Carano (if you haven’t seen her real fights maybe you saw her cameo in BLOOD AND BONE) plays Mallory Kane, an experienced operative for a private contractor who does covert missions rescuing hostages and shit like that. She begins the movie having, you know, like… a disagreement with her colleague Channing Tatum (FIGHTING), and then she flashes back through the story of how she got doublecrossed as she hauls ass in a commandeered vehicle, headed to settle the score with her boss/ex-boyfriend (Ewan McGregor).

The other agents and bosses include Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Mathieu Kassovitz. The fights are choreographed by J.J. Perry (UNDISPUTED II) and are the clear highlight of the movie. We’re seeing alot of MMA-inspired submission holds in action movies these days, but not usually with this kind of blunt efficiency. It almost reminds me of seeing Seagal’s early movies the first time because the fights are so quick and dirty and the hits look and sound so hard. You know I love elaborate, stylized Shaw Brothers type numbers. This is the opposite of that, but it’s another great approach. These characters are very professional. It always seems like they really are trying to subdue their opponent as quickly as possible, not trying to show off. No time for sadism or to stop and say a line of dialogue. The lack of music and the not-too-exaggerated sound effects also add to the sense of realism. Sometimes I felt like an eyewitness. Uh, hey guys… break it up?

Mallory’s also Seagal-esque in her total domination of foes (all male), but she’s not as indestructible. She tends to get knocked around at first, which makes it great when there are witnesses. It’s like, oh no, look at this fuckin woman beater, he’s gonna seriously hur– oh, shit. What is she doing to him? She’s not quite The Terminator. She sports a number of bruises and cuts throughout the movie.

Soderbergh, thank God, agrees with us about the sad state of action filmatism. I’m happy to report that he lives up to his word, taking advantage of Carano’s skills by not shooting too close up and by doing lots of long takes. And he mostly avoid handheld cameras. Check out this behind the scenes photo where you can glimpse some sort of crazy next-gen technology they’re using that actually holds the camera for them:

Can you believe that!? I think it’s used to move the camera smoothly or possibly to hold it still and, like, point it at stuff. Kinda hard to wrap your mind around. It’ll be interesting to see if other directors decide to start using this technology. I have also heard that tripods have been invented. (not verified)

I was writing somewhere else about how crazy it is that Soderbergh wanting to shoot the fights clearly is a major selling point mentioned in all the interviews, articles and reviews. I believe as recently as 10 years ago this would’ve seemed ridiculous to even mention. At that time it would be considered basic filmatistic competence, now it’s rare enough that it’s considered a novelty. Still, I think these fights would stand out even if we were in a better era for action movies. It’s true that they’re refreshingly against the grain, but they’re also just plain good.

As long as I’m using Seagalogical comparisons I should say that this is most like the Golden Era Seagal works, where the action is more street-level violence, hand-to-hand scuffles, and less guns, car stunts or CGI. They hired Carano because of her Muay Thai and her MMA, so it would be stupid to waste a bunch of time acting like she’s a champion sharpshooter. But she is on the run so they do give her a couple really exciting foot and car chases, the car ones mainly shot from inside, reminding me of parts I loved in CHILDREN OF MEN, THE DRIVER and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION. You feel like if she crashes you’re going through the windshield.

One little detail I noticed that illustrates Soderbergh’s respect for clear filmatism is during a foot chase. The camera is looking down on Mallory running. There’s a traffic light or something hanging between us and the street, but as Mallory turns she arcs right around it so that our view of her is never blocked. Almost as if they, like, planned the shot in advance.

I think all the fights are done without music, but alot of the other scenes are heavily score driven, another great one by David Holmes. It’s reminiscent of OUT OF SIGHT with its driving basslines, super-tight drums and eerie electric pianos, but with horns in more of a Lalo Schifrin style. Very GET CARTER with maybe a drop or two of James Bond.

I guess some people have claimed that Carano’s acting is weak. I completely disagree, I didn’t notice a single poor line delivery or anything like that. But even if she wasn’t as good I think that complaints like that are missing the entire reason for this movie to exist. By casting a fighter to act Soderbergh is offering an alternative to the usual practice of casting an actor to fight. Compare Carano in HAYWIRE to Angelina Jolie – an Academy Award winning (and 2-time SAG winning, and 3-time Golden Globe winning) actress who I like – playing a very similar character in SALT. Jolie’s fine in the movie, but does she carry herself as convincingly as a woman who knows how to handle herself in a fight, in a double-cross, in a chase? Does she look like she’s the one doing the fighting and running and jumping? Does she move on screen in ways that are as interesting, as badass? Of course not. If somebody prefers the Academy Award winning actor’s version of this character it’s a free country but still, you gotta be fuckin kidding me. If Carano’s acting was weak it would be worth the sacrifice.

I mean, I don’t think Tony Jaa’s a very good actor, but I bet his version of ONG BAK is better than the version with, say, Viggo Mortensen would be. Although I would definitely watch that. Actually, maybe that’s a bad example. You know what, there’s room for both. Let’s have both.

Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal liked HAYWIRE, but in his final paragraph as he compliments Carano for being “very much at home in a strong cast” he writes, “It remains to be seen whether Ms. Carano’s star presence will take her beyond action roles, but she’s certainly appealing in this one…” I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, but it’s a funny attitude that people have, as if for some reason Carano would’ve done this movie in hopes of eventually getting enough experience to be in a period drama or a romantic comedy or something. Like you do a genre movie as an audition for “real” movies “beyond action roles.” The truth is it’s usually the other way around. You do an amazing dramatic performance and then you’re allowed to play a super hero or super villain (see: Eric Bana, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hardy, etc.) In fact, most of the respected supporting cast here had to do years of “beyond action roles” before they would ever be cast in something like this.

But I’m sure Morgenstern would agree that it would be a waste of Carano’s gifts if she tried to do non-fighting roles. At least wait until your body’s getting frail, like Jackie Chan.

I like most of Soderbergh’s movies, and even the ones I don’t love are almost always an admirable attempt at something interesting. Who else can do both an upbeat studio movie starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts, and a micro-budget partially improvised experiment starring a lady he found working at a KFC? And seem to be passionate about both? He’s the only one. I love his broad range of interests, but of course my favorite movies by him are the ones where he tries to combine his commercial entertainer instincts with his thoughtful artist ones. My favorite from him is still the one that balances those the best, OUT OF SIGHT. It manages to be broadly entertaining, funny, romantic and joyful, but also a little bit mournful and contemplative. Like Elmore Leonard.

I think HAYWIRE is aimed for that same balance, but tips closer to THE LIMEY and what I consider Arthouse Badass. I’d like to think it could win over a wide audience like DRIVE did, but it didn’t seem to work on the middle aged couple who talked through pretty much the entire movie, or the two little kids that some lady brought. (The kids were quieter than the adults, but afterwards one reported “I didn’t like that movie that much.”) I figure they might not like the way both story and character are more implied and referred to than spelled out. In the opening we don’t really know what they’re talking about, as the events happen they’re a little confusing, eventually the explanation is pretty simple. But it’s kind of like the “Rabbit’s Foot” in MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE 3: it doesn’t really matter that much specifically why they’re after her. It just matters that she finds out. And hopefully beats some dudes up.

Same goes for the character of Mallory Kane. I mean, you know I would enjoy it if there was a “Just How Badass Is She?” line in here somewhere. But I like that they don’t waste our time with some dumb backstory. Tatum tries to guess one, but (like the one the Joker tells in DARK KNIGHT) it’s probly bullshit. If you need one, just make some shit up, it would’ve been like 2 or 3 lines of dialogue and you would’ve been happy. “You might think I joined the service because of my dad. The truth is, he was never there for me. Always off fighting some battle, even after he came home. I got into alot of trouble. Burglary, car theft. Eventually I took it too far, almost got killed, got locked up instead. There were two ways I could’ve gotten another chance: from Jesus, or from The Marines. I chose the Marines.”

Blah blah blah, why do we need to know that? We know Mallory Kane through what she knows: how to avoid being tracked, where to hide, when to surrender, how to relate to cops. We know she was in the Marines, and isn’t anymore. We see what her dad does, what he’s willing to do for her, and also the look on his face when he sees what she does. But even that’s pretty ambiguous – I read a little bit of fear, and then a little pride, but I wasn’t entirely sure.

Actually the father-daughter relationship is one thing that’s similar to OUT OF SIGHT, where Karen Sisco’s ex-cop dad seems to be her best friend. But Bill Paxton’s alot younger than Dennis Farina, or Terence Stamp. Man, we’re getting old. Game over, man.

Now that I think about it I don’t remember any explosions in the movie. That’s weird. Maybe that’s why they don’t like it. Explosions are important. There’s also a major sequence early on that’s done kind of like a music video, with people talking but we don’t hear it. Nothing too challenging but you know how people are. Sometimes they’re disappointed if they don’t get exactly what they expected, exactly what they got last time. Do something even slightly off-kilter and you might get sued.

I don’t think it’s as extreme as what happened with THE AMERICAN, but based on the Rotten Tomatoes computer machine HAYWIRE seems to be well liked by critics and not liked by “audiences.” Therefore I’m afraid I shouldn’t dream about the Mallory Kane series of movies that should so obviously happen. Soderbergh has said he plans to retire soon, and also that he did everything he wanted to do in an action movie with this one and can’t see himself doing another one unless he thought of something new. But I think it would be great if he stayed on as a producer and helped other cool directors to take the character in different (but still clearly photographed) directions.

I mean if he really wanted a WRATH OF KANE or a LONG LIVE THE KANE I’m sure he could do it DTV if he had to. That wouldn’t be that much different from what he did with BUBBLE and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, which were released on DVD the same day as theaters.

Oh well, I’m happy we at least got this one. That alone is a miracle. It’s just so random that he happened to see Gina Carano on TV and then remembered her when his version of MONEYBALL fell apart and he kinda felt like doing a spy movie. If Soderbergh DVRd or Hulued everything he wouldn’t even have known who she was to make a movie about her. Thank you, TVs and remote controls. I owe you one.

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(Note: I think this is the fight Soderbergh saw, or at least it’s the one she’d just had before he met her. She didn’t want to go because she still had a black eye.)

The first 35 minutes is just like a cheesy kid’s movie about trying to get the money to buy their brother an RC car for his birthday, trying to stop the bullies at the RC track, also getting in a fight with a big drunk Australian guy (not Nathan Jones sized, but big). Then all the sudden two very bad things happen:

1. the little brother’s heart gives out and he’s gonna need a transplant

2. the hospital where the transplant heart is located gets taken over by rebel terrorists taking an ambassador hostage to make a point

So the kids try to sneak in and get the heart, just like the Goonies, the Explorers or the Hardy Boys or somebody would, but those little weiners would all get shot and killed before they got into the building and it would be a pretty short and depressing movie. Possibly the Little Rascals could’ve pulled it off, but I’m not betting on it. These kids use their youth to take the rebels off guard but also they use their muay thai skills to beat the god damn shit out of them. It’s not HOME ALONE type hit-in-the-balls-with-a-flying-object-and-it’s-hilarious type of kid movie violence, it’s actually pretty bloody.

This would probly not be considered a kid’s movie in the U.S. We always complain that our media is violent and there’s a double standard about sex, that people got no problem letting their kids watch the Joker murder a guy with a pencil but would be upset if they brought them to a movie where you see a sideboob. And of course that’s true. But also there’s a line drawn somewhere and I don’t think a movie where little kids have brutal, bloody fights with terrorists would fly over here.

But it is definitely a kid’s movie, you can’t really get around that. And I mean that in a derogatory way. But I did enjoy the novelty of seeing kids do insane Thai style stunts. I’m not saying it’s up to the Tony Jaa standard, but it’s past adult level for most countries. These kids do alot of jumping off walls and people, alot of flying knees and kicks. One kid runs and jumps knees first through a window, breaking through glass and hitting a dude. The same kid has a bird’s-eye-view shot of running up a wall, doing a flip and landing both knees on a guy that’s laying on the ground.

Just because it’s kids I assumed there was some kind of special effect involved, some wires or digital enhancements or something. But both shots I just described are shown from other angles on the making-of featurette, and they were done live on set. It’s funny to see these kids beating up the adults and every time the take ends they give a little respectful bow. I assume the adults also do that to each other, unless it’s just a weird etiquette thing they make the Thai stunt youth do, like saying “May I be excused, please?” before leaving the dinner table.

Just to make things seem a little more even they actually have a little girl on the terrorist team. I know it sounds ridiculous but she’s a girl that was orphaned during war so she joined the rebels. She’s an intense-looking little kid and I think they actually get some successful drama out of you wondering if her quest for revenge or her kid-solidarity will win out. It would be sweet if she became friends with them and it would be fucked up if she killed them so either way you’re gonna get some drama.

So yeah, like all the Thai movies I’ve ever seen this has alot of crying and tragedy and melodrama, even though it’s DIE HARD meets muay thai meets little kids.

It’s kinda weird being an adult watching a movie about kids. I’ve learned over the years to appreciate a family film if it’s well made, but usually that’s gonna be about a talking pig or a cartoon character of some kind. But when it’s a human child and you’re supposed to relate to them it feels kind of ridiculous. You can put your sympathies with somebody totally different from you but when it’s a kid sometimes it feels like shit, I been through that before, I don’t want to go back to it. Or jesus these kids today, I lucked out by not being born in their time, I want to take advantage of this and not have to think about what kind of stupid shit they care about. So for example I would rather help somebody move than watch the documentary about that little boy with the bangs that sings on tv, even though it’s from the director of STEP UP 2-3 and even though Drew McWeeny claimed it was an interesting documentary. I just don’t want to look at that kid or hear his music or remember that it’s something that people care about. The modern world just isn’t my bag. I’m a John-McClane-man in a that-kid-from-Twilight-that’s-in-the-John-Singleton-movie-where-it’s-like-Bourne-Identity-with-teens world.

So I get some of that discomfort watching this, I feel out of place with these kids even though they got a tough life and all that. I kinda feel like I’m watching the Disney Channel at first, and not the part with Disney cartoons. But then it turns into what it turns into, which is a movie where gunmen are trying to murder little kids who are throwing around a box with a human heart in it. And bad things happen to the heart.

I mean if the singer kid was gonna get bloodied up and fight for a box with a human organ in it then maybe I would consider watching it, I’m not sure. But that is not something I expect to happen.

winner: the children of Thailand

But MUAY THAI GIANT (originally SOMTUM) is the first movie where he’s a main character. He plays Barney Emerald, an Australian doofus who wins a trip to Thailand in a contest, but then gets drunk and robbed of his money, clothes and passport, and can’t leave the country. He finds shelter at a monastery and befriends two little girls, which made me think this was gonna be kind of cheesy and that’s why I avoided renting it until now.

Well, it is cheesy but what surprised me is that the weak link isn’t the little girls, it’s the giant. Jones, at least in this particular role, is a shockingly terrible actor. He’s playing it for sweetness and laughs, so he’s always smiling and over-selling his expressions in a way where you have to occasionally ask if the character is supposed to be retarded in some way. I don’t think he is, but I’m honestly not sure. He was in the WWE for a short period of time but I think some of this acting would even seem bad in that context where he’s trying to have his expressions seen by the people in the back row.

The joke is supposed to be that although he looks like such a monster he’s a total sissy. When he happens to see a little girl getting threatened by gangsters he tries to help her, but mainly by cowering over her crying and begging for them to let him go. Unfortunately it’s more sad than funny, especially since it continues throughout the movie. How many times can we watch an action scene where a physical specimen like that, who we want to see get in some fights, stands in the middle covering his head and whimpering? It’s not fun.

But the girls do feed him some spicy papaya salad and learn that it has a weird effect on him. Not only does his face turn red but he flies into an uncontrollable rage and starts smashing everything. This causes him to destroy their mother’s restaurant, so he agrees that even if he straightens out his passport situation he’s gonna stay around to help them raise the money to rebuild it. Eventually they turn him into sort of a line cook/mascot, putting him to work with a giant bell instead of a mortar. But first they bring him to some underground fights where they come up with the idea of feeding him spicy food and using his Incredible Hulk type abilities to destroy the other fighters.

And then they decide that would be wrong and don’t do it.

But the interesting part of the movie is that one of the two sisters (Sasisa Jindamanee) is a local muay thai champion. Her mom doesn’t allow her to fight but she does it anyway. In one scene that I can’t imagine in an American movie she tries to raise money by taking a sleazy underground fight against an adult man. She holds her own but gets bloodied and almost knocked out a couple times, and the actress looks about 14 or 15 years old, so it’s pretty crazy.

She has a couple good street fight scenes too. There’s the one when they first meet Barney, where she keeps jumping off his head or chest, or kicking his hand to make him slap the gangsters who are after her sister. Later she gets attacked by the boxer and his thugs while buying papayas for the restaurant. She can mostly handle them by herself but then gets help from the female papaya vendor, who we already knew was tough because she was chewing a toothpick. The scene is fun because they find about a dozen different ways to use papayas as weapons, ranging from throwing them at heads to actually kicking them up a guy’s butthole. Ouch.

The other sister is a pickpocket, and she gets them into alot of trouble with a dangerous international crime syndicate by swiping a jewel that turns out to be the key to a huge stash of drugs and stolen diamonds. In an American kids movie that would have to be some kind of misunderstanding, but in this movie the girl actually is a thief. Her mom tells her not to be and it gets her in trouble but the movie never really preaches against it.

At the end Barney tears apart a private jet with his bare hands. So at least in that respect it’s a good role for him.

Now that I read about him, Jones has had an interesting life. In the ’80s he was doing armed robberies in Tasmania, got caught and did 7 years. While in the joint he got into lifting heavy things. Next thing you know he gets out, becomes Australia’s powerlifting champion. Gets first place in the World Strength Championship 1995. Got interested in MMA and fought at Pride 1 (submitted by sumo wrestler). Became a bodyguard for some rich guy. Then got into pro wrestling. Made it into WWE, but not long after his first televised match was sent to the farm team in Ohio to improve his skills. Came back, was on some team with pre-UFC Brock Lesnar, got tired of it and decided to quit.

He didn’t really make it to the top of WWE, but he got to be heavyweight champion of WWA once and tag team champion of NWA. In 2003 he won Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s “Most Embarrassing Wrestler” Award. But he has a degree in economics.

Well, this is a pretty stupid movie. I guess I shouldn’t get so excited about a guy just because he’s giant. Turns out that doesn’t make him a movie star. He makes a good big guy for little guys to fight, though. Nothing can take that away from him.

So it turns into one of those classic one-upsmanship duels. The rich pricks keep giving away more and more riches trying to top each other, and the hoes keep switching their allegiance back and forth until the cops show up and Wang wins through what Ho probly considers un-oneupsmanlike conduct, but I consider Bugs Bunny-like smarts. Ho is a jewel thief, but probly not a master jewel thief, so he is easily and constantly outsmarted by Wang throughout the movie.

After the ho incident they circle around each other as rivals for a while but then Ho gets a poisoned head wound and Wang knows the antidote and agrees to parcel it out only if he becomes Ho’s master. This is also how Eric B and Rakim first started working together, and Woody and Wesley.

Wang seems to have Ho on a leash, teaching him kung fu, but the prince is injured and can’t even stand up, so they sort of need each other. He pokes Ho with a wooden pole (8 diagram?) to show him what to do, and there’s training montages with Ho doing various kicks over layers of candles. It’s way more of a comedy than 36TH CHAMBER but them Shaw Brothers are kind enough to get some training scenes in there. They know we love training.

The fights aren’t as huge and impressive as, say 8 DIAGRAM, but they’re like Jackie Chan before Jackie Chan, a high number of clever high concept fights. Ho puppeteers a chambermaid to make it seem like she’s fighting (like RAGING PHOENIX), there’s a duel disguised as a wine-tasting, a duel disguised as an antiques viewing. To be honest I didn’t exactly understand why they were all trying to hide that they were fighting, even from Ho, but I’m sure they have their reasons. Dirty reasons.

There’s also a fight against dudes disguised as cripples (blind man, hunchback, one-armed man) and a fight with Wang actually crippled and Ho pushing his wheelchair. It’s almost like LONE WOLF AND CUB the way Ho pushes him around and does most of the fighting but Wang does what he can with his arms and pulling hidden weapons out of the chair.

DIRTY HO is not one of the top Shaw Brothers pictures I’ve seen, but it’s completely solid and especially good for those who enjoy them a little more light-hearted.

The movie opens with paper puppets and animation, and whenever the camera pans through the city the buildings fold up like pop-ups. At one point Harrelson explains to Hartnett the parable of “The Arachnid” (an off-brand Spider-man) by showing him a pop-up book about it. The bad guy is Ron Perlman, who wears a giant Witchypoo type hat. When he takes it off he has long, matted hair and an ax, as if he filmed it on the way from one barbarian or viking movie to the next.

So it’s a weird-ass, uncategorizable movie, but it still manages to be full of  stale notions, bringing back the archetypes of the quiet stranger from out of town, the western saloon, the gangster with the fedora, all that type of shit. This is far from the first or best movie in the last couple years to try that, or to have main characters with generic names like “The Drifter” and “The Bartender.” And that would be fine if they didn’t have painfully self-conscious pseudo-hard boiled third person narration pointing it out all the time. The singer Mike Patton (I AM LEGEND) was enlisted to do this, and nothing against him but it’s unbearable and way too frequent. This world would seem interesting if it slowly revealed itself to us through situations and what not. Instead it’s all told to us in a really grating, self-satisfied tone. It’s the old cliche that just because you point out it’s a cliche doesn’t make it not a cliche.

Occasionally he says tough guy lines, like when Hartnett punches a guy and he says “Happy birthday, fucker!” I don’t even know what it means.

It’s also another one of those movies with killers ranked by number trying to get the number one spot, like PISTOL OPERA, or the beginning of WARRIOR’S WAY, or the cartoon AFRO SAMURAI. In this one little cartoon signs pop above their heads to tell you their numbers. #1 is Perlman, #2 is his henchman played by Kevin McKidd (Lucius Vorenus from Rome). He’s a smooth, bowler-hat-wearing gent with a sword cane. He does dance moves while elegantly killing 20 attackers. The fights are well choreographed and shot and edited clearly. And of course the sets are cool. The movie is actually produced by Alex McDowell, the production designer of THE CROW, FIGHT CLUB, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, THE CORPSE BRIDE, WATCHMEN and other nice looking movies.

My favorite scene would have to be the poker scene. Hartnett manages to get into a game with the reclusive Perlman. But because the crime boss is so untouchable he plays from out of the room, projected onto a screen (somehow from scratchy black and white film even though it’s live). The game is rigged, with lackeys standing above the ceiling with opera glasses, looking at people’s hands and communicating tips to Perlman via teletype. But Hartnett’s been established as good at card tricks, so it’s still a battle.

Later there’s a pretty cool car chase shot from above like a video game, and a breaking-a-guy-out-of-jail scene with a similar style. Like SCOTT PILGRIM, it makes old fashioned video game sound effects as he knocks out the different guys.

So what is it supposed to be? Is it supposed to be like a video game? Yes. And also origami, and a children’s pop-up book, but also a puppet show, but a western and a gangster movie or musical but a samurai movie, and also it does that thing where the live action gets traced over and it turns into really shitty comic book drawings for a little bit. I like that they’re putting a bunch of crazy shit in there but I feel like none if it has any reason or purpose, it’s just a list of shit with no subject at the top. I mean, I’m glad they were excited. But I feel like it could use either a meaning or a purpose or a vague sense of an internal logic of some kind or a plan for what it was supposed to be about or something like that. It should seem like the person who made it had thought it through somewhat.

That person who doesn’t seem to have done that is writer/director Guy Moshe, from a story by prolific b-action producer/writer Boaz Davidson (DELTA FORCE 3, US SEALS II, MANSQUITO, UNDISPUTED II, MEGA SNAKE, NINJA, THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN). I guess you could say Moshe shows potential because he’s at least trying to do something ambitious and unusual, but in my opinion he needs to learn how to focus it into a real story.

Hartnett’s kind of an interesting phenomenon. He’s hunky and often seems kind of flat and not so smart, and he’s in some bad movies, but you gotta admit he’s pretty adventurous in his choices. I mean, he’s not even 35 and he’s already worked with Robert Rodriguez, Sofia Coppola, Michael Bay, Ridley Scott and Brian DePalma, and played Michael Myers’s nephew and was pretty good fighting vampires in 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. So I can see why he would say yeah, I’ll wear a fedora, grow a mustache and learn martial arts for this origami, uh, Japanese post-apocalyptic puppet video game western comic strip thing or whatever. I was spacing out when you explained it but I trust you that it is a thing that makes sense and everything.

In my opinion Woody Harrelson is wasted as the bartender who explains alot of the stuff in between the parts where the narrator is explaining all the stuff. If he’s supposed to be Woody from Cheers when he’s older then he grew up to be not as funny. “The Bartender” is supposed to be their fighting mentor, but he just watches them fight and doesn’t show them anything. But I guess that’s the idea. I guess this character is arguably a little better than the one he was wasted playing in 2012.

In alot of ways this is like a much weirder version of WARRIOR’S WAY. Both are American movies that combine a samurai type story with a western, and put more emphasis on stylized visuals than the other aspects of the movie. But WARRIOR’S WAY is much more focused, it seems to have a specific idea of what it’s trying to do and it does it, rather than just squirting a bunch of random shit in all directions – samurais over here, KUNG FU HUSTLE guys over there, video game sound effects, origami, comics, whatever.

It’s an interesting movie to exist, and to look at, but not so much to watch.

If you never saw the first one I forgive you. And I think you’re gonna be okay without it. Of the many mixed martial arts/underground fighting movies of the last few years it’s the slickest and most Hollywood. It’s the standard teen subculture movie but with MMA instead of breakdancing or BMX bikes or whatever. Troubled new kid in town wants girl, she belongs to popular rich bully who also is the king of a notorious underground fighting tournament. I can’t recommend it when BLOOD AND BONE, DAMAGE, UNDISPUTED II-III and FIGHTING have all come out in recent years, but I did sort of enjoy the absurdity of these allegedly high school age dudes having their own Kumite Lite.

NEVER BACK DOWN 2 is the DTV sequel and it happens to be directed by the star of two of the above-mentioned better underground fight movies, Mr. Michael Jai White.

I was hoping NBD2 was just gonna take the name and do something totally unrelated, but MJW and original writer Chris Haughty do about half sticking with the feel of the original and half straightup badass. They keep the same corny teenager shit (now they’re college age) but since it’s done on a way lower budget it’s a different type of shitty. In part 1 there was a party scene with fancy crane shots of hundreds of people dancing outside at this big house overlooking a beach. In this movie the party could be in an actual dorm room or basement, there’s an ugly tie-dyed sheet hanging on the wall, but the camera floats around and changes speeds to show you how awesome it is. To be fair there is a guy about to score with a girl and another girl comes over and joins, so it’s a decent party.

There’s still the new kid at school who’s ashamed of his dad and has his eye on the hot girlfriend of the douchey guy, but this time the two are forced to learn together along with two other fighters. Their sensei is MJW himself as Case Walker, gruff ex-con fallen MMA star living and teaching out of a beat-up old trailer named Daisy on a lot he doesn’t own. He says “You pay me in blood, sweat and money” but also asks for a 20 lb. bag of potatoes as part of his first week’s fee.

Case is a great character, a scary Mr. Miyagi who’s not about to give his Daniel-San a car, and says he doesn’t expect to get any Christmas cards from his students. Which doesn’t mean he’s Jewish, it means they’re not exactly gonna have warm and fuzzy feelings for him. But he’s being modest. Even Pai Mei gets Christmas cards. Still, Case is an intimidating dude. One of his rules is “My bad, I forgot to mention shut the fuck up.”

During the teen movie parts MJW doesn’t seem like a better than average director, but he sure knows how to handle his own parts. Case has a classic entrance where he steps out of some shadows, just looks at a bunch of armed street thugs and causes them to run away. In other words he makes them back down! Don’t they know you never do that? Case doesn’t talk when he doesn’t have to, is rarely nice and never smiles. A great performance and character.

I guess they figured they needed some “real actors” in this thing besides MJW, some pretty boys that the audience is supposed to relate to. Apparently the main kid, Dean Geyer (the wrestler), is a blackbelt in karate, but he’s known for being on Australian Idol and a soap opera called Neighbours. The other dude, Alex Meraz (the boxer), plays somebody named “Paul” in all but the first TWILIGHT movie. I can’t imagine anybody disagreeing with me that the two experienced MMA fighters in the cast are way more interesting than those two. I’ll take friendly giant Todd Duffee’s stiff line readings and natural likability over those slick Saved By the Bell kids any day.

The weirdest character is Justin (Scottie Epstein), the kid with dyed black “emo” hair and eyeliner who another kid calls “Kurt Cobain.” He works at a comics shop, is rejected by a girl (”Not gonna happen, dork”), gets stabbed and robbed by thugs, and comes to Case to learn how to stand up for himself. He’s not as big as Marko Zaror in KILTRO but looks similarly ridiculous in the getup, even before I knew he was a real MMA fighter who usually has minimal hair and is packing a bunch of muscle under those baggy clothes. He seems at first like a corny KARATE KID type character who learns martial arts to stop bullies and get girls, then like comic relief, then goes in directions I didn’t expect at all.

The sub-titular “Beatdown” is a fight tournament that returns from part 1, now run by Max (Evan Peters), the geek sidekick from that installment. He’s a kid who became a big shot by knowing all the different fighters and without actually fighting himself. “It’s like a rave, only instead of drugs we get stoked on mayhem,” is how he describes his event.

The Beatdown is one of the lamer underground fighting tournaments in movies, because there’s no weapons, no fighting to the death, no exotic locations, and it’s just in a beat up old gym with local (admittedly topnotch) talent. The cops don’t even try to break it up. The only thing that makes it stand out from other small MMA events is an annoying DJ/commentator (Eddie Bravo). But like in most movies, and not real life, the winner has to go through multiple opponents in one night. That actually was a cool part of the early UFCs before they had to change all the rules because Senator John McCain was campaigning to ban the sport, calling it “human cockfighting.”

I feel good that I understood most of the MMA references (Case is friends with Lyoto Machida, we hear he’s fought Bas Rutten and Kevin Randleman, etc.), but those are pretty silly and they’re meaningless to non-MMA watchers. I don’t think that would be a drawback to enjoying the movie though.

I can’t claim this is on the level of UNDISPUTED II or BLOOD AND BONE. I didn’t like the two lead kids that much, there’s lots of cheesy rock music and you gotta be patient with the melodrama of the first 15 minutes before MJW shows up to make you care. I prefer action movies in a pure world of macho danger, not a college dorm where the heroes are worried about trying to ask out girls. Despite all that I kinda loved this movie, found myself re-watching it and showing people my favorite scenes (the first time we see Case, the first time Case sees the kids). It’s the original NEVER BACK DOWN hit with an MJW 2-knuckled straight punch to the face.

If nothing else, this movie is notable for the character of Case Walker, a main character but you’re left wanting more, hoping part 3 will just be about him fighting and not being a teacher. He has many quotable lines, but his facial expressions are even more memorable.

This movie almost could’ve not happened because he almost scares away the guys that come to train with him. They think they have an in because Max sent them, but he says “Max? You tell that little wannabe Dana White next time he sends a couple bitches over to train with me he gonna have some damn problems, now get the fuck outta here.” When one of his students insults another one he doesn’t tell him to cut it out, he tells the other kid to “Punch his ass in the face.” The nicest thing he does in the movie is not break a kid’s arm when he refuses to tap. He’s gotta be one of the most credible and intimidating fight mentors in an American movie. Would’ve been a hell of a brawl if he ever came across Bone or Iceman Chambers when he was locked up.

Having a great presence like that in the movie lures you in for the primal effectiveness of the sports movie cliches. I mean I know what they’re doing to me, still I want to tune in to see if they’ll win the tournament. It helps that the formula gets tweaked a little bit. The characters that fit the bill of good guy and bad guy don’t end up hating each other, and the guy that fits the geek wish fulfillment role the most turns out to be a psycho and kind of a bully himself.

The fight choreography is by Larnell Stovall (UNDISPUTED III, MORTAL KOMBAT LEGACY, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: A NEW DIMENSION) and it’s good. It’s way more grounded in real MMA than the high flying stuff in the UNDISPUTEDs, using all kinds of grappling moves, submission holds and reversals. But it’s still exaggerated for the cameras, going quickly from move to move to put on a good show. There are a whole bunch of training montages with some impressive continuous shots where the camera weaves through multiple fighters sparring. Also MJW fights a bunch of cops while handcuffed.

NEVER BACK DOWN 2: THE BEATDOWN fulfills its responsibility to be a DTV sequel that’s way better than the theatrical original, as well as its mission to create another classic role for Michael Jai White. Next I would like to see White direct himself in an action movie where he’s not tethered to notions of appealing to a young demographic or fans of a previous movie that’s not very good. I want to see Michael Jai White in STRAIGHT-AHEAD ACTION MOVIE, a film by Michael Jai White. But this’ll do for now.

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NEVER BACK DOWN 2 comes out September 13. For fuck’s sake get it legit-style to support the production of movies like this.

DETECTIVE DEE is playing in American theaters now so check it out, but it’s also come out on legit UK blu-ray so that’s how I saw it.

This is kind of a more popcorn take on the Chinese historical epic. It takes place before the coronation of Empress Wu (Carina Lau), China’s only female emperor. Preparations are underway for a huge to-do, most notably the construction of a Statue of Liberty sized Buddha. Suddenly the previous emperor and another guy mysteriously burst into flames. An unfriendly albino named Pei (Deng Chao) is on hand to investigate, but the Empress knows what a threat to her coronation this exploding business is so she sends for China’s best detective: a guy she locked up 8 years ago for supposedly betraying her.

That’s Detective Dee of course, played by Andy Lau from HOUSE OF THE FLYING DAGGERS. There’s a little Snake Plissken here ’cause he’s a prisoner called into reluctant duty, but he’s more of a Sherlock Holmes, always deducting shit. He’s got a Rip Van Winkle/HARD TO KILL type beard and I was worried they’d keep him that way to appeal to today’s self-consciously ungroomed rock ‘n roller fuzzballs, but fortunately he cuts it down to a little pointy goatee.

He’s got a pretty good team of supporting players. Pei resents Dee being in charge, but contributes alot in the detectiving department. Dee also has an old friend with a scar on his face and a hook hand. They served time together for “the betrayal” but that guy’s now in charge of building the Buddha, so he has inside information for the investigation. Jing’er (Li Bingbing) is a pretty lady who’s Empress Wu’s personal assistant or something so she’s sent to work for Dee.

There’s alot of sexual tension there. She’s pissed that the Empress sent her to “serve him,” nudge nudge, and she’s even more pissed that he acts like he has no sexual interest in her. When she straddles him and it seems like he’s gonna go for it it turns out he’s just thrusting to move her out of the way of an onslaught of arrows. You know how it is. Just a rescue thrust.

Jing’er has a whip, longer than Indiana Jones’s and with more capabilities. She uses it like it’s an extension of her arm, like it’s a tentacle. That comes in handy alot, but Dee tops it with one of the coolest weapons I’ve seen in a long time, the dragon-taming mace. It’s a long metal staff with a spinning piece that creates vibration sounds to detect cracks in an opponent’s weapon so he can hit it in exactly the right place to shatter it. It also works on architecture.

With that crew and that awesome weapon Dee goes to work, following clues, figuring shit out, detecting. It’s a real mystery story, but not exactly grounded in reality. There are “logical” explanations for spontaneous combustion and talking deers and shit, but it’s fantastical logic, maybe a little Scooby-Doo. Except Scooby-Doo doesn’t have a way that you can put a needle in your neck to disguise your face. It’s accupuncture Mission:Impossible. But that’s not a criticism. It’s fantasy but thankfully not the kind where they just explain everything by saying “there was an evil wizard guy who did magic.”

It’s funny, this is kind of a genre now, you take an old detective character from your culture (in this case an actual historical figure turned literary character) and make a big expensive movie with a murder mystery and fantastical happenings in a stylized artificial version of a historical period. For example the French have that Pitof movie VIDOCQ, and the British have that Guy Ritchie movie SHERLOCK HOLMES, although he forgot to put a mystery in it as far as I could tell. Detective Dee follows in that tradition but since it’s Chinese it also has great martial arts sequences.

The action director is the great Sammo Hung. I read that Tsui wanted the fighting to be realistic, but I don’t know man, he still has some wires to make people hop around nimbly, skipping across objects like a pebble across the surface of a lake. They land in cool poses, sometimes they leap into the air and spin around several times before hitting or kicking. I like that shit. They kick logs through the air, catch arrows right before they hit, latch their whips onto things and swing around. Also there’s a fight against some CGI deer. I cannot stress that enough. That is something I have not seen before. And the best fight is a Hollywood type climax, a battle taking place inside a location that’s crumbling to pieces. The ol’ climactic spectacular destruction.

It’s real good stuff, but don’t expect Hung to top himself. I much prefer IP MAN 1 and 2’s fights. They’re more memorable showstoppers and stronger character moments.

I’ve seen better but I was very satisfied with this picture. I look forward to DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE TBD if they ever make one.

ABOUT THE ENDING, FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEEN IT:

But you know what, did you notice at the end that the albino guy was right? He had zeroed in on the actual culprit early on, but Dee vouched for him and got him off the trail. So Dee actually fucked up, if he hadn’t been involved they might’ve solved the case way earlier and prevented alot of trouble.

But I’ll forgive him if he lets me borrow the dragon-taming staff just for like a weekend some time.

The only nominee I’d seen already was IP MAN 2, but there were two nominees I’d been planning to see: John Woo’s REIGN OF ASSASSINS and Tsui Hark’s DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME. Then the other two were STOOL PIGEON and GALLANTS.

Wouldn’t it make me a real fuckin innovator if I completely ignored the Oscars but made a huge deal about the Hong Kong Film Awards? That would’ve been pretty good. Too bad I did make a big deal about the Oscars and that the HKFAs happened about 5 months ago. So in my opinion I’m a little late on executing that idea, but back then it seemed like an achievable dream. The writer on kungfucinema said this GALLANTS was the best and wished it would sweep all the top categories, so I tracked it down first. Then I wrote a partial review and forgot about it for months until I finally saw DETECTIVE DEE.

GALLANTS is about a put-upon nerd named Cheung (You-Nam Wong) sent by the real estate office he works for to a small village. Although he is an adult male he gets bullied by a little kid there and has to get rescued by an old cripple (Siu-Lung Leung).

Cheung follows the old man to a tea shop called The Gate of Law. Turns out The Gate of Law used to be a martial arts club, but the master (Teddy Robin Kwan) has been in a coma for 30 years, watched over by his now elderly pupils Dragon (Kuan Tai Chen) and Tiger (the cripple). Soon they clash with another martial arts club that’s organizating a big tournament and also trying to foreclose their property or something. Cheung is supposed to be there for his job but he starts to believe in the grumpy old men and wants to learn kung fu from them, which in my opinion is a good idea considering there are so many little kids, old ladies, small animals etc. out there. It’s a dangerous world for a guy like him.

So it’s a movie that uses old men fighting as both a joke and a heart-string tugger. They wear thick glasses and fanny packs but do real kung fu. It really seems like they got the idea from the old masters in KUNG FU HUSTLE – they even got the same guy that played The Beast playing Tiger. They also have alot of the cartoony shit including a chirpy sound effect when a guy gets hit in the balls. But I read an interview with one of the directors and it sounded like they kind of came to this idea separately. So maybe it’s not a copy but it’s not good when it keeps reminding you of another movie that you kind of wish you were watching instead.

Part of the story is that the master wakes up and he turns out to be a goofy little troll of a man who’s a womanizer and an asshole. He just immediately begins insulting everybody and making ridiculous demands, and to be honest I didn’t even like looking at the little fucker, he’s an obnoxious little monkey man that I quickly hoped would achieve re-comatosis.

(To be fair to Teddy Robin he is apparently a talented dude, he also composed the score and was a pop star under the name Teddy Robin and the Playboys. The Playboys do not appear in GALLANTS.)

These are real martial artists so the fights are legit, but I didn’t find them exciting at all. They just don’t really innovate or even do anything too spectacular other than having some funny looking old guys doing the moves. I really can’t relate to kungfucinema wanting this to win best choreography over Sammo Hung’s great work on IP MAN 2. I looked it up though and Sammo won.

I think people rooted for GALLANTS because it was an underdog, a lower budget movie and not a big historical epic. It takes place in the modern day in a small town, it’s very nostalgic for the old Shaw Brothers movies and stuff, and it’s got that universal appeal of the old guys talking up the old values that are being ignored today. The bad guys are these competitive assholes that teach martial arts for the money, they’re shown as being disconnected from the ancient traditions and values.

But filmatistically I would argue that the movie itself is disconnected from the ancient traditions and values. Like so many Hollywood movies now it’s alot about trying to stylize the shit out of each individual shot and not so much about connecting the shots into a fluent, well-timed piece of communication. The movie has two directors (Clement Sze-Kit Cheng and Chi-kin Kwok) and they’re not like the CRANK dudes but they are the type who have very little restraint when it comes to cramming spazzy visual gimmicks into their movie. Every time a major character is introduced they freeze frame and credit them like in an old Shaw Brothers trailer, so 45 minutes into the movie they’re still crediting the actors. They got a bunch of sped up shit and flashbacks done as scratchy old movies or 3-Dified still photos and flashes of x-rays when people get punched and shit like that. And the nerd guy is very over-the-top, he acts more like a dude in a commercial for a children’s sugar product than a human being. I found the whole thing a little obnoxious.

Luckily these boys do have the sense to calm things down sometimes, slow down, get quiet, and try to get some of the ol’ emotion out of these characters. I think it’s meant sincerely, and it’s also nice to see a Chinese movie that doesn’t seem like some kind of veiled government propaganda. But I still think the values of the story are questionable. The Master was said to be a harsh teacher, like a Pai Mei type I guess, and when he wakes up he definitely is cruel and selfish. And here are these poor guys who have dedicated their lives to taking care of him because they think he’s this great martial artist.

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a heartwarming tale of inspiration, but to me it’s a tragic story. At the very end of his life (SPOILER) the master says a couple nice things to his two lackeys, revealing that he was more observant than he let on, and hearing those compliments inspires them in their lives and fighting skills. Okay, that’s cute.

But the movie acts like that makes it all okay, like it’s supposed to legitimize their relationships. I don’t buy it. Too little too late. Yeah, I’m glad he was able to give them some kind words at the end, but they still spent decades wasting their lives for the benefit of a guy that treats them like shit.

And that might be a good way to teach kung fu, but what good does it do them now? They’re old, and they can already fight good enough to protect the nerd guy from the little kid. What else are they gonna need it for?

I don’t mean to entirely dismiss GALLANTS. It’s got some entertainment value and some unique aspects. I just think it’s flash and posturing over substance and if that’s gonna be the case I want some way better flash and posturing.

See, he’s General Guan of the Three Kingdoms Era. I had to go back and check my handy RED CLIFF chart to remember, but Guan was one of the two generals working under Lui Bei to stand on the cliff and face the much larger army and navy of Cao Cao. He’s not the human battering ram with the eyebrows, he’s the other one.

This story takes place before RED CLIFF in my opinion. Guan has been captured by Cao Cao. Cao Cao tries to get him to join his side, but says if he decides he wants to leave then nobody will stop him. So he leaves, and everywhere he goes people try to stop him. Of course he’s Donnie Yen, so he takes on alot of people at once, and handles them. From his and our perspective he’s just defending himself from the people who attack him, but to other people it looks like he’s on a killing spree.

The reason he’s lost, though, is because he doesn’t want to fight anymore. He just wants to be a humble farmer. He makes deals to kill guys for Cao Cao, but only when he believes it will cause peace or prevent a much larger number of deaths. He hates violence, and that’s something that’s hard to deal with when you’re really, really good at violence. It’s one of my favorite types of asskickers: the aspiring pacifist.

The reason he’s a bladesman is because he’s really good with one of those spears that have a big fat sword on the end. He also uses regular swords, but it’s cool that the spear thing is his main weapon.

There are several good action scenes. The opening has epic warfare with armies, arrows, battering rams and all that. It has a nice look to it, solid primary colors on some of the banners and stuff jump out in the middle of otherwise washed out colors. But pretty real looking, not slick and digital.

The rest of the action is more personal, the bladesman in very intimate conflicts with a mere 10-50 warriors at a time. I like when he’s running through the woods and there’s a bow and arrow sniper in the trees above. Or the horse chase through a walkway where he scrapes his blade along the top of the wall to knock tiles all over the guy that’s chasing him. Then they stop and duel, but the place is so narrow that their blades keep hitting the walls. Kinda like that fight in the mobile home in RAISING ARIZONA when he scrapes his knuckles on the textured ceiling.

But the most memorable fight in the movie is definitely the one you don’t see. He’s surrounded by a bunch of guys, and some doors swing closed in front of the camera. We hear a brawl and glimpse movement in the crack between the doors, and when they open again Guan is standing there surrounded by dead bodies. I bet some people will be mad they don’t get to see it, but I think the cleverness of the leave-it-to-your-imagination staging beats whatever they could’ve shown.

But this isn’t wall-to-wall action, it’s alot of talking and melodrama, philosophical disagreements and lamenting about forbidden love. I like it, but I don’t think it translates as well as the best of this type. It would probly be better if I had an understanding of these historical events and figures, ’cause I think it might be trying to show a different angle on Guan and Cao Cao, and that’s hard to follow if you don’t know the previous angle. But it’s an interesting polite enemy type of relationship between the two.

The movie is written and directed by Felix Chong and Alan Mak, (DEPARTED ORIGINS: INFERNAL AFFAIRS). I liked it better than their last Donnie Yen joint, LEGEND OF THE FIST. That one had some good action but lost me with its tired masked vigilante angle, and if this one is as blatant about being Chinese government propaganda then I was too ignorant of history to decode it.

This is definitely no RED CLIFF, but it’s fun, and will probly help to re-popularize that spear/sword weapon thing. I’m not somebody who picks up alot of these gadgets like smart phones, book replacers, etc. but that seems like a useful one to have around.

p.s. Bladesmen would also be a good nickname for fans of the movie BLADE, just like fans of Twilight call themselves “Twi-hards,” fans of The Big Bang Theory call themselves “Bigots,” etc.

If you’re like me, that’s all you really need to know. I didn’t bother to find out what it was about before I saw it, but you’re already here and we got some time so I might as well tell you. A team of attractive young stunt people (called “Fight Club” in the subtitles, “Fighting Club” in the credits) are in the finals of some kind of reality show competition for stunt people. They’re competing against another team called Stunt For Life and the winner will get to “go to Hollywood.” It must be the dream of every Thai stunt person to go to Hollywood so they don’t have to get knocked off those trucks anymore.

They do (spoiler) win the competition, but there’s a catch. At a celebratory dinner they’re drugged, and they wake up the next day in an abandoned building. They’re looking around, trying to figure out what’s going on when a DEATH RACE type reinforced car drives in and starts running them over (but they’re stunt people, so they can roll over it safely). Soon they learn that that whole Hollywood thing was bullshit, actually some of their friends are kidnapped and they have to fight thugs to rescue them while rich people watch on closed circuit cameras and bet on their fates. So it’s like THE HANGOVER meets THE RUNNING MAN, I guess.

If you win American Idol you get a hit record, one lady got an Oscar. This show you win, you get put in a human cockfight. The whole thing is run by a decadent American, Mr. Sneed, played by some guy named Speedy Arnold. He only speaks English and he refuses to stop smoking his cigar in a hospital because “that would be a Thai law. I’m not Thai.” He hosts a couple of evil rich people from different countries in a lounge set up inside a trailer, with beautiful servants serving them drinks and sitting on their laps.

The bad guy fighters have handkerchiefs on their faces or wear masks, except for a fighting transvestite with his nipples showing through his lingerie. Of course he
has to be unmasked – his wig and cup removed, his balls bashed and headbutted. Also in the middle of everything is a cartoonish gay stereotype wedding musician who’s supposed to be the comedy relief, I’m sure, but could really, really stand to be entirely removed from the movie. Jesus.

At one point a pair of hands tears through a wall behind a good guy, grabs him and pulls him off screen, then tosses him back in. It’s a trademark Jason Voorhees move, so I was really happy when the perpetrator turned out to be a big, lumbering Jason type, complete with a mask (like Jason Statham’s Frankenstein mask in DEATH RACE) and an ax. For a while it becomes a slasher movie with acrobatic martial artists as the prey. The Jason guy even catches fire and continues to walk around slowly, bust through walls, etc. But when he swings his ax at them they know how to fight back.

There’s a ridiculous amount and variety of action. They run around, nimbly leaping on top of, over and through things, rolling, flipping, tripping, bouncing off walls, dangling from heights by one arm, dropping through trap doors and solid floors. The good guys and bad guys leap across opposite ledges and crash mid-air. They fight with fists, spinning and flying kicks, headbutts, various metal poles and knives.

There’s a great fight inside a chain link cage, with the fighters constantly climbing like Spider-man, hanging upside down, flipping and bouncing off the sides. But the most memorable fight is the huge warehouse rumble that might be inspired by the one in HARD BOILED. There are people doing complex, choreographed fights in the foreground while in the background you can see all kinds of other stunts going on. Must’ve been a pain in the ass to shoot. The reinforced car shows up and starts doing donuts, just nailing everybody, like 6 or 7 people rolling over it at a time. Eventually the car gets pinned down and they fight on top of it. It turns very pliable all the sudden and they crush each others’ heads through the windows, the doors, the hood, they leap on top of each other and crush each others’ bodies into the cavity of the crunched vehicle, like they have super strength.

Leading the team of mercenary killers is an older guy I recognized from Tony Jaa movies or something. I thought it was the director at first, but probly not. Anyway he represents the old generation, he claims he could handle all the kids by himself, but his boss is skeptical because he’s old and has asthma. Eventually the old guy does have to take the whole Fighting Club on by himself, and does an impressive job. He stands on top of some of their unconscious bodies as he fights the others (at that age your feet can get sore if you don’t have some sort of padding to stand on), he impales their arms with metal spikes, punches them in their throats. Only after they’ve all been beaten to a pulp, and they’re collectively crawling around pulling on his legs, and wrestling his asthma inhaler away from him, can they finally just barely scrape together a victory.

There’s alot of goofy shit in here. The sort-of main dude is kind of sadsack who wears baggy sweaters and has bangs down over his eyes, but happens to know how to do 720 degree spinning kicks and shit. Also they got a mom who comes to their practices and brings them all sandwiches, and they all call her “Mom.” I will not give away whether or not she gets kidnapped and they have to rescue her. But of course it’s all treated very seriously, except for the wacky gay guy, and the Farrelly brothers style credits where the injured survivors get up out of their hospital beds and dance around.

Alot of people say that the plots in ONG BAK, TOM-YUM-GOONG and CHOCOLATE are shitty and they like the movies despite them, but I think BKO, as fun as it is, makes you appreciate the stories in those other ones. There’s a simplicity to them that really works. They each have one lead character with a big problem, they are on a journey to achieve a specific goal, and as they travel through different areas the action varies and escalates. This one I guess has the one big problem and is even more simplified since it takes place mostly in the one location. But it has something like 10 main characters to keep track of, all in one building but in different parts of it. You don’t really feel like you know or care about them much and you have to remember what’s going on in the different parts of the building. Also it keeps cutting to brief flashbacks, mostly from the dinner party before they passed out, and that’s not necessary.

Meanwhile you have all kinds of stunts and fighting techniques but since it’s almost entirely in the one building it manages to feel more repetitive than it ought to. The other movies have more of a progression to them.

My favorite Thai action movie is actually the 2004 version of BORN TO FIGHT, which is also a big ensemble. But since they were all athletes representing different sports they each had a specialty (such as gymnastics or kicking soccer balls) that set them apart from each other. Also it was mostly outdoors so there was more variety in the action as they were traveling around and things were exploding and shit.

This also doesn’t look as good as those other movies. I believe it’s shot on some kind of digital video that kind of looks like a shitty TV show sometimes, and there are annoying white flashes throughout the movie for reasons I could not discern. Some of this might be the particularly bad DVD screener they sent out, which had multiple watermarks, plus the usual switching to black and white periodically and for some reason a 4:3 transfer. So maybe it’s not fully color corrected and will look better in the real release (maybe the people who saw it at Actionfest can verify that for us).

But those are reasons why BKO is not the best of these types of movies. They’re not enough to hold it back.  It’s still an incredible collection of things you’ve never seen before, and in the final stretch, when the Club get free and come after the bosses, the action does finally change locations in an exciting way. We’re denied the satisfaction of a complete comeuppance (partly because they never get to go after the gamblers) but they do get to enter the trailer lounge and fuck some shit up just as it’s being pulled away on a truck. While one character climbs on the top of the trailer another has a fist and gun fight inside and two others have a martial arts duel while hanging beneath the undercarriage. You gotta respect a movie that does that. For now on, and starting with this one, any movie that has that will get my respect.