Back in Action: 1991 March
A look at the major new action movie releases (and trends) of March 1991 and March 2026
This year, I’m taking a month-by-month look at the action movies released globally in 1991, talking about the trends and individual titles that made the year in the genre and comparing them to the releases in 2026. You can read the previous monthly entries here.
Let’s take a look at the state of action in March 1991 and March 2026, with expanded thoughts at the bottom for paid subscribers.
The numbers
I found 32 action movies released in March 1991 from six filmmaking nations. (Here’s a Letterboxd list.)
In March 2026, I found 35 action movies from 16 filmmaking nations. (Here’s another Letterboxd list.)
Some takeaways: in 1991 there was a steady increase in action movies as summer approached, but 2026 actually had more in February than in March. That might be due to what looks like an underreported number of 2026 Chinese action movies – I have a hard time believing there were only three, but we’ll work with the info we’ve got. We’re also still seeing the massive increase in filmmaking nations producing action movies between 1991 and 2026.
March 1991 saw an explosion in the number of action comedies compared to previous months – that was the dominant sub-genre this month. In 2026, the dominant sub-genre remained crime, with plenty of cop, revenge, and vigilante thrillers across the globe. And a commonality between the two years: both March 1991 and March 2026 had a lot of comic book adaptations.
Who were we fighting?
In March 1991, action leads fought threats tangible (the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, gangsters, a serial killer, aliens) and metaphysical (their own past, mortality, betrayal).
Most of March 2026’s action movie opponents were gangsters of some variety, but, as opposed to the drugs-focused gangsters of 1991 movies, 2026’s gangsters tended towards human trafficking (once again, Taken’s influence continues globally nearly two decades later). Others included a cult, zombies, moral corruption, and the protagonist’s past misdeeds.
America
At the box office, the most prominent American action movie of March 1991 was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, which finished second at the monthly tally to mega hit and future awards darling The Silence of the Lambs. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, also a co-production with legendary Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest, was the highest-grossing independent movie in Hollywood history, and even if the sequel didn’t live up to the critical acclaim and long-lasting appeal of the first, it brought people out to the box office. It was also one of the first roles for future action star Michael Jai White, who played “Man in audience.”
The other big action performer at the March 1991 box office was Mario Van Peebles’ feature debut New Jack City, an action/crime thriller about the crack epidemic. It was a big part of Wesley Snipes’s rise to movie stardom, immediately following Major League and Mo’ Better Blues.
Other notables include The Hard Way, a buddy comedy starring Michael J. Fox (his first movie after the conclusion of the Back to the Future franchise) and James Woods, and The Perfect Weapon, a martial arts film that introduced the world to Jeff Speakman and American Kenpo. The Perfect Weapon is the only one of the March 1991 action releases I’d seen before – I didn’t make time to watch it again, but it’s a lot of fun. Also worth noting is The Guyver, an American tokusatsu movie from a team of creature effects artists and starring Mark Hamill, and new entries in the Delta Force and American Ninja franchises.
The sci-fi movie Project Hail Mary cleaned up at the March 2026 box office, and in fact the only action movie to chart well at all in America was an Indian mega-blockbuster – another sign of the shifting global industry. Instead, the most notable new action releases were straight-to-streaming (Pretty Lethal, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice) or had more limited theatrical releases (Protector, They Will Kill You). Three of those four movies starred women as the action leads – Maddie Ziegler, Milla Jovovich, and Zazie Beetz. By contrast, all 11 American action movies from March 1991 were led by men (although some women action stars, like Cynthia Rothrock in future car action maestro Spiro Razatos’ directorial debut Fast Getaway, were present).
On the DTV side, most notable was Mexicali, from the Jesse V. Johnson coaching tree and starring the fantastic Australian martial artist Bren Foster. Italian kung fu movie The Forbidden City also finally got its delayed release in the US, as did Australian sci-fi actioner War Machine and Korean spy thriller Humint.
East Asia
In 1989, the Chow Yun-fat comedy God of Gamblers took the Hong Kong box office by storm, breaking records and sending a reverberation through the industry. In the wake of all this success emerged the Hong Kong action scene in March 1991, with spin-offs, sequels, and other gambling-related action comedies being made in droves.
There’s The Top Bet, a sequel to 1990’s God of Gamblers parody All for the Winner (which broke God of Gamblers’ box office record), starring Anita Mui and Carol Cheng (Stephen Chow appears in a cameo). There’s Legend of the Dragon, where Stephen Chow plays a kung fu student who gets conned by his uncle into using his snooker skills for financial gain. And there’s The Gambling Ghost, a gambling action comedy where Sammo Hung plays three different characters (with a scene that directly parodies God of Gamblers).
The influence wasn’t just left to gambling-tinged movies: March 1991 was right in the middle of Chow’s meteoric rise to stardom after All for the Winner. In addition to The Top Bet and Legend of the Dragon, he starred in the action comedy Fist of Fury 1991. (Chow wasn't the only busy one – former Seven Little Fortunes member Corey Yuen featured in or directed five of the seven Hong Kong action movies from March 1991). Fist of Fury 1991 was one of two movies this month to touch on Japanese occupation, along with Tsui Hark and Tony Ching Siu-Tung’s The Raid, the last movie for star Dean Shek. Also of note from Hong Kong’s March 1991 offerings: Don’t Fool Me, a Trading Places rip-off starring the endlessly charming duo of Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
The other notable action film-producing nation in East Asia in March 1991 was Japan. There were three animated action movies (including a new Dragon Ball and a new Gundam movie) and one lewd manga adaptation, but the highlight was Mamoru Oshii’s StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, a pensive sci-fi actioner that’s almost nothing like its title suggests. It’s a rare live-action movie from Oshii, working within the setting of his manga Kerberos Panzer Cop, and four years before his celebrated Ghost in the Shell animated feature.
March 2026 was surprisingly slow for East Asian action, in comparison (although the caveat of a surprisingly low number of movies reported from China remains). I found just three DTV movies from the Chinese industry, while Japan had new entries in a variety of long-running franchises (Golden Kamuy, Assassination Classroom, VS).
South Asia
Big movie releases in South Asia are often scheduled around Eid, and that shows here. In 1991, Eid started in April, while in 2026 it fell in March. While both March 1991 and March 2026 had six Indian action movies, looking closer tells a different story.
March 1991’s crop of Indian action included the third month in a row with a Rajinikanth release (Khoon Ka Karz, from Hum director Mukul Anand) and not much else to note. There will be plenty to talk about in April, however, including the release of what was at the time the most expensive Indian movie ever made.
With Eid, you might expect a lot of Indian blockbusters in March 2026, but there was really just one: Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the sequel to the record-breaking jingoistic blockbuster from 2025. Everything else got out of the way (there were literally no other new action releases in theaters that weekend), and The Revenge surpassed Dhurandhar’s hefty box office total to become the highest-grossing Indian movie of the year by far. It did so well it was the top-performing action movie at the Hollywood box office this month, too.
The cinema of Bangladesh also got involved in the Eid action, with five blockbuster releases coming out the same weekend. The winners among the action movies appear to have been the gangster movie Prince: Once Upon a Time in Dhaka, starring Bengali megastar Shakib Khan, and the action/romance thriller Rakkhosh. In Pakistan, the blockbuster vigilante movie Bullah came out for Eid, led by star Shaan Shahid.
Everywhere else
In March 1991, another Robin Padilla movie came out in the Philippines (Ang Utol Kong Hoodlum). After enjoying the last Padilla movie I watched, I wanted to make time for this one, but alas. There were also two movies from the USSR’s crumbling industry.
In March 2026, many more nations were in the action movie-making business, with films from Belgium, Brazil, Greece, Iceland, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and a Serbian/Croatian co-production. The ones worth highlighting: TÀI (a Vietnamese blockbuster from actor/filmmaker Mai Tài Phến), Undir Ísnum (a sci-fi action comedy seemingly made by an Icelandic music academy starring some of their students), and Storm Rider: Legend of Hammerhead (that Serbian/Croation co-production, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi about death races on the rocky seas).
Best poster:
I like The Raid’s comic book-style poster the best:
For paid subscribers, I’ve written some thoughts about all the action movies I watched from March 1991 (The Gambling Ghost, Don’t Fool Me, New Jack City, The Hard Way, Fast Getaway, The Guyver, Fist of Fury 1991, StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, and The Raid) and March 2026 (War Machine, Mexicali, Pretty Lethal, and Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice). I’m also keeping a list ranking the 1991 action movies I’ve seen. And here’s a preview of the movies I’ll be looking at for April 1991 and April 2026.
