The Transporter

Corey Yuen’s 2002 film follows Frank Martin, a former soldier who breaks his rule about never opening the package exactly once. There are two answers to who directed it. The American print credits Corey Yuen as director and Louis Leterrier as artistic director; the European print swaps them, making Leterrier director and Yuen action director. Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen wrote it, Besson produced, and the project was built around Jason Statham from 2001. At the centre is not a plot but one sequence: the bus depot fight. It runs about eight minutes in three stages: the shipping containers, the buses, and finally a floor of spilled oil, where Frank straps bicycle pedals to his shoes to stay upright. Statham did most of his own physical work and driving, which is why the camera can stay on him. Shooting was in the south of France: Nice, Cassis, Saint-Tropez, Marseille, Cannes. The French EuropaCorp production went out worldwide through 20th Century Fox and carries a PG-13 in the United States. It took 25.3 million dollars domestically, 43.9 million worldwide. A good fit if you came for a fight that takes its rules from the room, so an oil slick is a choreography idea rather than an obstacle. Not for a viewer expecting the human trafficking thread to be taken seriously.