LIN SU YOSHIMURA

A sword-wielding warrior encounters action and intrigue in a cocaine-fueled criminal underworld in this thriller.

New Yorker Lin Su Yoshimura, the half-Chinese, half-Japanese daughter of a Shaolin warrior, is a modern-day samurai, proficient with such weapons as swords, throwing stars, and nunchaku; she can even rip the heart from a man’s chest. When her drug-kingpin boss, Matthew King, is released from prison, he and Lin Su are approached by a dishonorably discharged Special Forces ranger named Jason Stone. He has a bold plan to rob one of the biggest cocaine producers in Mexico, the cutthroat Juan Ramirez, and needs King’s backing to finance the team of military specialists he needs to pull off the heist. The cocaine involved is almost 99% pure, and the money to be gained from stealing five tons of it will make all parties involved very wealthy. It turns out that the caper itself is the easy part of the plan, as the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Mafia, a Muslim community leader, and a vengeful Ramirez all make moves to stop King and Stone from profiting off their ill-gotten wares. The action in Walker’s debut is fast and furious, complete with decapitations, explosions, black Apache helicopters, and, front and center, the deadly Lin Su, swinging katanas and throwing smoke bombs. A countdown to the big drug heist builds real suspense, and some action movie–style one-liners will provoke chuckles, as when Lin Su tells an enemy, “I did not descend from heaven…I came up from hell.” A few character moments are overly melodramatic, though, as when King drops to his knees and screams “NOOOOO!” upon another’s death. When the story attempts to delve into Lin Su’s origins, it uncomfortably and problematically depicts human trafficking, rape, torture, and drug addiction with the same heightened language it uses for fight scenes and shootouts; Lin Su’s rapist, for example is described as using his “penis as a weapon conquering her virginity.”

A mostly lightweight actioner that’s harmed by clumsy tonal shifts.