Movie Haiku - Born To Fight

www.borntofightmovie.com


Dir: Panna Rittikrai


Cast: Dan Chupong, Kessarin Ektawatkul, Noppol Gomarachun, Sunthisook Promsiri


They fall off lorries

kick, punch, jump, sometimes on fire

bye bye Jackie Chan


After a quick refuelling stop for coffee and cakes it was straight back into the screening room for the second of our Thai movies. Born To Fight makes its intentions clear right from the start, placing us in the middle of a drug bust gone sour, without any introductions, then flying straight into a chase with people fighting - and falling off - the roofs of moving articulated lorries, and culminating with one of the lorries (now ablaze) crashing through a shanty town in a homage to Jackie Chan's seminal Police Story. As openings go it's quite an attention grabber. Daew (Chupong) is the disillusioned cop, racked by the guilt that whilst he managed to secure the arrest of infamous drug lord General Yang (Gomarachun), he was unable to save the life of his superior in the aforementioned melee. He decides to take some time out and joins his sister Nui (Ektawatkul), a Taekwondo athlete, on their National Sports Association trip to the village of Pha-Thong in the north of Thailand. Just as the team of athletes are making friends and giving aid to the villagers they're suddenly attacked by an army of rebel soldiers led by Lor Fei (Promsiri), a prominent supporter of General Yang. With all the villagers either dead or held hostage, and with a nuclear weapon targeted on Bangkok, Lor Fei demands that the Prime Minister release General Yang or face the consequences. These plot points are covered in the 15 to 45 minute period of the film, leaving the rest of the time free to concentrate on what this film does best - relentless action, as Daew and his friends fight back! Whereas The Bodyguard traded a lot of its action for laughs, Born To Fight is far more serious in tone and is more successful for that. The sudden, merciless slaughter upon the people of Pha-Thong is brutal and unflinching and there's a incredibly emotional scene where Nui covers a young girl's eyes just as her father is shot dead right in front of her. Panna Rittikrai (who also produced Ong-Bak) has been in the business 25 years as a director and action choreographer and here he assembles a wealth of talent by casting real champion athletes as members of the Sports Association. So we have taekwondo experts, gymnasts, a boxer, a rugby player and a footballer who all bring their individual skills to their roles - witness for example the Takraw player who not only kicks rattan balls into his opponents faces but boiling kettles too! The surviving villagers do their part too and we actually meet a one-legged man who really would be useful in an arse-kicking competition! Then there's Chupong in his first proper acting role, a fellow student of Tony Jaa's and part of the Ong-Bak stunt team. The bloke is just awesome mixing stunts and martial arts that will have your jaw permanently fixed to the floor. Rittikrai directs one particular scene like a computer game as Daew takes out soldier after soldier, kicking here, punching there, dodging grenades - and all in the one long take. As if the opening stunts on the lorries weren't thrilling enough (check out the guy who falls between the two vehicles and is lucky not to get run over), there's a couple of other incredible stunts involving crashing motorbikes which just have to been seen to be believed - the fact that these are all done for real, without any digital trickery, is quite a testament to the team involved. Whilst the plot is perhaps a little thin, especially the nuclear weapon element of the story, and there's a constant techno soundtrack which rather annoys, there's no denying that this is an action movie of the highest calibre. Jackie Chan can now take early retirement - there's some new kids on the block!

soulmining rating: ****

You can read an expanded version of this review at Eat My Brains by clicking here.