The premise of Hidden Strike is refreshingly simple, adhering to the classic buddy-cop formula that has defined the genre for decades. Jackie Chan plays Luo Feng, a former special forces operative turned private security contractor. He is tasked with leading a convoy to escort a group of civilians working at an oil refinery in the Middle East. When the refinery is attacked by mercenaries, the civilians are forced to escape via the "Highway of Death"—a treacherous route known for ambushes.
But Rashidi knew better. He had not bombed the convoy to kill them. He had bombed it to capture them.
Directed by ( Need for Speed ) and written by Arash Amel , Hidden Strike is a high-octane buddy-action movie set in a near-future version of the Middle East.
The film features a heavy saturation of CGI. From the vehicles to the explosions, Hidden Strike often looks like a high-budget video game cutscene. For some audiences, this creates a visually stimulating, almost graphic-novel atmosphere. For Hidden Strike
: While it received mixed to negative reviews from critics—often cited for heavy use of CGI—it was a major streaming success, becoming the #1 movie on Netflix in over 50 countries during its debut weekend.
“Rashidi wasn’t after the chip. He was after you. He knew you’d come. The engineers were bait. He wants the ghost. All of this was to confirm your location. He has a drone with a thermobaric warhead inbound on your last known position. You have four minutes. Run.”
: An ex-Marine mercenary who initially works for the opposing side but eventually joins forces with Feng after learning he was manipulated. The premise of Hidden Strike is refreshingly simple,
“Then don’t breathe,” Korr said, and he meant it as both an instruction and a promise.
: The film was released globally on Netflix on July 28, 2023 .
He stood on a dune two klicks east, binoculars pressed to his eyes, the thermal glow of the inferno painting his face orange. His men had done their job. The mercenary convoy, hired to escort the last Western engineers out of the war zone, was now a scattering of molten hubcaps and shredded tires. The engineers themselves—four civilians with no combat training—were supposedly dead. That was the official report. When the refinery is attacked by mercenaries, the
The plot follows two former special forces soldiers:
“Swim through crude?” one of the engineers stammered. “That’s insane. It’s toxic. We’ll drown.”
But as he helped Dr. Halabi to her feet, his satellite phone buzzed. A text from Delgado.
He landed with a four-man team: Meier, the demolitions expert with a dark sense of humor; Singh, the comms wizard; and two local scouts, brothers from the border town of Safawi. The refinery was a maze of catwalks, distillation towers, and storage tanks, each one a potential coffin. Rashidi’s men—a mix of ex-Iranian Revolutionary Guards and freelance Chechens—patrolled in staggered pairs, their night vision goggles creating twin green eyes in the darkness.
Korr’s mission was simple: infiltrate the captured refinery, find the four “engineers,” and extract them before Rashidi’s torturers arrived. Standard rescue. The kind he’d done a hundred times.