A British RAF Wing Commander James Wright is captured by the Japanese during WWII and forced to fight in brutal hand to hand combat. The Japanese soldiers get more than they bargained for when Wright's years of martial arts training in Hong Kong prove him to be a formidable opponent.
- nmowbraySeptember 20, 2025Scott Adkins is my favorite action star right now and has been for a long time. If you like the old pow movies like missing in action this is a movie for you. The fight scenes are awesome and the pace is great! If you are looking for a fun turn your brain off martial arts movie I would highly recommend giving this a watch
- Patrick WaiMay 14, 2026his is what happens when Scott Adkins tries to bolt a tournament fighter onto a World War II POW movie: half The Great Escape, half Bloodsport, with a little Hogan’s Heroes energy if everyone had been punched in the face first. The setup is honestly pretty fun, with prisoners scheming to escape while Adkins gets dragged into brutal death matches for the entertainment of his captors. But the movie keeps tripping over its own boots. The acting is rough, the Japanese dialogue often sounds off, the CGI and green-screen work look bargain-bin cheap, and the direction/editing feel weirdly rushed, like nobody had time for one more pass. Adkins still looks great and does what he always does, which is play the nearly indestructible badass with total conviction, but outside the fights the whole thing is pretty straightforward and predictable. I stayed engaged because I wanted to see how the parallel stories would end, not because the movie was especially good. In the end, it is a watchable low-budget war-action mashup with some decent hooks, but also a lot of visual sloppiness and just enough bad acting to make you wish the prison camp had better casting standards.
- jackmeatSeptember 22, 2025My quick rating - 6.3/10. Prisoner of War feels like a movie that time-traveled straight out of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 90s heyday with sweaty martial arts battles, one primary location, and a determined underdog fighter who refuses to stay down. Only this time it’s Scott Adkins running the show. He doesn’t just star; he also wrote and produced the film, clearly making this a passion project. The result? A brutal and entertaining martial arts war drama that plays to his strengths while occasionally showing its limitations. The premise is straightforward: British RAF Wing Commander James Wright (Adkins) is captured by the Japanese during WWII and forced into violent hand-to-hand combat. His martial arts background—explained through years of training in Hong Kong—makes him both a target and a star attraction for the camp’s cruel general, played with chilling control by Peter Shinkoda. We have to take that with a grain of salt since, at that time, it was forbidden for Asian senseis to teach their respective martial arts to Westerners. The prison camp setting works in the film’s favor. It’s cost-effective, sure, but it also creates a tense and claustrophobic backdrop where each fight feels like it could be Wright’s last. And let’s be clear, the fights deliver. Adkins opens the film with an adrenaline-pumping martial arts scene, and they keep coming. The choreography is crisp, grounded, and shot in a way that respects both the performers and the audience. None of that shaky-cam nonsense, just well-executed brawls that showcase Adkins at the top of his game. The film wisely avoids the video game progression trope (one boss fighter after another, each bigger and badder). Instead, when one soldier fails, the general throws three more at him, or simply beats him first. It feels more authentic to what might actually happen in a POW camp, though admittedly, it’s less flashy than the cinematic escalation I’ve been conditioned to expect. Where the film stumbles is in its supporting characters. The other POWs are fine in their roles, but there’s little emotional investment in them. When the story shifts toward escape, it’s hard to care much about who makes it out alive aside from Adkins himself. That lack of attachment dulls the impact of what should have been a tense and emotional sequence. Still, this is very much a Scott Adkins showcase, and on that front, it succeeds. He gets to flex both his martial arts and his dramatic chops, while Shinkoda gives him a formidable screen partner to play off. And while I can’t spoil anything, I will say this: the ending had me wondering one very practical thing—how exactly do they land that thing? Prisoner of War surely does not reinvent the genre, but it blends martial arts action with wartime drama in a way that feels both nostalgic and fresh. If you’re part of the Adkins faithful, you’ll get exactly what you came for.
- basselgiaDecember 16, 2025Scott Adkins does a great job making this film entertaining with his classic martial arts skills. Thank goodness for this, because the rest of the film really made no sense. The storyline fell flat and was, in my opinion, a B rated film. It is a movie that will entertain, but will not make you go WOW. It is easily forgettable.
- TV+October 19, 2025A martial arts film set in WWII prisoner of war camp. Overall a good film, would like to have seen some more fighting. Some of the other POWs had no back story, really focused on Scott's character and became repetitive. However I used to enjoy watching films about WWII and other films in that genre. As with many films these days not worth buying full price especially if digital, you would have picked this up in a bundle of rentals at Blockbuster video for a weekend or a basket bin in a motorway service station for £2 quid. With a watch when it's free.
- ርልዪረSeptember 20, 2025Well, with "Prisoner of War" being a Scott Adkins movie, I really needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it. Sure, I had never even heard about the movie, but I figured that if Scott Adkins does what he usually does, then the movie would be fine. Writers Scott Adkins and Marc Clebanoff put together a pretty straightforward script and storyline. A bit on the simplistic side, but it was still an enjoyable and entertaining movie. Of the entire cast ensemble, I was actually only familiar with leading actor Scott Adkins. I do enjoy watching new and unfamiliar talents on the screen, so it was not a bad thing. The acting performances in the movie were good. I was especially impressed with the performances of Peter Shinkoda (playing Lt. Col. Ito), because he really stood out in the movie with his performance as the brutal leader of the P. O. W. Camp.
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Prisoner of War was released on September 19, 2025.
Prisoner of War was directed by Louis Mandylor.
Prisoner of War has a runtime of 1h 52m.
Prisoner of War was produced by Brandon Menchen, Marc Clebanoff, Scott Adkins, Michael Copon, Louis Mandylor.
A British RAF Wing Commander James Wright is captured by the Japanese during WWII and forced to fight in brutal hand to hand combat. The Japanese soldiers get more than they bargained for when Wright's years of martial arts training in Hong Kong prove him to be a formidable opponent.
The key characters in Prisoner of War are Wing Commander James Wright (Scott Adkins), Lt. Col. Benjiro Ito (Peter Shinkoda), Sgt. Gabriel Villanueva (Michael Copon).
Prisoner of War is rated Not Rated.
Prisoner of War is an Action, Thriller, War film.
Prisoner of War has an audience rating of 6 out of 10.
Prisoner of War had a budget of $2M.
Prisoner of War has made $94.7M at the box office.