Director : Prachya Pinkaew
Cast : Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Pumwaree Yodkamol, Suchao Pongwilai, Wannakit Sirioput and Chumphorn Tepphithak

Synopsis
Booting lives in a small and peaceful village. One day a sacred Buddha statuette called Ong Bak is stolen from the village by a immoral businessman who sells it for exorbitant profits. It soon becomes the task of a young man, Ting to track the thief down to Bangkok voluntarily and reclaim the religious treasure.

Review
by Edward Tang

Tony Jaa. He’s a guy who has already reached acclaim with his first film, just like Bruce Lee did, what 35 years ago? Jaa’s skills outweighs his charisma as he is presented in his first feature film, Ong-Bak. It’s hard to live up to the hype this film has on it’s back, but it delivers every single moment of such. From the moment I saw Tony Jaa fight, I was awe struck on how well done these fights were, especially considering the idea of good action films hadn’t hit me in the land of Thailand. But what story was there is this film?

Take any crappy action film and you probably can find the story they were trying to tell. Another question goes to the casting director, where did you find these assholes? Besides Jaa and Wongkamlao (whom was good), the cast of flunkies truly pissed me off, from the overacting to the guy with the voicebox who annoyed the shit out of me. If you can ignore the acting/story (which I did), you’ll have one good time, the action is literally awesome and gives you more than you deserve. That’s all I ask from any action film, throw loads of action on the screen and it’ll make us forget the other aspects entirely.

Ting (Jaa) is sent to rescue the Ong-Bak’s head (a statue) after it is stolen by a guy named Don and a few of his goons. His mission is to retrieve the head and find one of the villager’s sons named Humlae (Petchtai Wongkamlao). Jaa gets to Bangkok and meets up with George and his girl pal Muay (Pumwaree Yodkamol). George turns out to be Humlae, who has changed his name and become a loser basically. So make a long story short, Humlae steals Ting’s money and takes it to the boxing arena. Ting goes to retrieve it and gets involved with a fight and wins easily. He gets into a fist fight with a gang that was pestering Muay and Humlae so he retaliates for them and f*cks up. Getting chased by idiots and being pestered by Humlae to fight for money, Ting’s returns to the arena looking for Don. He fights again and defeats all the opponents again, to the disinterest of a mob boss who bet 3 million on the fight. Okay, do you really care anymore? The rest of the film consists of Ting pissing off the boss again and the boss fuckin’ Ting over with promises of the Ong-Bak if he throws a fight. Then Ting gets pissed and takes out the entire gang and the mob boss gets taken out by a big Ong-Bak head. There you go.

For the former Mortal Kombat stunt man, this is a great start especially if you want to put yourself into the annals of martial art film history. Can you remember Jackie Chan’s first film? I can’t either, and it probably sucked. Bruce’s first STARRING role was Big Boss and it was the worst of his short 4 film career. So with Ong-Bak, Jaa is off to a good start in conquering this genre with his kickass moves. I know I bitched about the story and acting, but if you think about it there really isn’t a point to. This film is made for action and to introduce us to the NEW king of kickassery. Every single scene that showcases his amazing fight skill or cat-like acrobatics shows that this guy isn’t f*ckin’ around. He CARRIES this film and that’s pretty hard to do with little experience. Okay, he’s not the most charismatic guy to walk the circle but he’s got more skill than the load of ‘em. So if I continue to bitch about the story, just ignore it because I’m marking out like the first time I saw Drunken Master II, heart-pounding and thirsty for some more.

But it’s true (Sigh), the story basically was just another rehash of the same thing. Lone hero leaves village to retrieve stolen good. There you go, that could literally be the synopsis but I’m trying to give a fair share amount of the story to the 5 people who are interested. I’m just floored by how lame the story was, and the beginning scenes were pretty boring because the acting was lame. Yeah, once again the acting seemed forced from many character of the supporting class. From that old lady in the town who literally looked like she was threatened with harm if she didn’t give her lines the good ol’ overacting charm to the girl named Muay (If you aren’t annoyed by her voice, you’re deaf) and finally with the voicebox villain who truly made me laugh every single time he spoke. (When he spoke without the box at the end, was that a mistake or what?) The musical score was damn good, especially from the lack of good tunes from the Thai flicks I’ve seen (All three of them). Maybe the techno/rap genre might catch on one day.

But in life, I’ll admit when people should shut up and I will join them. The story and acting are not the point of this film, when have they ever been in a film of this quality? No, the SUPERB action direction and SUPERB fight scenes are truly ones that will be remembered through action geeks alike from the casual fan. It’s hard to forget a film that delivers on all accounts, especially when billed highly as such. Hell even the stunts were truly awesome, maybe not as cool as hanging from a helicopter but close. Jaa is a quick guy and moves like the wind as shown in one of my favorite scenes. As he’s getting chased down an alley he utilizes his skills and dodges, misses and flips over anything in his way. It impressed me and got my eyes hooked onto the screen looking for some more action. Hell, I was even laughing when Wongkamlao was attempting to do what Jaa was and would fail miserably. Alone, the stunts are worth noting but they really don’t have anything on the fight scenes.

I don’t really know much about Muay Thai aside from watching it in action in the very unappreciated flick “Beautiful Boxer” but I’m starting to become interested. Jaa is the martial arts coordinator on this film, I believe, and he does one hell of a job. The fights are brutal, from elbows to the back of the head and sharp kicks that look fuckin’ harsh (notice in a few scenes some of the pads the fighters were wearing), these fights are true to the word. There’s a great sequence in which showcases Jaa taking on three consecutive opponents, all whom have different styles. The first guy is an idiot brute, whom Jaa takes down with a flurry of punches and kicks. The second guy is skilled in an actual martial art as Jaa struggles a bit but still wins. The final guy is a cheap shot bastard who basically hits Jaa with anything he can get his hands on. This scene alone made the film worth seeing for me. From fight to fight, they all stand out as being good. The final sequence in which Jaa takes on the mob boss and company gives us some awesome deaths and worthy fighting. I might be the only one but seeing Jaa throw that elbow into the back of someones head made me cringe. Even the one car chase is up to snuff and only approves the rest of the film.

I hope to see the same from Jaa’s next films because I’m now counting the days for when Tom Yum Goong is available over here and when his new film The Sword debuts in 2006. You can ignore the story and the acting because it isn’t important. You know what you are going to get if you watch this film, and don’t bitch if it isn’t there in the end because that’s not why this film is in existence. We are only given these type of gifts every once in a while. We had Bruce Lee, then Jackie Chan, the Jet Li, it’s Tony Jaa’s time to take the title of the supreme asskicker. Ong-Bak is a great action film and doesn’t fail to deliver the goods.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 2/5
Entertainment : 5/5
Overall : 4/5

Notable Scenes
- The shitload of fight scenes
- Ting/Muay/Humlae getting chased by the goons
- The Taxi car chase.

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Ong Bak

Director : Tanit Jitnukul
Cast :  Voravit Kawepand, Jaran Ngamdee and Sririwat Chevasud

Synopsis
Sema, the son of a swordsmith, has just come back home from a sword fighting training institute. With his strong sword skills, he’s made a sword trainer in the household of Khun Ram. There, he met beautiful Rerai, daughter of Khun Ram and they felt for each other. Unfortunately, she’s already been engaged to Moo Khan against her own will. However, Sema and his company are mistakenly recognized as rebels and they had to flee a guerrilla band. Then he heard that Burmese had been rallying a large war, he rushed to the war scene and he couldn’t stand the sight of Thai soldiers being slaughtered. He then chopped off the head of Burmese General. Sema finally gained back his reputation, but he still had to fight for his own love.

Review
by Edward Tang

“Sema” is one of those films you pick up because of the box art. Noting that it reads on the cover “An epic action adventure from Thailand”, I was intrigued for sure. Then obviously recalling that I just had seen Ong-Bak a week earlier, I was eager to check this bad boy out. What Sema delivers is more or less a watered down epic that doesn’t deliver in the action department. Everything is just very basic, down to the story and the acting. See dumb kid, he wants to be a soldier, he becomes a soldier, he has a boner for the hot chick, they become friends, mean bastard army dude gets angry because he has a boner as well, and then from there things are sketchy. Basically the editing was so bad, I didn’t know what the f*ck was happening most of the time, but I still felt that they would deliver on the action side. I’m afraid it didn’t hit up once.

Sema is too corny to be taken seriously, there’s even a seen that involves an idiot attacked by a snake. These guys save his life, and then for some reason in a later scene, the guy hits him in the head with his hammer. Then the speed is shot up, and basically looks like an old movie in color. The acting is all very basic, but I must say that one actor in general saved this film from being a total waste. I don’t know his name, but he was pretty damn funny in a few scenes. The main character, or the role of “Sema”, the guy was a basic flake. He was there, and could have been replaced by anybody. The eye candy of the film didn’t even get into a bikini or anything! I mean, Jesus, take some advice from bad movies, and at least have some qualities that are worth waiting for.

The editing is horrible when we get into the second half of the film. Who was on who’s side and what was exactly happening was thrown to the wolves. Sema was fighting against this guy for the entire film, rivals so to speak, and what the fuck, they’re on the same side? There was some sort of confrontation at the beginning of the film, that totally got lost in whatever it was trying to prove. Basically a guy dressed up as the enemy and got into enemy lines and killed some guy who didn’t really have anything to do with the now current plot, but was just there. Very cool, and very unnecessary. But the only thing that I truly hated is that it this film was trying to be a worthy epic with a love story and good battle scenes. But to make such, you actually need to have a good love story and scenes that can be considered a battle.

Being this “Action Adventure from Thailand”, I wanted to see some friggin’ action! I don’t even care, something that resembled as such. What I got was a bunch of worthless jumping around, trying to look cool with two swords and unoriginal bits of nothing. The scene that should have made me change my mind was the final fight between Khan and Sema. Maybe this could be something that changes my mind, and made this at least worth seeing. Boy was I wrong, because what I saw was just a quick fight, with Sema getting the girl and becoming the victor. I didn’t see that one coming, I mean God forbid, the f*ckin’ film is named after the actor who doesn’t have enough charisma to keep this picture afloat. But honestly, couldn’t they just go and watch some battle scenes and make something that was actually worth the three bucks I shelled out?

Thailand has some promise as far as action flicks go, after watching Ong-Bak and even the under-achieving Born to Fight, I see that maybe they could produce some goods in the future. But if they go in the way that Sema traveled, I could see them falling into an early grave. This film has no unique qualities, barely adequate acting, a beat-to-death story, and most of all pointless fighting scenes that can’t quench my thirst for some kick ass action. It’s a waste and you can definitely do better.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 2/5
Entertainment : 2/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- N/A

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Sema The Warrior of Ayodhaya

Director : Smith Timsawat
Cast : Prinya Itachai, Matinee Kingpoyom, Erik Markus Schuetz and Pete Tongchua.

Synopsis
A recently immigrated Thai family struggles to survive in Los Angeles’ fast-paced consumerist culture, while still maintaining traditional values. The identity struggle affects Pat, a good boy tempted by a life of crime, and his sister.

Review
by Edward Tang

Well, I truly don’t know where to begin. Province 77 is billed as another version of real GANGSTA life in the likes of Better Luck Tomorrow and Boyz n the Hood. So in other words, sorry to those films for getting an unlucky comparison to a lousy film. Well I was going to try and not insult the film up front, but frankly it stinks of cliched moments and annoying characters that got older as the film went along. Granted, this film is based upon how a Thai family struggles to survive in their new environment but why is that interesting?

We all know that it’s hard for an immigrant to get along in his/her new environment..so what’s the point of this in the long run? Tai Seng does a lousy job (once again…) at selling this DVD as they use these horrible tag lines such as “An honest, realistic portrayal of gangsters”, bullshit. Then they go onto say something like “Exciting drag races, Raw Street Dialog and explosive gunfire action.” WHOA WHOA WHOA! Where did we get this load of bullshit? Realistically, this film is long and annoying filled with the stereotyped gangster characters, lousy fist fighting scenes and a story that doesn’t move for shit. Not a gangster action-drama, a full on drama that has truly nothing going for it. Hell, if you like almost two hours of talking without nothing else that you couldn’t find in a cracker jack box, I still would find something else.

The story (or lack there of) is mostly about this family who lives in the Thai district of Los Angeles. The idiot son of the family named Pat wants to be a gangster and makey some cakey so he joins a loser gangster named Goldie (Yeah….Goldie) and they hit things off and start making some real money and Pat experiences the life of the gangster (getting high, popping his cherry…that sort of thing). So in what seems like a bad transition, we just completely fall out of notice with Pat’s story and we hit one with his family’s, as they try to survive in L.A. His father is a restaurant owner (sound familiar?) and he’s having problems with the IRS. This goes on for a little bit as we are then introduced to a weird dude named Dan. He’s a guy with a shady past and he moves in next to Pat’s family. We later learn that he was a former soldier and that his wife was killed, so he moved out to L.A to escape the hassle, I guess. So Dan gets a little bit CERRAZY with some of Goldie’s gang members and kicks the shit out of them. Of course, this guy gets everyone worried because they find out he whacked Uncle Chan (This is Pat’s uncle who also killed Dan’s wife….it worked like dogshit). Anyways, Pat is sent to kill Dan, he doesn’t and that angers Goldie who tries to kill Pat but is killed by Pat’s sister! INSANE STUFF. So we end on a message that it’s hard for people to get along with people or some shit like that.

Ah, that’s the long and boring story in one paragraph, sounds fun huh? Well honestly, the story is very similar to that of another Thai gangster film I saw in Yaowarat. Both films don’t just focus on the harsh lifestyle of the gangster but they try to have other stories that are loosely connected to the main one. In both instances, they fail badly. But what Yaowarat did was they at least gave the entertaining factor to the mix while this film flirts with being completely boring. We don’t learn about the character’s, we see an obvious fictitious lifestyle of an idiot gangster who ends up in a wheelchair at the end (Best part of the movie). The film drags for so long and never gets anywhere. That’s an understatement as the first hour or so focuses mainly on the family’s money problems….who gives a fuck? We also have to suffer from lousy shots from a director who probably was just thrilled to get a job and it didn’t help matters that he’s a fucking idiot. But the direction is a small complaint next to the lack of a good storytelling base, which makes the film fall apart into a parody if anything.

Along with the bad story is the tacky crap they added to make it seem more tough. We see a car racing angle that lasts about two minutes and was there to be there. Hell, this film got some money so they probably just went wild. Then we get a bunch of Thai people who speak decent English and they use the typical gangster dictionary with constantly saying either “Yo, Dog, or y’all.” Wait did I say y’all? That’s like what a hick would say if he was drunk as a skunk. Howdy y’all! But yeah, these terms get abused and want to make you truly want to strangle everybody around you who is also watching this shit-fest. Then towards the tacky Thai-rap crap that they pound into your ears every second with such memorable classics as “Hey, motherf*cker” and “I’m from Thailand and I’m trying to keep my heritage but not really!” Yeah there’s actually a song that only says “Hey motherf*cker”, that’s some f*cking writing! HOLY SHIT!

There are a few action scenes but they are best described as “A bunch of pushing and eventually falling”, that’s what I call shit. Maybe I’m a little harsh but I don’t think so, because I just didn’t get anything out of this flick. There’s a long story that never moves anywhere until the end where we see a bunch of amateur shots with a tacky ending that was the dumbest I’ve seen in a while. Okay, so Pat’s sister (who really doesn’t have anything to do with the movie) shoots Goldie and kills him. She goes to jail and uses the voice-over to explain how she was just watching out for her family. But you shot the guy in the head! IN THE HEAD! That’s some badass Chow-Yun Fat shit from Full Contact, not from a fifteen year old girl! Oh and to mention the acting…crap. Yeah we don’t get much in that department, most of the actors try to describe their feelings with bad expressions and fail. The dialog is bad as well “I think that Pat is bad because he hangs around with people who are bad”, with to which she responds “I agree.” Well I’m glad you do. Oh yeah, there was this white girl in the movie, she had the biggest pair of tits I’ve ever seen. Very nice stuff.

Province 77 is basically a tacky film filled with a message that we all know: It’s hard to live in a different country if you are from somewhere else. OKAY, but you could have simply taken that message and put it in the beginning and then had a ninety-minute action film filled with nudity and shootouts. But alas, you tried for the long and painful way that just doesn’t work. Avoid this if you can but if not, be ready for some stupid shit. I warned you.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 1/5
Entertainment : 2/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- N/A

Director : Namchoke Daengput
Cast : Shahkrit Yamnarm, Darawan Wilaingam, Suwannaparp, Suthida Harnwisej, Sattawat Dullayawijitt, Aadchara Luengsawat

Synopsis
In this explosive action thriller from Thailand set in Bangkok’s sizzling Yaowarat Chinatown district, the precarious truce between two mafia gangs. Yaowarat and Pahurad ended in violent gunfights when Kao, one of Pahurad’s hit man killed a Yaowarat member. In retaliation, Yaowarat enlists the help of Saleng, the best hit man in the business, to take Kao out.

Review
by Edward Tang

Hmm. Thailand gets another release via Tai Seng who usually bare bones it up for a decent film. On the cover is a guy holding two pistols ala God of Guns John Woo. I wonder if that interested me? Of course it did. “Yaowarat” tries to be a cool film and edgy, starting off with a gangster boss raping the shit out of one of his girls and follows with one boring film filled with nothing in between. There were some attempts at action, but they looked completely stupid. Take this out for example, one guy has one pistol, against four other guys with pistols. Now, how does this one guy kill two of them and still survive? The action-thriller promised in the synopsis is never really met, and what we are left with is something that resembles a gangster-drama-romance type story. So in the long run, the film isn’t that bad and for the most part I got enough out of it, but the editing and the annoying voice-overs left me wanting to go home.

The synopsis on the DVD cover is basically wrong, so I’ll try to explain it here. We are met in the beginning with Boss Tang raping his girl, who dies. This will be important later in the show. So anyways we learn that the two gangs in Yaowarat are friendly, both of them respect the hell out of each other. We learn of two men in particular, Saleng and Kao, both hitmen from different gangs. Saleng is an orphan who Boss Tang took in and kind of made as a son. Saleng has been pouring clam chowder on this hooker, which seems to have developed in some kind of relationship. Kao is a loud mouthed assassin who wins during a big night of gambling in the rival gangs casino. The next day, he comes to gamble and isn’t allowed back into the VIP room where he won previously. This angers the shit out of him and he opens fire on the other gang and kills a bunch of them. This confrontation pisses off both gangs and they eventually split in the process. So Kao lives but is not able to go back to the district in which he killed the Boss Tang gets a new girl, whom I forget but will call Crabs for the sake of this. Saleng gets a boner for Crabs and they kill the boss (The Boss walked in and saw them hugging and thought they were doing the dick disco). So as they are on the run, they hire Dao to track his ass down which eventually happens. As they meet, Dao and his boys shoots down Saleng and his eventually dies when Crabs executes both of them with one bullet. Dao then gets killed by both of the gangs, whom have came back together and wanted him not to cause any trouble. Then we end with some explanation on how hopefully peace will return to this place. Also, if anybody sees this film, tell me if the beginning credits don’t remind you of a mixture between Ichi the Killer and Bangkok Dangerous.

Whew! I’m sure you’re already tired of this film, as you will be if you actually watch this boring film. Yes, it’s truly boring, there are a few scenes in which just show people sitting there and eating. The story is very sketchy and moves in a real odd pace. This in process with the endless stream of backstories and tries to develop the character. First, we’d develop Saleng’s character a little bit, okay he’s an orphan who was raised by a garbage man. Then we’d go toward Dao’s character, okay he saved a few guys from getting the shit kicked out of them. Then two more stories on the hooker and Crabs, and by then it just gets plain old. I’d describe the film as a few stories, where they focus on one character’s journey for a bit then go onto another. The film really lacked interesting characters more than anything, they were the stereotyped ones, the quiet hitman who has a heart of gold followed by the cocky hitman who cheats and lies his way up to the top. I couldn’t get into the flow and I was bored most of this story, which is not a good thing. (Though, there was enough nudity to keep my interests peaked.) The ending kind of was trying to preach to the people “One day, will we be peaceful?” Then the narrator basically tells us that the story really didn’t matter and is forgotten, kind of like this film in the long run! The story was basically ripping off any other gangster film “If you become a gangster, you’ll die and be forgotten about!”

Being an “action” film, the action tried to be cool like John Woo’s flicks, doubled pistoled and fueled with superhero-like characters. Okay here’s the point, the main characters DID get shot in this film, countless times I might add. But one guy in particular got shot about 7-8 times and still could walk around at the end. They got shot, but still really didn’t feel it. The action scenes were sloppy as hell, a bunch of close-up fire which never really entertained and for some reason, 15 guys can’t hit four at a close range. But they weren’t that bad in all truth, there was a cool scene that involved two idiot assassins trying to kill Saleng, but he takes both of them out while still taking one in the gut. The music was crappy as hell and annoyed the living hell out of me for the entire film. Also, why do people use the voice-over technique? The old guy speaking was completely boring and while the characters on the screen were talking, his voice would cut in and describe what was going on. Like I couldn’t understand this crappy story by myself? This voice-over also disturbed the subtitles, as he would talk, they would get sped up or just not appear at all.

The actors in this film were truly boring if I had ever seen them. The main character Saleng was boring as hell. Even during the sex scenes, the guy had no personality and nothing able to get us his side. Although he sucked, Dao was funny as hell and had one of the better laughs I have heard in a while. His character was entertaining and didn’t give a fuck about anything. Then we had the two girls, both of whom were beautiful but still seemed to be sticks in the mud. Boss Tang raping in the beginning was a little harsh, but as it happened about 15 times throughout the film, it got to be almost comical. Oh yeah, if anybody knows who the narrator is, kick him in his boring ass.

So what is my final verdict on it? I didn’t hate the film and kind of enjoyed it. That kind of is based on some of the characters and moments rather than on the story itself. But this film does include one of the more painful deaths in recent memory. I’m sure it has been done before but the thought of losing my balls in that way just made me cringe. It is probably worth a rental for those out there who want to further there Thai knowledge of films, and for one view it’s worth it. Other than that, I’d avoid the rental unless you REALLY need to see shit in action.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 2/5
Entertainment : 3/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- Boss Tang’s castration and death

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Yaowarat

Director : Wisit Sasasanatieng
Cast : Stella Malucchi, Chartchai Ngamsan

Synopsis

When Dum, a young peasant boy, falls in love with Rumpoey, the daughter of a wealthy city family, they vow that, whatever happens, they will one day be together…Ten years on, Dum is the notorious gang member “Black Tiger”. When he is commanded to execute police captain Kumjorn, Kumjorn has one last request – that Dum explain to his fiancée how he died. Dum realises that Kumjorn’s fiancée is, in fact, Rumpoey and is unable to ruin what he believes is her happiness. His decision to release Kumjorn is what finally unites the childhood sweethearts.

Review
by Liz Brkljac

This film assaults the eye with stunning colour: Bright pinks, lurid greens, bold yellows, giving it a cartoon like appearance. The characters, drawn large and vibrantly alive. Brightly painted backdrops add to the bright, cartoon like appearance. Even the blood, which there is plenty of, is the reddest you will ever see. An early scene is a shootout, featuring an unlikely, but accurate, shot whose mad trajectory finally reaches its target. There is a pause and the writer asks of the audience …….“Did you catch that? If not we’ll play it again”. His message printed on the screen. It is at this point that you realise that this highly luminescent movie is not going to be your usual run of the mill experience.

What’s more it’s a hard one to pin down, while it’s biggest influence is the wildly over coloured Mediterranean sub-genre of the spaghetti western, a cut and paste of bright violent comedy with its score almost entirely lifted from old Leoni westerns, as are the costumes worn by Dum, Mehusuan and the other bandits, it also functions as a drama, an action movie and a romance. The romantic scenes are exaggeratedly melodramatic, directly in contrast to the action sequences, which are over blown, violent, epics using heavy stylisation, and the early 1970s slow – mo blasting of characters, rent by rockets, and guns, blowing out chunks of flesh and organs, blood spraying in dramatic arcs.The story is a traditional tragedy, of a Rich girl and Peasant boy falling in love across the social divide. The rich girl is Rumpoey (played by Stella Malucchi), a Governor’s daughter, who falls in love with the peasant Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), the ‘Black Tiger’ of the title. They first fall in love when they are children. When sitting together in a sala (a traditional thai shelter), Dum tells Rumpoey a tale of a poor woodcutter falling in love with a rich girl. The tale makes Rumpoey cry, and echoes the story that they seem doomed to repeat throughout the film.
An accident that causes Dum to carry the unconscious Rumpoey home to her Family, has the result that they are kept apart by their parents, until they finally meet again in Bangkok, when they are students.

Dum tries to avoid Rumpoey, but they fall in love again and agree to meet in the Sala. Tragically and predictably, all does not go to plan. Dum arrives home from Bangkok to find his family murdered by a local bandit. He joins an opposing band of outlaws run by the Dominant figure of Fai their leader and his right hand man Mehusuan, in order to revenge himself upon their killers. Because of his outlaw commitments he is kept from keeping his rendezvous with Rumpoey at the Sala. Hurt and betrayed, the jilted Rumpoey returns home to cry on the shoulder of her nurse. Finally she succumbs to Parental pressure from her family to enter into an arranged marriage, and is engaged to the new local police captain, Kumjorn. The police captain is over the moon and seems completely oblivious to Rumpoey’s distress, believing she loves him as much as he loves her. With his astonishing accuracy as a gunman, Dum becomes the new favourite to Fai, causing much jealousy on the part of Mehusuan. Dum overcomes this by saving Mehusuan’s life. What follows next is one of the oddest scenes in a very bizarre film. In order that they become blood brothers Dum and Mehusuan must drink each others blood. They do this in a Buddhist shrine, drinking and laughing loudly together.

The Policeman and Dum are then involved in an enormous shootout, involving rocket launchers, revolvers and automatic pistols, between bandits and police, which culminates in massive fatalities to both groups, and finds the Lawman Kumjorn captive. Dum is given the job of executing him, but when he pulls out a picture of Rumpoey, Dum recognises his adversary as Rumpoeys’ Fiancee, and taking pity on him, allows his escape. They are destined to meet again during the violent and melodramatic ending.

The film is visually stunning. Each scene artfully composed and coloured for maximum impact. Beautifully painted scenery behind colourfully, and sometimes ridiculously, dressed actors. The acting is skilful, especially the actor playing Mehusuan, whose fake villains’ laughter echoes throughout the film.The romantic scenes are so overplayed they have unique comedy.

Its obvious that Wisit Sasanatieng has been heavily imprinted with the Western Genre, and possibly consumed far too many Late Night Showings of the more violent and lurid late 1960s Terrence Hill Westerns before making this film, and although it shouldn’t, the very western feel lends the movie an incongruity that somehow works. It’s a western seen through a Thai distorting lens to create a truly unusual and memorable film.

Rating
Plot : 3/5
Acting : 4/5
Entertainment : 5/5
Overall : 4/5

Notable Scenes
- A bullet smashing through teeth.
- Becoming blood brothers in the Buddhist Temple.

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Tears of the Black Tiger

Director : Sananjit Bangsapan
Cast : Chatchai Plengpanit, Saranyoo Wongkrachang, Suntisuk Promsiri, Bongkot Khongmalai

Synopsis
Forsaking his idealist past, Tanthai has become the
Thai underworld’s secret weapon: a remorseless contract killer able to dispatch any target? provided his price is met. But when Beum, a Machiavellian politician, hires
Tanthai to eliminate an upstart drug kingpin threatening Bangkok’s fragile criminal status quot, the lone wolf assassin’s ethical vacuum is inadvertently breached. Caught between rival Triad bosses, mercenary policemen and power hungry parliamentarians, Thailand’s deadliest assassin becomes the country’s most wanted target. As Bangkok boils over into a full-fledged gang war, Tanthai crosses gun barrels with a rival from out of his past and risks everything to answer a conscience he thought he’d long ago erased.

Review
by Edward Tang

II think this film had the potential to be something more than what it turned out to be. It had great cinematography (Considering this is a Thai film, it’s excellent), an interesting cast of characters and some good music. But that’s really it and what truly detracts from these smaller “good” things is the story and how it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Granted, I didn’t expect a well thought out story but something that was barely adequate would have done well here. There are so many random characters and plot points that really make the film hard to understand: who is who and what their actions actually mean in the long run. Throughout the film I continuously asked my friends who this character was and what he was doing in the story, and they were as dumbfounded as me. I wanted to like this film but I was disappointed in the long run because there really isn’t anything in here that deserves a look.

We follow random territory: Hitman kills bad people, and bad people want to kill Hitman. There you go, but they didn’t want to do it that simply. In this instance they add a bunch of corrupt police officers and army generals in the mix and I never really understood what they had to do with the movie. They’d introduce characters into this film and they’d kill them off about ten minutes later. That I didn’t have a problem with, but what troubled me was the fact that I didn’t really understand what the character’s point was. That annoyed me because it didn’t allow me to enjoy the film, rather than to question every moment by moment just to get the right answer. I hate that bullshit. We start out by introducing the main character who is an assassin. Okay, I got it. He kills for a living (No Shit). Anyways this is where we loose it because they introduce this guy…and he dies..then this guy….and he dies. But to what avail? Then there were some side plots about the police officers and this old assassin guy who killed this young kid’s parents and raised the kid. By this point however, you should be sick of this crap. The story has so many random moments, it feels more like a badly edited shit stain more than anything else.

The film never really goes anywhere either, the assassin character really isn’t interesting or cool. He’s an assassin, a guy who kills for a living and that’s that. There is a lack of character development as well which eventually does lead to a downfall of the film. The assassin character Tanthai meets up with this young kid (after saving him from a beat down) and they kind of strike up a friendship. But there really isn’t anything of the sort to show that these guys are actually friends, the filmmaker decided to skip all of the character moments with more cliched moments, for instance “We must catch the assassin and kill him for wronging us!” He also tries to build some long grudge type thing that involved Tanthai and this guy who he almost killed. But guess what? They do it so badly that you don’t even realize that these two were in the same scene earlier in the film. That’s what this film is, a bunch of moments rather than a full on story. It’s bullshit.

Granted the film does win points because it has a great look to it. It shows a bunch of great spots in the city: the Muay Thai boxing arena, the gambling areas, the funeral homes, the countryside. I truly haven’t seen these shots in any other Thai film I’ve watched so it was a blessing to see one shot the way they should be. There was also a great soundtrack which fit the mood of the somber town and the somber faces. I also think they could improved on the gun battles (lacking) because that could have upped this film in my mind. There were some great scenes showing the assassin taking out his random clients and it was some great stuff. Tanthai takes out four dudes and one guy is still squirming and with a flick of the wrist, he takes out the remaining guy and just walks on. Awesome stuff. But SON OF A BITCH! They don’t expand on any of this and they would rather focus on a story that just plain sucks! What a shame, because I was truly interested in this film and it let me down in all aspects.

The acting is generic at best, there really isn’t anybody who acts themselves into my respect. For the most part, the dialog is sparse which probably results in the character’s being mostly dull which does touch the film in the wrong way. There were too many characters to count anyways and nobody did a standout job. The film ends how it begins, we stay on a corpse that has just recently been struck by bullets and now is corpsey as corpsey can be. That’s how the film ends, killing some random guy whose actual point in the film is lost in the sporadic nature of the events that we just witnessed. But not to fear, there is some Thai phrase at the end that I didn’t catch because the subtitles weren’t exactly working but I’m sure it was bullshit. I’ve noticed the same type of crap in all recent Thai films I’ve seen, some type of message that goes with 2 hours of nothing .

Hit Man File isn’t all bad but the story ruins all of the smaller goods as it sinks into your mind. It just doesn’t make a worth of sense. It’s a good looking film with some good aspects and some good stuff but I’d ignore it and check out another Thai-hitman flick like Bangkok Dangerous….

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting :  2/5
Entertainment : 3/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- Tanthai saving the young kid and kills the four losers.

Director : Panna Rittikrai
Cast : Suebsak Pansueb , Sasisa Jindamanee , Piyapong Piew On , Noppol Gomarachun , Dan Chupong , Amornthep Waewsang

Synopsis
Deaw (Dan Chupong) is a Special Forces police officer that witnesses his partner and friend murdered when a drugs bust goes terrible wrong. Disheartened by this tragedy, he decides to join his sister and a troupe of elite athletes on a government sponsored charity event set to take place on the Thai/Burmese border.

Everything seems to be going to be going well, and Deaw is once again happy and fulfilled until…

A group guerillas arrived with a nuclear missile takes over the sleepy village, holding it hostage. The ransom they demand is the release of General Yang, one of the worlds most wanted drug lords. The clock is ticking. Can Deaw and the athletes rescue the village from the mercenaries? Can they save Bangkok from the imminent nuclear threat?

Review
by Edward Tang

A group of terrorists take a group of people hostage (Die Hard) and threaten to destroy Thailand (Under Siege) if they don’t release a drug dealer from prison (Air Force One). Born to Fight is the ultimate action movie cliché, right down to the down-on-his-luck asshole cop who happens to be in the area when a bunch of bad guys take it over.

I’m all for this type of scenario if done right, but they f*cked it up good. During the film, I had myself fast-forwarding through all of the scenes that were not of action because we all know how this thing is going to and how it’s going to end right when you read the synopsis. But the one thing they couldn’t do is what Ong-Bak pulled off and that was to make good action sequences. Now don’t get me wrong, the action and stunts you see is of quality but after a while they get to be repetitious and annoying. The director seemingly steals from every possible action film he could think of including abusing the John Woo styled slow-motion to an almost sickening degree while also using the dreaded ESPN-styled replay of a stunt that they beat to death in Ong-Bak itself. Don’t worry about anything Tony Jaa, you’re safe on top of that small mountain because if pussies like Dan Chupong are after your title, you’ll keep it for a long f*cking time.

As noted above, the story is lame. Obviously people who want action don’t give a shit about that aspect but this time around, the story is just painful to sit through. Like Ong-Bak, they should have just focused on the action sequences instead of trying to build a story, because what they finished with was maybe the dumbest idea you could possibly think of. Instead of using trained killers, in this flick we get athletes. Now, these athletes can jump from place to place and dodge bullets with ease but can also adapt their skills into firing weapons with dead-eye accuracy and utilizing their soccer skills to a vomit-inducing degree. Take for example, there’s one sequence showing a kicker fighting a soldier, now the soldier could just shoot the guy but would rather beat him down with his gun. So as he attempts to pistol-whip the guy, the kicker instead does some tricks and flings a rock into his face. That’s stupid.

The film starts out on a pretty good note actually, there’s some two-handed pistol action (John Woo baby) and a decent truck chase to boot. But then the film completely goes dead in the middle of the film which features Dan Chupong and the rest of the town going through the motions until most of them are gunned down like dogs by the soldiers. This scene lasted a long time, soldiers were just offing everyone around from monks to police officers to women and children with their big ass machine guns. But then what put the icing on the dumbass cake was the plot: we will destroy Thailand with a big missile if you don’t release a drug dealer. Honestly, it’s a bad Hollywood ripoff (If you ripoff Hollywood, chances are you’re an idiot) but it can’t even be done with good special effects which makes it look even worse. They do show a shot of Thailand getting destroyed, and it looks pathetic.

After all this pointless exposition, they finally just say “f*ck it” and go into a hyper active mode that just showcases action scene after action scene (with a little bit of story here and there) which starts off great. But then down the road, everything gets to be the same thing over and over again. People running away from the soldiers, people dying from gunfire, the dumbass athletes (including a legless guy, exploitation of the handicapped!) jumping around like idiots, Dan shooting people and kicking in slow motion, and blah blah blah. There are a fair amount of stunts in the film, some which look great. In knowing this, we do not need to see the stunts over and over again thanks to an odd replay thing that Ong-Bak did as well. But like everything, the stunts got old as well. It ends typically, the remaining town people are escorted off the land and Dan barely saves one of the hostages before the entire village is blown the shit up. There’s also some sappy music to go along with that as the character looks down to the floor and reflects on the last moments, like an asshole.

I must say that the acting was lame as most action flicks but there just wasn’t any good characters. The main bad guy was executing people left and right but just didn’t impress me at all. Dan Chupong is the star of the show, most likely trying to be the next Tony Jaa. I wasn’t impressed by the guy as I was with Jaa although fighting wasn’t the only thing focused on (gunplay more specifically) so I probably didn’t get a good enough show. The music follows path as well, giving us a lame annoying techno-styled shit over and over mixed with the sappy shit mentioned earlier. There is a little outtakes type thing at the end (The Chan man, obviously) that was interesting for a little bit. Granted, I usually think that movies like this should just be action but since the action was annoying, I don’t know what to say.

Born to Fight is not Ong-Bak, it’s got some good action sequences and entertaining stunts but that’s it. This film could have been 80 minutes or so and I probably wouldn’t have complained as much about the repetitiveness of the action sequences but I can’t help but mention that they ran out of ideas fast about a bunch of athletes kicking stuff at a bunch of armed soldiers who should have wasted all these assholes at the beginning. Whatever, get yourself Ong-Bak or the action movies listed above….why watch a ripoff if the films it ripped off are much better and entertaining? Exactly, now go watch something else.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 2/5
Entertainment : 3/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- The action is pretty good….for a while.

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Born To Fight

Director : Ekachai Uekron
Cast : Asanee Suwan, Sorapong Chatree, Orn-Anong Panyawong, Nukkid Boonthong, Sitiporn Niyom, Kyoko Inoue and Keagan Kang.

Synopsis
Based on the real life story of Parinya Charoenphol (Nong Toom), a Muaythai boxer who underwent a sex change operation to become a woman. The movie chronicles her life from a young boy who likes to wear lipstick and wear flowers to her sensational career as kickboxer whose specialty is ancient Muaythai boxing moves which she can execute expertly with grace and finally her confrontation with her own sexuality which led to her sex change op.

Review
by Edward Tang

“He fights like a man so he can become a woman”

Surely enough, that is the first time that has been used to explain a boxing film. Usually boxing films are associated with heroes overcoming the odds and becoming a success. Most of the time, you’ve got a very macho guy who kicks a bunch of ass and gets ass in return from lovely ladies. We do a 360 here about a guy who wants to become a woman, with the money he makes in his fights. “Beautiful Boxer” is based on the true story of Nong Toom (Parinya Charoenphol) and shows that Thailand has some promise. The story is pretty much basic but for a first time director this is solid gold. The fights look good, the characters are typical but still appealing and the message is simple. Truly the shining star of this film belongs to Asanee Suwan who is a real kickboxer and a first time actor. To really connect with his feminine side (REALLY connect) and to have never acted before, the guy is fantastic just like this movie.

I’m really surprised about how Nong Toom had support from his family throughout his journey through life. Most films like this usually express that the family doesn’t approve of such activities and they eventually disown him or her. They don’t so much do that in this film, but they feel what all parents do if thrown into this situation. Nong Toom’s life is very much a secret starting as a child. He enjoyed things that normal boys didn’t, makeup and hanging out with girls. But the good thing about Nong is that he was just a pure person. When his family got into a bind with money and in trouble with the law, the kid was seven or eight when he started working. That’s sort of the way he got into kickboxing, a support for himself and his family. Nong hid his true feelings for a while, but they got out when his trainer spotted him.

Nong then began to wear his makeup in the ring, and became a controversy, being booed and made fun for being who he truly was. But he wasn’t a pushover, he kicked the shit out of everyone in this flick, but it never seemed like he cared about things like that. He was always serious about becoming a woman, and when he began to take hormone pills, he was labeled a woman and banned from boxing. He later went to Japan to fight a woman, and realized what he had become. Sure he was being himself, but the exposure made him look like a guy pretending to do this for the publicity. The final act includes him finally getting his sex change and achieving what he always wanted. He didn’t want to fight, nor hurt people but in doing so he did achieve what was necessary.

I must say that the film isn’t the best edited out there. But for a first time director, points are hit out all over the place. A few scenes involve a mysterious woman, we don’t know until we watch the final scenes. This woman was the personality of Toom, the person whom he really wanted to be. But we even learn that when he does become a woman, he didn’t want to loose his male side either. There’s a scene which involves every faze of his existence, from a small child to the woman he has become. It’s a well shot film for sure, but scenes could have been improved. But I must say that the kickboxing scenes looked good and had that harsh nature about them. Even scenes that made you cheer out, when Toom’s friend tells him that his mother is dying and needs the money from the fight, Toom wants to help his friend. We learn later that his mom died a month earlier and he was just scamming Toom for the money. The only scenes that sucked were the ones that involved anybody speaking in English, which seemed a little corny. Man did I hate that American dude who played the reporter.

This story is about Toom finding who he is in a series of events. Though his goal is to be a woman, being a man was completely necessary to achieve this goal. If he hadn’t, he might never have saved up the money for the surgery. Asanee Suwan is perfectly cast in this role. Imagine not acting once and then basically owning a film, in which you will eventually be awarded with the best actor. His simple take to a character made the film work. Spending almost a year, trying to make this character work shows his true dedication to this story. I didn’t see many other characters that really stood out, most of them were typical. There was another transsexual, which seemed a little forced more than anything, I don’t know if it was real or not. Suwan’s performance makes this work, without him, I doubt it would have been as good.

Today, Toom is a model/actress. The decision was obviously worth it, and the message is simple. Be yourself. The film shows this in basics, Toom didn’t run away from any problems faced, he kicked them in their f*ckin’ head. It isn’t the best film of all time, but is a nice contrast after hearing nothing but Tony Jaa praise out of Thailand. It’s good to hear that they can dish out films that actually are worth the price of admission. What I got from this film was a sense of destiny and perseverance, someone who learned that even things that seem wrong to people, can serve a purpose and even help someone achieve a goal that at first seemed to far to even grasp at.

It’s a shame that Beautiful Boxer has been out for two years, when it should have gotten so much more attention. The story is simple and the message follows just as simply. Asanee Suwan is the man, and hopefully does something else (he’s only appeared in this), because he could have some future in films. I was impressed by this film, and hopefully I can see more from the director soon. I’m usually not a fan of such films and I really enjoyed it. Great flick that sadly didn’t get the world-wide treatment it deserved.
Rating
Plot : 3/5
Acting : 3/5
Entertainment : 4/5
Overall : 3/5

Notable Scenes
- The kickboxing scenes

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Beautiful Boxer