You got your ass kicked by a ten-year old! The premise of this Thai martial arts film is simple- kids beat up adults. There is a little more to this film, but not a lot. The people behind a whole slew of martial arts films made this movie. All things considered, the Thai film industry seems to be obsessed with finding the next niche in their heroes. They started with Tony Jaa in Ong-Bak, turned to a bunch of people in Born to Fight (including a guy with one leg), followed by a young girl with Down's Syndrome in Chocolate and now this. How soon until we get a one-legged, one-eyed cat as an action hero? Since this is a Thai film, they have to reference at least one aspect of Ong-Bak. In this case, it's a picture-only cameo by one of its stars. More on that later though. Incidentally, the film was released in Thailand as Force of Five, hence the poster below. Bring all your dead batteries to be recharged by the...
Our heroes are a group of kids who are all in a Muay Thai School. That sets things up simply enough, huh? The group is broken down into some basic cliches: rich kid, funny kid, serious girl, lead boy and sick kid. We get a random bit where they explain that the father of Funny Kid is Pechtai Wongkamlao aka the sidekick from Ong-Bak and star of The Bodyguard films. Ha ha- he's not really in this. They get a fight scene about twenty-minutes in where they beat a Lex Luger look-alike. Drama sneaks in, however, as Sick Kid is...well, sick.
The film's secondary plot involves Sick Kid goes to a race...involving remote control cars. Wow, this is thrilling. A chase ensues, however, and the kid has a problem due to his bad heart. Gee, was running a bad idea?!? The kid waits for a heart transplant, which just happens to be available a short while later. Trouble arises when a terrorist group takes over a nearby Hospital and takes the American Ambassador hostage. Guess which Hospital has the hear that they need- I dare you. Kids to the rescue.
The group breaks into the Hospital and tries to get to the heart. This leads to some sneaking around and some fighting. By the way, the lead terrorist is played by Johnny Nguyen, who was one of the lead bad guys in The Protector. There is a young girl in the group- why?- and she feels bad when she hears the story of why the kids are there. The gang get captured, but break free when the cops finally help out. Unfortunately, the heart they need is destroyed before Johnny is taken out. The dying terrorist girl lets them have her heart, however, saving the day for our heroes. Their next challenge- puberty. The End.
That's a lot of tiny knee blows to the head! The plot of this movie is pretty bare-bones. Kids have a crisis arise and they solve it by lots of kicking. It's slightly more complex than High Kick Girl, I suppose. Do we watch these films for the plot? No, not really. The kids can't act all that well, but they do fight quite well. There's no real bad moments in the film, although some of them are just alright. The martial arts are fun and what you get of them do not disappoint. If you like Muay Thai films, you'll like this. If you don't, don't bother. That's simple enough, right? Take us away, pointless photo cameo...
Next up, we jump over to India for an '80s horror film. I bet you can guess that this film can contain dance numbers, right? Stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment