There’s a lot to learn from Jason Statham’s movie posters. Not only is he the foremost “guy with a gun” in contemporary action cinema advertising, but one can observe a clear dichotomy between the two types of films he makes: the ensemble pieces and the star vehicles.
He’s adaptable enough to keep company with the genre greats (see: The Expendables) or slot seamlessly into franchises already chugging happily along (Fast and Furious) – but he also boasts enough charisma as a bona fide action frontman on his own.
Back in 2002, Statham landed his first star vehicle: The Transporter. After breaking out in Guy Ritchie’s early films playing hard-edged British criminals with names like Bacon and Turkish, The Transporter gave Statham a chance to stand out from the pack. In it, he plays Frank Martin, a highly skilled driver living in the French Riviera who makes his fortune transporting with precision various objects – people, things – via his treasured BMW. Everything is done to the letter, per his three rules: “never change the deal,” “no names,” and “never open the package”.
Of course, he breaks those vows, and chaos ensues. When one of his packages begins to wriggle around in his boot, Frank opens it to discover a woman, Lai (Shu Qi), who unsuccessfully stages an escape as Frank zips her back up and delivers her to the arranged destination. Frank is rewarded for his efforts by the package’s recipient, a thinly sketched American villain named Wall Street (Matt Schulze), and is immediately asked to complete another job. Unfortunately, this one is a setup.
Stopping for a can (or three) of Pepsi, Frank’s beloved vehicle explodes before his eyes and he returns to Wall Street’s mansion with a vengeance. He kicks the door clean off its hinges and flattens an unsuspecting goon; he throws fists and kicks at all who come his way, including a pair of axe-wielding henchmen whom he dodges and deflects with glee.
It’s here that the film shows its truly weird stripes, thanks to its transnational creative forces. It was funded by French director Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp and co-directed by the French Louis Leterrier and Hong Kong filmmaker Corey Yuen – the latter a renowned fight and action choreographer who grew up alongside Jackie Chan at the beginning of his international foray. The result is an aesthetic fusion of classic European car films (like 1998’s Taxi) with Hong Kong’s martial arts cinema.
The fight sequences especially are rendered in a distinctly Hong Kong style. Wall Street, we learn, is a human trafficker whose partner in crime happens to be Lai’s father (Ric Young). Neither are too happy with Frank buzzing around, and following various detours too convoluted to explain here, Frank ends up bare-chested at a bus depot swarmed by henchmen.
In what persists as one of Statham’s most exciting fight sequences – and perhaps a moment that propelled him into Hollywood stardom – Frank, recognising that he is outnumbered, spills dubiously placed oil barrels onto the concrete. Clicking his feet into bike pedal clips that let him glide atop the slick surface, he delivers 360 degrees’ worth of spin kicks as his attackers unceremoniously slip and slide.
And of course, like any Statham joint, there’s the poster: ripped straight from an early-aughts magazine centrefold and featuring Statham, in suit and tie, mid-twist, donning not one but two pistols. From the image alone you could discern the kind of Hollywood mainstay Statham was destined to become – and The Transporter, his first franchise, deserves not to be overlooked as an odd periphery but cherished for the leading man that it unleashed.
-
The Transporter is available to stream on Disney+ in Australia and the UK, and on Starz in the US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here