🎙️ Opening
🤔 When you think of action movies, what comes to mind?
🥋 Maybe kung fu from Hong Kong.
💥 Hollywood blockbusters packed with explosions.
🇯🇵 Or Japan’s long tradition of martial arts cinema.
🌏 But Southeast Asia has its own action language too.
🇮🇩 From Indonesia’s pencak silat...
🇹🇭 To Thailand’s Muay Thai.
🎬 And some of the region’s biggest action stars have taken those fighting traditions all the way to global cinema.
🤔 So, who are the Southeast Asian action stars who have made the biggest impact internationally?
🎧 Let’s take a quick tour around the region.
👋 Hello and welcome to The Southeast Asia Desk Weekly Dispatch Podcast. I’m Akasha Viandri.
🧭 This is where we slow down the headlines and make sense of the stories shaping Southeast Asia.
🇮🇩 Iko Uwais: Indonesia’s Silat Specialist
🥋 Let’s start with Indonesia’s Iko Uwais.
🎬 Before Hollywood knew his name, Iko was already making waves with Merantau and, of course, The Raid.
💥 And what made him stand out wasn’t just that he could fight.
🇮🇩 It was pencak silat.
🥋 Iko trained in the Indonesian martial art and helped translate its movements into something that worked for the big screen — fast, close-range, and brutally physical.
🌿 Pencak Silat involves punches, kicks, joint kicks, sweeps, throws and weapon techniques, but its movements can also be highly fluid and deceptive — using changes in rhythm, angles, and footwork to outmaneuver an opponent.
🎥 His international breakthrough came with The Raid, which turned him into one of the most recognizable faces of modern Indonesian action cinema.
🌎 From there, he moved into international productions including Mile 22, Stuber, Wu Assassins, and Expend4bles.
🤔 But what’s interesting about Iko’s career now is that he’s no longer simply the Indonesian guy hired to make an action scene look authentic.
🎬 He’s increasingly involved in shaping the action itself.
🏆 And that’s actually reflected in one of his latest milestones.
🇨🇳 At this year’s Jackie Chan International Action Film Week in Harbin, Iko wasn’t there simply as a celebrity guest.
👀 He was one of the judges.
🇮🇩 Yayan Ruhian: The Face Behind the Fights
🥋 And if we’re talking about the people who helped put Indonesian silat on the global map, we also can’t skip Yayan Ruhian.
🎬 Best known for The Raid films, Yayan has taken his silat expertise into international productions including Star Wars: The Force Awakens and John Wick: Chapter 3.
💥 He may not have the same Hollywood profile as Iko.
🇮🇩 But his influence on the physical language of Indonesian action cinema is hard to ignore.
🇹🇭 Tony Jaa: Thailand’s Muay Thai Powerhouse
🥊 If Iko and Yayan brought silat to the international action scene, Tony Jaa did something similar for Thailand’s Muay Thai.
🎬 Jaa became internationally known through Ong-Bak, where his physicality was almost the entire spectacle.
🥋 He trained in Muay Thai from a young age and later worked as a stuntman before becoming an action star.
💥 And his fighting style wasn’t just about throwing punches.
🥊 It incorporated Muay Thai, Muay Boran, acrobatics, and highly physical stunt work.
🇹🇭 Muay Thai itself is often called the “Art of Eight Limbs,” as it uses fists, elbows, knees, and shins as striking weapons
🥊 And unlike many martial arts that focus heavily on punches and kicks, Muay Thai is also known for close-range fighting, clinching, and controlling an opponent before striking.
🎥 That helped make Ong-Bak feel very different from the Hollywood action movies audiences were used to.
🌎 Eventually, Jaa crossed over into major international franchises, appearing in Furious 7, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, Monster Hunter, and Expend4bles.
🏆 And just like Iko, his position has evolved.
🇨🇳 At that same Jackie Chan International Action Film Week, he wasn’t just representing Thai action cinema.
👀 He was helping decide which action talent deserved recognition next.
🇲🇾 Michelle Yeoh: The Pioneer
🌟 Of course, any conversation about Southeast Asian action stars going global would be incomplete without Malaysia’s Michelle Yeoh.
🥋 She built her reputation through Hong Kong action cinema before crossing into Hollywood with films like Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
🎬 Later, she appeared in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress.
👏 She’s not part of this new wave in exactly the same way as Iko and Jaa.
🌏 But she’s one of the pioneers who proved a Southeast Asian action star could become a truly global leading figure.
💃 With her background in ballet and years of performing highly physical Hong Kong action choreography, Yeoh became known for combining agility, movement, martial-arts techniques, weapon work, and stunt performance on screen.
🌏 From Fighting Talent to Shot-Callers
🤔 Put all these names together, and there’s a bigger story here.
📖 For a long time, Southeast Asian action stars who entered international cinema were often treated as talent for hire.
🥋 They brought the fighting skills.
💪 They brought the physicality.
🎬 But the biggest productions were usually somewhere else.
🔄 Now, that relationship seems to be changing.
🏆 Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa are sitting on international action-film juries.
🥋 And Southeast Asian martial arts are not simply being used as visual decoration.
🌏 Silat and Muay Thai are becoming part of the global vocabulary of action cinema.
🏗️ Even the region’s film industries are starting to move beyond simply exporting actors.
🇮🇩 Indonesia is increasingly positioning itself as a production base, while Malaysia is building more international co-productions and action projects.
🎙️ Closing
🤔 So maybe the bigger story isn’t simply that Southeast Asian actors have finally made it to Hollywood.
🌏 It’s that Southeast Asia is beginning to have a say in what global action cinema actually looks like.
🥋 Because these stars aren’t just bringing their faces to international screens.
🇮🇩 They’re bringing Pencak Silat.
🇹🇭 They’re bringing Muay Thai.
🎬 They’re bringing their own ways of understanding movement, choreography, and storytelling.
👏 And perhaps most importantly, they’re showing that Southeast Asia doesn’t have to be just a source of talent for global cinema.
🎥 The region can be a place where action movies are made, shaped, and even judged.
💥 So if the first generation fought its way into Hollywood...
🌏 Maybe the next generation will be the one calling the shots.
🎙️ I’m Akasha Viandri, and this has been The Southeast Asia Desk Weekly Dispatch Podcast, where we slow down the noise and follow the region’s compass.
📬 If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter at thesoutheastasiadesk.com, and join us again next weekend for stories to linger over, one weekend at a time.
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