For a streaming service happy to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a star-studded Hollywood blockbuster, it’s ironic that many of Netflix’s best and most successful original actioners tend to be international productions made for a fraction of the cost, with France’s AKA merely the latest.
Following on in the footsteps of genre bedfellows like Vietnam’s bone-rattling prequel Furies and rip-roaring Indonesian action comedy The Big 4, director Morgan S. Dalibert’s fairly routine-sounding story of a special operations agent finding his loyalties torn when he befriends a young boy – who happens to be the son of the boss of the shady criminal organization he’s been tasked with infiltrating and bringing down from the inside – has made an impressive splash on the charts.
Per FlixPatrol, AKA has debuted as Netflix’s number one most-watched feature around the world since being added to the library on Friday, having rocketed right to the summit in 51 countries around the world, finally dislodging formulaic rom-com A Tourist’s Guide to Love from the peak of the rankings.
It just goes to show that big names, bigger budgets, and oodles of CGI are often no match for a simple, straightforward, and eminently engaging narratives that follow a well-trodden path, as long as it’s pulled off with the requisite amounts of style and aplomb.
Looking at the evidence, Netflix might want to start slashing its budgets and instead focus on more old school revenge stories, because they almost always tend to do the trick in terms of becoming appointment viewing for at-home audiences.
