Weekend Watchlist, 8/21: Fight!

Happy Friday, PV Guide readers! I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you.

In case you missed it, I reviewed the new Jason Statham movie Mutiny. I did not love it.

Vote on my August review for premium subscribers, which will go out next week!

Here are this week’s picks.

I Am What I Am 2

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase

I really dug the new Spider-Man movie Brand New Day, and part of that is due to Peng Zhang’s work designing the action. I was already familiar with Zhang’s work through his action design on the Chinese animated boxing movie I Am What I Am 2, which had some of the most exciting fight scenes of 2025. It’s the sequel to a movie about lion dancing – which I’ve heard is also good, but I skipped right to this one and had no problems following the story. It has extremely fluid animation and a strong underdog boxing story following a boy hoping to win a tournament to pay off his father’s medical debt. It’s now available to watch digitally in the States after a long wait (re-titled in some places as The Kung-Fu Kid), so check it out!

Rebel Ridge

Where to watch: Netflix

House of the Dragon is done with its third season, which means HBO has moved on to a new Sunday night water cooler (or so they hope) series – Lanterns, starring Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as Green Lanterns. Aaron Pierre’s on our screens again, which means it’s a great time to watch one of the rare masterpieces of the straight-to-streaming era, Rebel Ridge. A modern spin on First Blood, Rebel Ridge follows Terry Richmond (Pierre), an ex-marine who bikes into a Louisiana town to bail out his cousin, only to encounter a corrupt police force that takes his money. After Terry’s patience runs out, he takes matters into his own hands in a satisfying, economical thriller from director Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room).

Project Wolf Hunting

Where to watch: Free with a library card on Kanopy/Hoopla, free with ads on Tubi

I was disappointed by the new “Jason Statham on a boat” movie, which got me thinking about other recent action movies set on boats and what they did right. That brought me to Project Wolf Hunting, a very fun Korean genre mash-up that’s also one of the goriest movies I’ve ever seen (the team reportedly used over two tons of fake blood during filming). It’s about a cargo ship used to transport dangerous criminals, the officers guarding them, and the dark secret being held in the lower decks.