Jade review – big hair and high kicks from the new Foxy

Shaina West’s heroine thwacks, hacks and quips her way through this pulpy action movie, leaving Mickey Rourke and his henchmen in her wake

British martial artist and stunt performer Shaina West (she was one of the assassins in Black Widow and also appeared in The Woman King) graduates to star with the title role of this pulpy, retro action flick. Her Jade is an English ex-pat who has been stranded in some nondescript US town for a little while, still mourning the death of her brother, who was killed in an overly complicated backstory, laid out in a big chunk of animated screen time before the titles come up.

Once that exposition dump is finished, director James Bamford (a stunt coordinator by trade) and the team get stuck in to the kicking, hand-chopping, stabbing and shooting stuff as Jade is persuaded to hide a mysterious hard drive for a soon-to-be murdered friend from her gang days. She gets captured but makes light work of escaping as she thwacks and hacks her captors, henchmen employed by big-boss big-bad Tork (Mickey Rourke, texting his performance in, one laconic barely discernible emoji at a time.)