The Ending Of Hidden Strike Explained

Released in July 2023, the Netflix original action-comedy "Hidden Strike" was actually filmed way back in 2018 but sat on a shelf for years. It's a wonder why it took so long to release, though, because it stars two of Hollywood's most beloved action stars: John Cena ("The Suicide Squad") and the legendary Jackie Chan ("Rumble in the Bronx"). A no-holds-barred action extravaganza, "Hidden Strike" is an East-meets-West buddy comedy that pits two rival mercenaries against each other in the Iraqi desert before they're forced to reluctantly work together when a bigger threat emerges.

From start to finish, "Hidden Strike" is a nonstop torrent of guns-blazing shootouts and relentless fight scenes, all wrapped up in a series of chases involving cars, trucks, dune buggies, and even a caravan of heavily armed buses. A mix of "Mad Max," "John Wick," and "Fast and the Furious," the film may have taken a while to get to the screen, but now that it has, it's been gaining fans faster than a Jackie Chan flying kick. 

But "Hidden Strike" isn't as straightforward of an action movie as one might expect, with a series of complicated plot twists and stunning reveals that need to be unraveled. If you didn't catch everything the first time, through — too distracted by all that impressive action — don't worry, because we've done the work and are here to explain the ending of "Hidden Strike."

Opening in the skies above Iraq, "Hidden Strike" begins with news reports of besieged workers at an oil refinery in the Middle East. Manning one of the most valuable oil sites in the region, they've come under attack from rebel forces in what they describe as the "oil wars." With just days left before they are overrun, the workers find rescue when a group of volunteer Chinese mercenaries agrees to retrieve them and escort them to the safety of the Green Zone. It will require them to traverse the notorious Highway of Death, a stretch of road that will put them in the line of fire of enemy forces.

The team of mercenaries is led by a man called "Dragon" Luo Feng (Chan), who is more than just an elite soldier — he's also the estranged father of one of the refinery's engineers, Mei (Chunrui Ma). At the same time, though, American merc Chris Van Horne (Cena) is recruited by his brother Henry (Amadeus Serafini) for a mission to stop the caravan of oil workers, told that among their ranks is a deadly arch-criminal responsible for the death of their comrades in a previous, unseen mission.

When the two teams of mercs collide, over 500 oil workers and their families are caught in the crossfire. Though they are at first mortal enemies, Dragon and Chris realize that they may actually have a common enemy, and they reluctantly team up to stop him and save the innocent lives caught in the crossfire.

Early on in "Hidden Strike" we know that something is amiss about the real plot against the oil refinery workers. Because when Chris' team of soldiers captures their target, snatched from under the nose of Dragon's squad, she doesn't appear to be any kind of diabolical criminal mastermind at all. Her name is Professor Cheng (Wenli Jiang) and she's the one person who has all the codes and information required to run the refinery. It's not long before we learn the truth: Chris' friend and benefactor, Owen Paddock (Pilou Asbæk), is the real evil mastermind of the plot, and he isn't looking to stop a dangerous criminal at all.

The truth is that Owen is actually the brains behind a daring oil heist. He's managed to dupe Chris into helping him kidnap Cheng in order to pump millions of barrels of Iraqi oil out of the refinery, which he plans to make off with in an offshore oil tanker. But after Chris opts out of the rest of his nefarious scheme, Owen kills Chris' brother and tries to frame Dragon and his men.

It's not enough to convince Chris, though, even if it does momentarily lead to a fight between two of the world's biggest action stars, as John Cena and Jackie Chan duke it out in one of the movie's most thrilling fight scenes. But Chris and Dragon must now rescue Professor Cheng and take on Owen and his soldiers if they're going to stop the biggest oil heist in history.

Once Dragon and Chris have come to accept that they're on the side, they decide to work together. Chris wants revenge on Owen for murdering his brother, while Dragon must rescue Professor Cheng and the oil workers, and they both want to stop the oil heist. But Owen is already barricaded inside the refinery and has begun pumping the oil he needs. After using a massive truck as a battering ram, Chris and Dragon fight past Owen's men — with Dragon careful not to use any guns due to the precarious chemicals all around the refinery.

But then the duo must go up against Knox (Tim Man), Owen's most vicious soldier, whose tattooed face belies a ruthless unfeeling killer, and who is ready to kill Cheng now that she has given Owen what they need. Following a brief fight, Dragon stays behind to stop Knox while Chris — joined by Mei — must chase down Owen, who escapes the facility. Thankfully, Dragon defeats Knox, rescues Chen, and later joins Chris and Mei in pursuing Owen to stop his heist once and for all.

The only way to catch up to the madman, though, is to use a giant Earth-mover retrofitted with a massive jet engine. Originally intended to create artificial sandstorms, the engine sends them hurtling across the desert. In a final showdown on a precipice, Owen is sent over the edge to his death while Dragon, Chris, and Mei barely save themselves from the plunge.

Many critics and audiences have commented that "Hidden Strike" bears many similarities to the "Fast and the Furious" movies, drawing comparisons between "Hidden Strike" and those films' over-the-top vehicle action and outsized action hero heroes. In some ways, the comparison is apt — besides the vehicular violence and brawling heroes, like the "Fast and the Furious" films, "Hidden Strike" is all about family. And more than the action and fight scenes, it's the family relationships that sit at the heart of the film.

When we first meet "Dragon" Luo Feng, he's introduced as a highly skilled mercenary who has arrived to help rescue the oil workers. But we soon learn that he's there for another reason: One of the workers who needs rescuing is his bitter daughter, Mei. She's never forgiven him for abandoning her years before — and never visiting even when her mother lay dying in a hospital bed — and she insists there is nothing he can do to make amends. She never understood the work he did serving his country, the work that kept him away from his wife and daughter.

But in rescuing the oil workers and stopping Owen from robbing an impoverished nation of its most valuable resource, she begins to see why his work was so important. In the end, father and daughter grow closer, with Mei forgiving Luo after a lifetime of resentment.

Early in "Hidden Strike" there are a few moments when we get a glimpse into Chris' haunted past, but we're never quite sure how it all fits together. Twice his brother chides him over the loss of their father — including a jab for abandoning him their pop years before — and it clearly strikes a nerve. But it's not until after Chris walks away and his brother is killed that we learn the truth about what happened to him all those years ago that tore his family apart.

In a heart-to-heart with Dragon, Chris opens up about his troubled history. Along with his brother, Chris had worked with their father as a family of private military contractors, and they were as good as anyone in the business. But when their father declined a mission on the Highway of Death, it was Chris who convinced him otherwise. And during the mission, a miscommunication from Chris got their father killed, and he's never been able to forgive himself. Ever since, Chris has called the Middle East his home, living in a small village, helping an orphanage rebuild, and protecting them from the region's dangerous forces.

When his brother is killed, though, Chris feels an even bigger burden of guilt, and it's one he's only able to let go of it after finishing his mission. Back at the orphanage, he realizes that the people there are his family and this is his home.

After Chris takes Dragon and Mei back to his orphanage to spend a night preparing for the rescue mission, he spies a torn photo of a much younger Dragon after peeking through Mei's diary. It's clear that he's been torn out of a family portrait, and this is an emotional moment for the elite fighter Dragon. He tells Chris his own sad story, but audiences may be wondering just what that photo was about. It resurfaces later, and this time there's more to the photo, and it now shows "Dragon" Luo Feng, his wife, and Mei as a child. But how did it get there?

Mei, as we learned, is still bitter at her father for abandoning her and her mother years before, but that doesn't mean there isn't love for him beneath the surface. As we later find out, she kept a torn photo of her father in her diary, which Chris found when he snatched it. But when the day is won, Owen is defeated, and Dragon and Mei stand victorious, we learn that Dragon has kept the other half of the photo all these years. And once he discovered the photo in his daughter's diary, he reunited the two halves for the first time. Taped back together, the complete photograph is symbolic of the love between them that has now been restored. Looking upon the whole photo for the first time in years, Mei tearfully tells her father that she now understands why he left ... and finally forgives him.

Though it doesn't really play a large role in the film, there is a romance in "Hidden Strike" that blossoms by the end of the film. At first, it's a largely one-way affair, with Chris expressing a mostly physical attraction to Mei, whom he doesn't realize is Dragon's daughter early on. Still, there are a few moments when we do see Mei eyeing Chris from afar, and she seems won over by his childlike enthusiasm when playing with the orphans. And later, she sees his nobility in action and seems to develop some genuine affection for him.

In the film's climactic conclusion, Chris and Mei find themselves working closely together after Mei arrives at the refinery in the driver's seat of Chris' prized blue truck, which he'd nicknamed Suzie. Their chemistry is obvious when they're chasing down the escaping villain, and Chris even is uncharacteristically forgiving of Mei when she totals the vehicle. Once Owen is killed, though, and Mei, Chris, and Dragon stand triumphantly on a rockface, Chris isn't shy about expressing his desire for Mei's hand, and Mei smiles in response, seemingly happy to give it to him, suggesting a true romance could be in their future.

As for Dragon, he's rightly angered by Chris' comments about his daughter initially. But he eventually comes around by the end of the film after gaining a newfound respect for Chris. Nevertheless, he makes it clear that they're not quite family yet.

When we first meet Chris Van Horne, he's living in a remote village in the Middle East, where he watches over some orphaned children he's taken in. There, he is both a father figure and protector to the children, even playing games with them and teaching them American pastimes and schoolyard songs. But he's also a benefactor of sorts, helping his village stay afloat by using the money he earns from his mercenary missions to improve their way of life where he can. When a problem with the village's water supply surfaces, Chris suddenly finds himself in desperate need of a large sum of money to repair their well. So when he's offered a large payout by his brother for a mission for Owen, he has no choice but to begrudgingly accept the assignment.

The villains even use Chris' love of the orphans against him later in the film, threatening the community when they learn that something they need to complete their heist is hidden there. And this moment demonstrates just what this small community means to Chris because he's willing to let Owen get what he wants if it means keeping them safe. In the end, after Owen is defeated and the heist thwarted, Chris returns to the village — with Dragon and Mei in tow — and helps repair their broken well, bringing life-saving water to the arid desert community.

The final scene of "Hidden Strike" is a comic beat, with Chris, Dragon, and Mei stuck on a ledge on the side of a rockface and screaming for help, with no apparent way down. But that's not quite the end of the story. Because while the credits are scrolling past there are a few more scenes that tie up a number of loose ends, as well as a tease for a possible second installment. 

In addition to Chris' village getting its water working, we see Dragon's mercenary team storming the oil tanker and seizing the millions of barrels of oil that Owen had successfully stolen. Then, after a soaking wet Dragon and Chris emerge from the village well, the mercs arrive to give Dragon some news. They've received information on a new mission, and it seems as if Dragon won't be alone in leading it this time. Because when he hears the news alongside him, Chris turns, steely-eyed, ready to fight on another critical life-saving mission beside his new ally, "Dragon" Luo Feng.

Though there's been no official word on a sequel, it's not hard to envision the two action heroes back for a second round. After all, Netflix has had quite a solid run with action franchises of late, with Chris Hemsworth's "Extraction" and Ryan Gosling's "The Gray Man" both receiving follow-ups (the latter of which was announced in 2022).

The ending of "Hidden Strike" didn't just change the course of the story — it also changed the course of star John Cena's life. That's according to the actor himself, who spent decades in the ring as a WWE wrestler, bulking up to become a massive, mountain-sized action hero. But the fight scenes in "Hidden Strike," including the hand-to-hand melees in the film's climax, needed someone nimbler than the hulking brute he was at the time of filming. "I did a movie with Jackie Chan about three to four years ago and they could care less about how strong I was," he told GQ Magazine in 2022. "They just wanted me to kick over my head, which was impossible."

Despite being in phenomenal shape, Cena's overly muscled physique wasn't right for the kinds of moves he'd need for "Hidden Strike," and that meant an entirely new workout routine. "I went over there to train with [Chan] for about three months and they stretched me like taffy," Cena said. As he told the magazine, it was Chan who introduced him to yoga, which proved eye-opening for the action star. "I immediately lost 20 pounds, which was very difficult for me. I even fell into a weird depression because it was like 'I'm losing everything that I worked on for 30 years!'" The actor said he noticed changes the more he did yoga, and not just with his loss of body mass: He said he began to have less pain and more flexibility. "That experience changed my life in many ways, and it taught me the value of making sure your body moves [okay]," he said.

While all of the major plot points in "Hidden Strike" are wrapped up fairly neatly by the time the credits roll, there are still a number of questions left lingering. The biggest question left unanswered concerns the other oil workers ferried down the Highway of Death. Though there is a throwaway scene that explains that they've made it to the safety of the Green Zone, we are never told what will happen to them from there. Will they be taken home, or will they ever return to the refinery to continue their work now that Owen and his mercenaries have been eliminated?

Of course, the real head-scratcher for audiences will probably be the fate of Dragon, Chris, and Mei. Sure, we know they make it off the ledge, but it's never said how. We can probably guess that it was Dragon's team, who must have followed the trail left by their chase through the desert, but as it stands, it's never explained or resolved on-screen.

As for Dragon himself, there are still some unanswered questions about his past. It's hinted that the reason he abandoned his wife and daughter was due to his duty to his country. But it would seem that at some point he became a private contractor, so why didn't he ever attempt to reconnect with his daughter? Likewise, what mission could have been so important to keep him away from his dying wife? These are questions that could wind up being answered should we ever get a "Hidden Strike 2."