Here we have a 90-minute (without credits) movie from last year that got its wide release in 2015. It stars Scandinavion action hero Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa who you may or may not have seen in the "Ong Bak" films. I personally thought the first half of this film was the best part, even if it just some kind of prologue with Lundgren's character almost being killed before he goes on his revenge path. Afterward, every cliché is somewhat included. Corrupt cops, ruthless revenge, Asisnas fighting in martial arts, the Asian and the Scandinavion guy fighting side-by-side after initially going against each other.

For me, the best part was probably Ron Perlman, but I am a bit biased here. I hope we will get a 3rd Hellboy film one day. "Skin Trade" ended a bit on a cliffhanger, so maybe they will make a sequel at some point where he keeps looking for his daughter. I am not so sure if I will watch it though. Perlman's character is gone and I will probably only give it a go if they include another great villain that I like, Mel Gibson for example. Four people worked on the screenplay (including Lundgren himself for the first time in 5 years) and it is a bit generic and uncreative for that I have to say. Also I did not like the final message displayed about human trafficking, which somehow implies that the movie takes itself far more seriously than it should. Hands down, this could never have turned out as a quality drama or thriller movie, so this felt a bit unwarranted. Still, it's not a totally bad watch by any means. It has its moments for sure. But not enough of these to let me recommend it. The second half of the film drifts too deep into action sequences with fighting and shooting etc. and the story is hurt by it. Not recommended.

Dolph Lundgren is listed as a co-writer of Skin Trade. I think he is genuinely concerned about sex trafficking particularly from South East Asia. As the film mentions not all the victims are kidnapped or lured with false promises. Some are sold by their parents.

Dolph plays Nick Cassidy, a no nonsense detective who is after Serb people trafficker Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman.) When Nick arrests him he should had killed Viktor.

Now Vicktor is after revenge as Nick also killed his youngest son. As payback Vicktor has his wife killed, his daughter is taken and Nick is left for dead but he survives.

Nick travels to Thailand looking t take down Vicktor's empire. However he is on a collision course with Thai detective, Tony Vitayakui (Tony Jaa.) Tony is also investigating the sex trade and is onto one of Vicktor's son who is running the south east asia end of the empire.

However Nick is blamed for killing Tony's police partner. Both men though have to reluctantly join forces to take down Vicktor.

The story is formulaic nonsense with wooden characters. Perlman is vicious as the bad guy and clearly makes the most of his despicable character.

Lundgren is now just too old for action films, he really should move on to do moody character parts as he showed in Creed II and other films, he might be a limited actor but he surely can do brooding and melancholy.

This leaves Jaa with the flashy martial arts scene. The direction though is far from competent.

Great casting, cinematography and choreography, but the directing and/or editing wasn't that great, and the screenplay certainly needed some fine-tuning. The score was annoying and too evident. The runtime and pacing were decent. Nevertheless, it was actually better than I expected.