Boy Kills World and 5 more deliciously deadly action flicks

In a post-apocalyptic world, a Shaman (Yayan Ruhian) trains a Boy (Bill Skarsgård, Pennywise in It and Count Orlok in Nosferatu) to fulfil his quest for vengeance with the help of two resistance fighters Basho (Andrew Koji, Gangs of London and Warrior) and Benny (Isaiah Mustafa): to kill the matriarchal despot Hilda Van De Koy (Famke Janssen) – the woman he blames for his family’s deaths. 

If you read that in a dramatically gravelly “action movie guy voice”, imagine narrating your whole life that way. That’s exactly what Boy (who’s Deaf and non-speaking) does in the action comedy movie Boy Kills World – using the voice of H Jon Benjamin (the voice of Sterling Archer of Archer, Bob of Bob’s Burgers, and Batman in Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas), which Boy borrowed from his favourite childhood arcade game. 

Boy needs all the martial arts montage training he can get, because Hilda and her family, including her brother-in-law Glen Van De Koy (Sharlto Copley, District 9), rule the city with an iron fist and every year they hold a Hunger Games-style televised reality series called The Culling, in which all 12 participants are killed on live TV, sponsored by a cereal company. Boy, his mother and sister were all culled one year, and Boy only survived because Hilda believed he was dead following the attack that destroyed his hearing. But the Shaman has his own axe to grind, and Boy’s beliefs about his past are on shaky ground following the years of psychological manipulation involved in his training. 

Now that we have the plot out of the way, let’s go dodge bullets while a cheerful soundtrack blares and we leap stylishly in the air swinging our axes, swords and fists! Is the whole thing filmed in Cape Town? Yes it is! And we’re about to Tear. It. Up.

Stream Boy Kills World now. And if you love an ultraviolent action movie with style, some gun-fu, a touch of weirdness, and a dark sense of humour, try these five films next…

1. Monkey Man

Action extravaganza Monkey Man brings us martial arts movies through a Bollywood lens. An Indian man named Kid (the film’s writer-director and star, Dev Patel, Chappie and The Newsroom Season 1-3) works as a masked wrestler under the thumb of shady fight promoter Tiger (Sharlto Copley, District 9, Chappie). But Kid has a second job as a waiter at Kings, a brothel and drug den disguised as a social club. He’s on a secret mission to get closer to corrupt police official Rana (Sikandar Kher) – the man responsible for massacring Kid’s village and his mother – along with his rich and powerful cronies. 

Like Boy Kills World, we have Sharlto, a nameless hero, and a blood-spattered quest for vengeance following intense training montages. Just like Boy has to battle his way up Hilda’s dystopian dictatorship, Kid has to battle his way up through the layers of India’s caste system – represented in the Kings Club, all the way from the Kitchen to the VIP section – to strike at the big boss, Rana. Unlike Boy, though, Kid takes his inspiration from the Hindu deity Hanuman, the invincible Monkey God. 

2. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

This peak mid-80s post-apocalyptic Australian action film revs up the original Mad Max film (decades before Fury Road and Furiosa) to bring us a lone warrior hero Max (Mel Gibson) travelling the desert wastes in a world gone mad. An ongoing battle is fought over fuel as the strongest and most ruthless form raiding tribes to power their car fetish. In the words of the gravel-voiced narrator, “The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and mashed. Men like Max.”

The world is thrillingly realised with its tough guy metal and leather costumes, sexy, slutty cars and trucks, and strange, barbaric customs. Like Boy Kills World, it takes inspiration from classic martial arts action film storytelling – in this case, The Seven Samurai – as Max tries to protect civilian settlers from the locust-like Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) and his band of marauders. Look at them, all shiny and chrome!

Also watch: Mad Max, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and look out for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga on Showmax from 24 April

3. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

The movies’ most exciting assassin delivers a blood-soaked love letter to action movies and a flying kick to your eyeballs with the return of unstoppable killer John Wick (Keanu Reeves) in this neo-noir action thriller. 

Wick has been excommunicated from the neutral ground of the New York Continental hotel. The High Table association of global crime syndicates has ordered his death, and he has to fight for his life as every big name in the assassination business comes after him, each with their own specialised way of taking out a target. Wick’s only hope of escaping is being granted safe passage to Casablanca, where he can regroup and come up with something to offer the High Table that’s more valuable than his death.

Endlessly inventive and imaginative, John Wick borrows from the best, like Enter the Dragon’s hall of mirrors scene, but elevates the action with breathtaking set design. Fights take place anywhere from crowded train stations and rooms filled with crystal skulls, to a handy knife room or a Moroccan bazaar – it’s like a comedy improv session for assassins. 

4. Zombieland

Horror comedy Zombieland (2009) can trace its hungry horde’s infection back to a fast food burger infected with mad cow disease. USA, all the way! It’s been two months since the outbreak and the survivors like Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) and his trusted partner Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and their two new friends, Wichita (Emma Stone) and her sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), are already developing strange rules and rituals to stay safe and not get too attached to someone who might end up as food the next minute. Columbus’s rules, which flash up on screen as they become relevant, include “Do cardio”, “Beware of bathrooms”, and “Check the back seat”.

As they roadtrip around the United States beating and torturing zombies in bright, gory, computer-game style, they also explore the remains of civilisation, including LA’s celebrity mansions, where they are in for a surprise, and now-empty amusement parks where you don’t have to queue … but you do have to run! 

5. Wanted

Timur Bekmambetov (writer-director of the Night Watch supernatural films) heads this assassin action film loosely based on the Mark Millar and J.G Jones comic book miniseries of the same name. 

Bullied office worker and slacker Wesley Allan Gibson (James McAvoy) finds out that his father was a member of The Fraternity, a 1000-year-old secret society of assassins. It turns out his sweaty panic attacks were just thanks to his built-up adrenaline getting bored! Soon he’s on the run with another smirking assassin named Fox (Angelina Jolie), who takes him to a factory where The Fraternity’s leader, Mr Sloan (Morgan Freeman), tests his abilities and finds out that Wesley has supernatural strength and speed when under threat. With a new career in sight following an enviable moment of rage-quitting the old job), Wesley prepares to take on his father’s killer, the rogue assassin, Cross (Thomas Kretschmann) and learns to “bend” bullets so he can shoot around corners. 

Wanted takes us into a fun, hidden world of death specialists, including explosive experts, gunsmiths, bullet makers, and philosophers on the art of killing. 

Now go out there, switch off your brain and engage popcorn-munching mode. See you at the movies!