Weekend in Taipei

If you walked into a theater to see Weekend in Taipei expecting a revolutionary deconstruction of the spy genre, you’re in the wrong zip code. This is a Luc Besson production, which means it arrives with a specific set of DNA: sleek cars, beautiful people who are inexplicably good at drifting, and fight sequences that prioritize "cool" over "physics." It feels like a movie that was unearthed from a time capsule buried in 2005, right next to a Razr phone and a copy of The Transporter.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while nursing a slightly cold order of pork buns, and honestly, the grease on my fingers felt like the perfect tactile accompaniment to a movie that is essentially the cinematic equivalent of fast food. It’s salty, it’s satisfying in the moment, and you’ll probably forget the specific ingredients by breakfast. But in an era where every action movie feels like it needs to be a three-hour "meditation on grief" or a setup for a fifteen-movie multiverse, there’s something genuinely refreshing about a 100-minute romp that just wants to show you Luke Evans hitting a guy with a frying pan.

The Besson Blueprint in the Modern Age

Director George Huang—the man who gave us the cynical 90s classic Swimming with Sharks—teams up with Luc Besson here to deliver a story that is lean to the point of being skeletal. Luke Evans plays John Lawlor, a DEA agent who is "married to the job" (naturally), while Gwei Lun-Mei plays Joey, a former undercover operative turned high-end transporter. They had a thing fifteen years ago, things went sideways, and now they’re reunited in Taipei under much more violent circumstances.

The film occupies a strange space in our current landscape. With a $30 million budget, it’s exactly the kind of "mid-budget programmer" that the major studios have largely abandoned in favor of $200 million behemoths. Because it doesn't have the marketing muscle of a franchise, it basically evaporated at the box office, pulling in less than $3 million. It’s a casualty of the streaming era; this is the kind of movie people "discover" on a Friday night while scrolling through a digital library, rather than something they’ll fight for a parking spot at the mall to see. It’s a movie designed for the "New on Netflix" banner, even if it started on the big screen.

Kitchen Fights and Neon Alleys

Where the movie actually earns its keep is in the physical execution. Luke Evans has reached that "Action Dad" phase of his career where he looks perpetually exhausted, which makes his fight scenes much more relatable. There’s a sequence in a restaurant kitchen early on that is a total blast—Evans uses everything from ladles to stovetops to dispatch a swarm of goons. It’s clear, well-staged, and doesn't rely on that nauseating "shaky cam" that plagued the genre a decade ago.

Gwei Lun-Mei, a massive star in Taiwanese cinema who previously appeared in the noirish The Wild Goose Lake, is the film's secret weapon. She’s not just the "love interest"; she gets behind the wheel of a Ferrari and drives like she’s trying to break the sound barrier in a school zone. Watching her navigate the neon-soaked, rain-slicked streets of Taipei is the movie's visual highlight. The cinematography by Colin Wandersman makes the city look vibrant and electric, a far cry from the drab, gray palettes that seem to dominate most modern thrillers. The film treats Taipei like a playground rather than just a tax-incentive backdrop.

The "Lost Middle" of Cinema

However, we have to talk about the kid. Wyatt Yang plays Raymond, the son caught in the middle of the DEA/Triad crossfire. Child actors in action movies are a gamble; they’re either the emotional stakes or the "annoyance factor" that makes you root for the villain. Yang leans toward the latter, saddled with dialogue that feels like it was translated from French to English by someone who hasn't spoken to a teenager since the Clinton administration.

Then there’s Sung Kang (forever Han from the Fast & Furious series), who plays the villainous Kwang. Kang plays a Triad boss with the casual boredom of a man waiting for his laundry to dry, and while he’s always charismatic, he isn't given much to do other than look menacing in expensive suits. The plot, involving a whistle-blower and a corruption scandal, has the structural integrity of a wet dim sum wrapper, but the movie is smart enough to know that we aren't here for the paperwork. We’re here for the chase.

Weekend in Taipei is a throwback to a simpler time, for better and worse. It doesn't advance the art form, and it certainly doesn't engage with our "current cultural moment" in any meaningful way. But in a world where everything feels heavy and "important," there’s a place for a movie that just wants to show you a Ferrari jumping over a bridge while Luke Evans grumbles about his past. It’s a fun, fleeting distraction—a "long weekend" that you won't regret taking, even if you don't bring any souvenirs home.