Born to fight, spectacular traditional action
Born to fight
Last Friday we began to discover a part of the Nits Oriental Cinema Festival this year, and as we will have a good retrospective of Thai action cinema, we could already try a first 35mm title, Born to fight, one of the key films of the Panna Rittikrai deceased that perhaps here we see it as low quality cinema and low budget, but for the time and the country in which it was actually done it had a fairly important status. This was Panna's next job after being the action director of the acclaimed Ong Bak (who popularized current Thai cinema), of course, they have no point of comparison, but this one has some interesting points as well.
Born to fight
A protagonist giving a lot of cane
The argument is simple, but also somewhat bizarre too; After capturing a drug boss and losing a partner in the operation, a policeman decides to accompany his sister on an expedition of athletes to a lost and very poor town, to help their people and show them the benefits of the sport. But in the middle of the stay, some terrorists decide to attack the people armed to the teeth, and they really only wanted a good group of hostages to ask them to release their leader (the drug boss arrested at the beginning). With all the villagers and the trapped athletes, our protagonist makes them to take care of only some soldiers, but after realizing that his real objective is to launch a missile over Bangkok, they end up catching him and convincing the villagers, but especially to the athletes to help him fight, so each athlete using his sports skills fights as he can to defeat the soldiers.
Although it may seem so, this is not really a martial arts movie as such, but an action movie very based on the work of specialists, where we do not see any tricks, special effects, or cables, etc. but it has worked completely at risk the lives of these professionals, and so we see it clearly in the credits with the preparations of scenes and fake shots, perhaps some sequences much more shocking than the film itself.
Born to fight
Life Specialists
To tell the truth, the story has seemed quite ridiculous, all very caught by the hair to be able to put some scenes that the director had thought before writing the script, without any sense and even failing on some occasions in which he tries to put some drama and it gets out of hand, both for not having a place in such a movie, as for not being credible with his bad performances; and much more for all the nationalism that releases the tape, something that we are not used to here, but in many Asian countries it is almost mandatory to win the favor of the government. Even so, if instead of looking at it as an action movie in the sense in which we understand the genre today, we see it as a shabby and bizarre movie to laugh at us, well, we can spare so many defects and illogical things , that we can laugh a lot.
And as for the action scenes themselves, we have a bit of everything, but at least we must admit that they are all very well prepared and the execution is brutal; starting with a shooting plus chasing trucks with jumps, falls, bumps, etc. which for us is the best of the whole movie and what will leave you hooked on it for the rest of the footage. Most of everything that happens next continues with an impressive planning and execution, but at the visual level it is not so impressive, until we reach the final fight scene, here we introduce the martial arts (although no trace of the famous Muay Thai ) and with a good fight against the bad end.
As we said, in this case the film has been completely orchestrated by Panna Ritikrai (Ong Bak 2, Vengeance of an assassin) that we believe that as an action director has no waste, both here and in any of the films in which he has participated , but directing leaves enough to be desired.
In short, those who look for a good movie with feet and head, will not find anything good here, but for those who enjoy perfectly organized action scenes and with all the effects and especially works of traditional specialists, here they have one of the good .
The best of the movie:
Some very shocking scene and a spectacular making off.
The worst of the movie:
Athletes fighting and ridiculous soldiers give more laughter than anything else.
Born to fight
Last Friday we began to discover a part of the Nits Oriental Cinema Festival this year, and as we will have a good retrospective of Thai action cinema, we could already try a first 35mm title, Born to fight, one of the key films of the Panna Rittikrai deceased that perhaps here we see it as low quality cinema and low budget, but for the time and the country in which it was actually done it had a fairly important status. This was Panna's next job after being the action director of the acclaimed Ong Bak (who popularized current Thai cinema), of course, they have no point of comparison, but this one has some interesting points as well.
Born to fight
A protagonist giving a lot of cane
The argument is simple, but also somewhat bizarre too; After capturing a drug boss and losing a partner in the operation, a policeman decides to accompany his sister on an expedition of athletes to a lost and very poor town, to help their people and show them the benefits of the sport. But in the middle of the stay, some terrorists decide to attack the people armed to the teeth, and they really only wanted a good group of hostages to ask them to release their leader (the drug boss arrested at the beginning). With all the villagers and the trapped athletes, our protagonist makes them to take care of only some soldiers, but after realizing that his real objective is to launch a missile over Bangkok, they end up catching him and convincing the villagers, but especially to the athletes to help him fight, so each athlete using his sports skills fights as he can to defeat the soldiers.
Although it may seem so, this is not really a martial arts movie as such, but an action movie very based on the work of specialists, where we do not see any tricks, special effects, or cables, etc. but it has worked completely at risk the lives of these professionals, and so we see it clearly in the credits with the preparations of scenes and fake shots, perhaps some sequences much more shocking than the film itself.
Born to fight
Life Specialists
To tell the truth, the story has seemed quite ridiculous, all very caught by the hair to be able to put some scenes that the director had thought before writing the script, without any sense and even failing on some occasions in which he tries to put some drama and it gets out of hand, both for not having a place in such a movie, as for not being credible with his bad performances; and much more for all the nationalism that releases the tape, something that we are not used to here, but in many Asian countries it is almost mandatory to win the favor of the government. Even so, if instead of looking at it as an action movie in the sense in which we understand the genre today, we see it as a shabby and bizarre movie to laugh at us, well, we can spare so many defects and illogical things , that we can laugh a lot.
And as for the action scenes themselves, we have a bit of everything, but at least we must admit that they are all very well prepared and the execution is brutal; starting with a shooting plus chasing trucks with jumps, falls, bumps, etc. which for us is the best of the whole movie and what will leave you hooked on it for the rest of the footage. Most of everything that happens next continues with an impressive planning and execution, but at the visual level it is not so impressive, until we reach the final fight scene, here we introduce the martial arts (although no trace of the famous Muay Thai ) and with a good fight against the bad end.
As we said, in this case the film has been completely orchestrated by Panna Ritikrai (Ong Bak 2, Vengeance of an assassin) that we believe that as an action director has no waste, both here and in any of the films in which he has participated , but directing leaves enough to be desired.
In short, those who look for a good movie with feet and head, will not find anything good here, but for those who enjoy perfectly organized action scenes and with all the effects and especially works of traditional specialists, here they have one of the good .
The best of the movie:
Some very shocking scene and a spectacular making off.
The worst of the movie:
Athletes fighting and ridiculous soldiers give more laughter than anything else.