Shattering any remaining illusions that xXx 3 might be the super x-treme action franchise’s quiet, thoughtful installment, like so many unlucky stuntmen’s femurs, Ong Bak star and Furious 7 transplant Tony Jaa has signed on for the Vin Diesel-led Return Of Xander Cage. Although details are being kept tightly wrapped about Jaa’s role in the film—so as not to spoil, presumably the twist that is EXPLOSIONS, AND THEN A JET SKI FLIES THROUGH THEM—we do have a pretty good guess at his narrative impact: He’s going to kick people. He’s going to kick people so hard, that they die.
Diesel is gathering a pretty hefty roster of action talent around him for the latest edition of the intermittently Ice Cube-starring franchise; just yesterday, he recruited Jet Li to a cast that already included The Vampire Diaries’ Nina Dobrev and Orange Is The New Black’s Ruby Rose. Now, with Jaa joining what Diesel has unironically referred to in the past as “The Xander Zone,” he’s one ex-Special Forces dude and a wheelman away from assembling a cast of badasses that could legitimately pull off some of the stunts and crimes that happen in his films