CAIRO: A Saudi-backed, big-budget action film shot largely in Riyadh, “7 Dogs” is positioning itself as one of the most ambitious productions to emerge from the region.
Set for release on May 27, with a red carpet premiere in Cairo on May 22, the film brings together a major Arab ensemble featuring Ahmed Ezz and Karim Abdel Aziz in the lead, with an international cast including US actor Giancarlo Esposito and German-Indonesian star Max Huang.
Directed by Moroccan-Belgian duo Adil El-Arbi and Bilall Fallah, best known for “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the project marks a significant collaboration between Saudi production ambitions and global action cinema.
In an interview with Arab News in Cairo, Esposito described the experience of filming in Saudi Arabia as rewarding.
“I had a wonderful experience on this film,” he said. “I was very excited to shoot in a foreign country, especially in an Arab country, Saudi Arabia. I was also very excited to be with Bilall and Adil, these wonderful directors from Belgium who took this opportunity to make such an interesting international movie produced in Saudi Arabia.”
Max Huang echoed the sentiment, describing his involvement in “7 Dogs” as a career milestone shaped as much by its creative leadership as its setting.
“To me, it was a dream come true,” Huang said. “I’ve been a fan of Adil and Bilall, saw ‘Bad Boys 4,’ saw their work, love how they finding their own language within the action space, how they move the camera, how they tell a story.”
For Huang, the appeal of “7 Dogs: lay in its kinetic visual style — a signature of the directing duo — and its fusion of genres that blend action, comedy and high-stakes drama. The film’s ambition, he added, was evident from the outset, particularly in how it sought to reinterpret familiar action frameworks through a distinctly regional lens.
That ambition is no accident. At its core, “7 Dogs” is a Saudi-led production designed to operate on an international scale, with a creative vision that aims to bridge East and West through genre filmmaking. Much of the film was shot in Riyadh, underscoring the Kingdom’s rapidly expanding role as a destination for large-scale global productions.
For directors El-Arbi and Fallah, the project began with an unexpected conversation that quickly evolved into a cinematic proposition unlike anything they had encountered before.
“We were in Saudi Arabia for the premiere of ‘Bad Boys’ and that’s when His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh came to us to pitch the story of ‘7 Dogs,’” said Fallah, referring to the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority. “He wanted to make this ‘Bad Boys,’ ‘John Wick’ kind of action movie, but in Arabic. That was so cool to see him so excited about doing this kind of Arabic movie that’s international, with a Hollywood flavour. That really got us excited to make it.”
The directors described the project as a hybrid action-comedy rooted in familiar global genres but reimagined for a new cultural context. Drawing comparisons to ‘Bad Boys,’ ‘John Wick’ and ‘Mission: Impossible,’ they said that the goal was to build something recognizable yet distinct — an Arabic-language action film with global reach.
But beyond genre references, it was the casting and creative environment that cemented their commitment to the project. Working with some of the Arab world’s most established film stars added another layer of significance for the directors.
“The fact that we could work with Ahmed Ezz and Karim Abdel Aziz, that was a big honor,” said El-Arbi. “They’re like the George Clooney, the Brad Pitt of the Arab world. It was something that was in our DNA to make.”
The comparison reflects the film’s wider ambition; to position Arab cinema within the same global conversation as Hollywood, while building a distinct identity rooted in regional talent and storytelling traditions.
As Esposito put it, the film was not just another production, but something that felt distinctly different in tone and ambition. “It’s the most exciting thing about making film, even in the United States. To be a part of an international film allows many different cultures to express themselves through one voice of the movie, the story of the movie.
“I always love working with actors who are from different countries because I hear different stories, not only about filmmaking but about their lives.
“I think film is a mirror and can be a strong mirror for all of us around the world that gives us insight into how other people live and the challenges they face. And so through a story like this with an international cast, it’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s comedic, it’s dramatic.
“But to work with two actors who are very, very expressive and very well-known in Egypt is to take in their nuance and their excitement and their, you know, energy surrounding film in their language.
So, it has the opportunity to bring the whole world together in one movie and I think ‘7 Dogs’ is a great representation of that.”
For its directors, however, “7 Dogs” represents something even larger; a fusion of cultures, genres and industries brought together under a Saudi-led vision for global cinema.
“We had to be smart and very creative. And that was what was so cool that we had our crew, production designer, but also the Saudi crew that could help us out in creating all these different countries in one city, in Riyadh," said El-Arbi.
“And that’s like the old-school Hollywood, like back in the days in LA, they would create all these different worlds but in one city. Well, that’s the same way that we did that in Riyadh, it’s really that old-school filmmaking.”
