Take a hard look,Jason Stathamfans. Everyone’s favorite action tough guy may have just found his stiffest competition yet. Indeed,Netflix’s ultra-gritty new French action movieK.O. stars former MMA star Cyril Gane as a brutal one-man wrecking crew seeking redemption through a path of violence after a tragic fatality. The lean, mean, no-frills action flick is exactly the sort of riveting experience one expects from a classic Statham movie.
Instantly punching its way to the top of Netflix’s most-watched movies in the U.S.,K.O.is 86 minutes of pure adrenaline-fueled violence and breakneck mayhem. Gane gives a punishingly demanding performance that allows for long, unbroken clashes that feel more realistic than anything Statham has recently done onscreen. Whether a fan ofBlitzorThe Beekeeper, Statham fans must seeK.O.on Netflix.
What Is Netflix’s ‘K.O.’ About?
Antoine Blossier directedK.O., a hardenedFrench action movie released on Netflixon August 23, 2025. Instantly grabbing one’s attention, the breathless action begins inside a Mixed Martial Arts arena, where a hyperrealistic MMA fight ensues between Bastien (Gane) and his longtime rival Enzo.During the clash, Bastien accidentally strikes Enzo so hard that he dies.
Wracked with guilt and remorse, Bastien feels even worse when Enzo’s wife Emma (Anne Azoulay) and young son Leo (Maleaume Paquin) witness the tragedy in the crowd. Five days after the bout, Leo falls in with the wrong crowd and goes missing. Bastien, who has since quit his MMA fighting career and has begun working at a salt mine, is recruited by Emma to find Leo and bring him home safely.
Bastien teams with local Marseille police officer Kenza (Alice Belaidi) to locate Leo, reluctantly dragged back into a hyper-violent criminal underworld that he must punch, pound, and pulverize his way through with reckless abandon.For Statham fans,K.O.delivers one power blow after another.
‘K.O.’s Hand-to-Hand Fight Scenes Are Top-Tier
The Fights Are Very Statham-Esque
As Bastien and Kenza search for Leo, their investigation takes them to a nightclub to meet the sister of Leo’s girlfriend. Upon pressing the woman for information about Leo’s whereabouts, a quartet of bouncers intervenes and tries to remove Bastien and Kenza from the premises.
Ripped right out of theJason Statham action playbook, Bastien viciously responds with his fists. He brains and bashes one bouncer as Kenza rushes in with a knife. Kenza is kicked across the room, leaving the four bouncers to drag Bastien outside and gang-kick him while he’s down. Rising from the parking lot pavement like a phoenix from the ashes,Bastien storms back into the nightclub and goes ballistic on his assailants, brutally battering them into oblivion with his bare hands. Visually, the neon strobe lighting evokesJohn Wickas much as a Statham flick, but the hand-to-hand close-quarters combat formula remains the same.
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The gritty, unflinching bouts of violence are reminiscent of classic Statham, as seen in earlier work likeCrankandThe Mechanicor later efforts likeThe BeekeeperandA Working Man. Because Gane has real-life MMA experience, heperforms the fights himselfduring lengthy stretches onscreen, without needing a stunt double to fill in. This not only makes the fights ultra-realistic, but it also allows Blossier to linger on the fight for prolonged periods without cutting away. No CGI, no trick photography, no manipulative camera angles; it’s pure bone-crushing barbarity on full display.
The result is a relentlessly visceral experience that makes viewers feel like they are right there alongside Bastien as he slams one villain after another. Gane may not have the emotional range that Statham has just yet, but he’s just as impressive and believable during the fights. Gane is so commanding that it would be genuinely exhilarating to see him share the screen with Statham at some point.
Could Cyril Gane Take the Action Movie Torch From Jason Statham?
At 58 years young in 2025, it’s worth wondering how long Jason Statham plans to continue his action-movie bona fides. Although Liam Neeson continues to be a geriatric action star of the ages, still going strong at 73, he and Statham can’t do the same old thing forever.If Statham were to hang it up anytime soon, Cyril Gane proves inK.O.that he at least has the physical prowess and real-life martial arts skills to fill his place.
Following his MMA career, Gane transitioned to acting in 2021. He has already amassed eight credits, notably joining thereturning characters inDen of Thieves: Panteraearlier in 2025. Far more than a glorified cameo portraying himself, Gane gave a solid turn as Pape inPantera.
The progress Gane made from beginning his career as a heightened version of himself on screen, and playing nondescript characters like “MMA Champion” inMedellínand “Douanier #2” inThe Misadventures of Heidi and Cokeman, suggest he’s ready to take more of the spotlight and immerse himself in more dimensional characters. That doesn’t necessarily mean he can and will supplant Statham as arguably the most popular action star around, butit would be a great sight to see Gane and Statham join forces at the very least.
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Before competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 2019, Gane trained as a Muay Thai fighter and won his first bout in 2016 in a second-round knockout. For anyone to dethrone Statham as the definitiveone-man-action-movie-army, it would require someone with the requisite fighting record and physical command as Gane. Of course, he’ll need to hone his acting chops more to craft a more complex character than Bastien inK.O., but the potential is there.
Perhaps talk of a Jason Statham retirement or torch-passing ceremony is premature. In any event,for those who enjoy watching Statham savagely waylay hordes of enemies at once, doing so with little more than his bare-knuckle brawling,K.O.is the place to be. At 86 fast-paced minutes, the ruthless fisticuffs come fast and furious, deliver one knockout blow after another, and may have introduced the next best action star.K.O.is available to stream onNetflix.
