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 He was there, and could have been replaced by anybody.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

Last Modified : August 31st, 2007 Filed under : Movies, Thailand Navigate : Previous post / Next post