www.momentumpictures.co.ukDir: Petchai Wongkamlau
Cast: Petchai Wongkamlau, Pumwaree Yodkamol, Phiphat Aphirakthanakarn, Tony Jaa
Businessman shot dead
now he must protect the son
where's the motorbike?
Just as I'm cursing the lack of decent films on offer this month fate intervenes (thanks Mike) and I find myself in a Soho screening room complete with beer and sarnies ready for a double dose of Thai action movies. After the international success of Ong-Bak there's an industry of similar movies ready to bludgeon us with their mix of martial arts, crazy stunts and peculiar comedy. The Bodyguard in question is Wongkom (Wongkamlau - who also directs) who's employed to look after a wealthy businessman, Mr Choti. When his boss is shot and killed, Choti's son Chai (Aphirakthanakarn) disappears and seeks refuge with a local family where he meets, and later falls for, their tomboy daughter Pok (Yodkamol). The renegade board member who ordered Choti's death is looking to take over the company and now needs to eliminate Chai, so leads his colourful band of thugs on a mission to seek and destroy the son. Only Wongkom can protect Chai and save the day. The film captures the attention right from the off with its prolonged face-off in a hotel function room which echoes John Woo in his heyday, all suits, exploding blood squibs and slow motion destruction. This opening scene concludes with a spectacularly silly stunt involving four black BMWs colliding and exploding in mid-air! However, from here on in Wongkamlau, a popular Thai comedian, opts to go for comedy over action for the majority of the remaining time. To be fair he actually plays the role of Wongkam pretty straight, preferring to leave the humour to an assortment of oddballs and misfits that so often populate Thai comedies. The lawyer and one of the gang members will be familiar faces from Buppah Rahtree, and in a knowing role reversal they get all the serious lines whilst one of the other gang members gets ridiculed for his stupidity and succession of innapropriate outfits. In addition there's a gang leader who only speaks in tones rather than words, and a couple of bumbling cops who struggle to negotiate a hostage situation in a supermarket. It's at this point in the movie that the holy trinity of Ong-Bak actors reunite as Tony Jaa - in a cameo as a shelf stacker - joins Wongkom and Pok as they attempt to fight their way out of trouble. Jaa throws a couple of his signature moves, but his prescence here is really just a nod to his friend rather than the big draw that his name might suggest. The supermarket scene also provided one of the comic high points of the film as all the characters pointed their guns simultaneously and the boom mic leapt into shot with them - although sadly that was just down to the differing film ratios of the print I saw and I'm sure will have been rectified by the time the film is released. There's also a fun moment when Wongkom leaps into a swimming pool and is then forced to run naked through the streets in a scene which this time apes Jackie Chan in The Accidental Spy. Sadly the final showdown is more of a letdown as too much wire-fighting is used and you can see that the stuntmen are filling in for Wongkamlau - it's also far too long and drawn out. So The Bodyguard works better as a comedy than an action showcase, but I'm left with one outstanding issue: the Thai movie poster clearly shows Wongkom astride a motorbike, yet there's no sign of it in the movie at all... another quirk of Thai film-making or a scene consigned to the cutting room floor?
soulmining rating: ***
No comments:
Post a Comment