by Chris Eaton-
Just when I was about to give up on Thai action films, I see the trailer for Bangkok Knockout, and I get the tingles. The problem for the last few years with Thai action films is that they’re relying to heavily on the stunts and fights and have 0 story to them. Not all a bad thing in an action film, but the action has to at least be fun. Everything after Tony Jaa’s last great offering, Tom Yum Goong, has been mediocre at best. Hell, even Chocolate and Raging Phoenix have been so so. Why? They don’t take the risks that they use to in the stunts any more. Thai action films were on their way to be the grand replacement of the hey day of Jackie Chan, but ended up feeling like a watered down film that Trimark pictures would have released in the 90’s.
But, Bangkok Knockout, Panna Rittikrai’s first full film since the delightfully awesome Born to Fight (he did co directing duties on the last 2 Ong Bak films, but less said the better) brings back the bad assery of Jaa’s first film, Ong Bak. Suffice to say, with Jaa becoming a Monk and effectively retiring, Panna is going back to the drawing board and used the formula that worked best before: Let your stunt men be the stars. So instead of just one guy (Jaa) getting the glory, the entire stunt team is the star in this film, and.. it looks beyond bad ass. I could feel my balls quake at some of these stunts and knowing full well that dudes got hurt on this shit, brings out the sick fuck in me and makes me happy as hell.
It opens next month in its home country of Thailand, and word is that it just got an American distributor at the AMF.
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