the yakuza tear through the facility searching for a hidden stash of cocaine. Aside from the gangsters’ confusion over a “Jackie Chan” taking them out and the innocent humanity of the rival boss’s daughter, one couldn’t ask for a thinner narrative canvas to be filled by Tak and Sonomura’s signature brutality.
The messy choreographing of grapples, slips, and battering fists of Sonomura’s Hydra and Bad City blend seamlessly with Tak’s unstoppable “wave” style and bullet dodging. The first half of One Percenter often suffers from the same lingering repetition that plagued Tak’s other showcases; as strikingly smooth and viper-fast as his moves are, watching the man destroy everyone in his path in seconds can grow stale, even if each fight is punctuated with clever finishers (literally punching a bullet into a spine!). But once the wrench and flashlight come out, the action grows substantially more inventive. The former is half brawl, half tactical puzzle as Takuma adjusts his tool mid-fight to snap collarbones efficiently; the latter a shadowy minuet in which the flashlight is used to simultaneously blind and batter a horde of gangster commandos to the tune of “Clair de Lune.”
Throughout the film, Takuma constantly corrects his foes, telling them that he likens himself to Bruce Lee, not Jackie Chan, and the final fight puts that comparison to the test. As the yakuza’s silent enforcer, newcomer Togo Ishii pits his ferocious Jeet Kune Do skills against Tak’s signature fighting style — the film’s best confrontation is truly saved for last. Their showdown becomes distilled down to bodies as art in motion, a grueling combat chess match of shifting stances, interweaving punches and lightning counters that’s as much a homage to Bruce Lee’s classic one-on-ones as it is an exhibition of Tak’s choreography tenets.
A divisive denouement undercuts much of the early drama and haphazardly transforms the film from a celebration of its protagonist into a condemnation of his whole philosophy. It’s an abrupt finish that feels oddly underdeveloped compared to the slick kinetic thrills that came before; that onslaught of bone-shattering fights and Tak meta-ness makes One-Percent Warrior a strong early contender for 2024’s best action.
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