After watching Bangkok Dog (2024) a short
time ago, I went in search of more films with the two stars of that film,
D.Y. Sao and Brian Le. Their martial art fights felt like a throwback to
an earlier age. Incredibly fierce and fast with acrobatics that come out
of nowhere. In that review I compared them both to Tony Jaa and a young Sammo
Hung.
This film came out two years before Bangkok
Dog and was clearly made on a much smaller budget and a script that should
not have seen the light of day. It is all filmed in an interior set of hallways
and small rooms. The film is dark and murky throughout. Where? When? Why?
Is never answered. It just is. It appears to be set in some grim post apocalyptic
future, but all we see of it is this broken down building with grimy people
living in it and forming a community. Children have been disappearing at
night, taken by some unseen force. Ghosts or demons perhaps. They hire a
night watchmen to protect them.
D.Y. Sao with his own internal demons takes
the job for a room and food. He has painful flashbacks of when he was in
a street gang completely demolishing others in brutal fights. Bringing
the full monty as he breaks arms, legs, necks in an unrelenting, unmerciful
fury. Sao is not a big guy but no one no matter how big intimidates him.
But now he is up against something very different and this is where the film
goes off the tracks in a big way.
Children in films are normally stolen to
be marketed for sex, organs, slaves or adoption. But here they are being
kidnapped by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who think they can bring
on the end of the world by doing something with these children. I will admit
to getting completely lost from this point on. As best as I could tell they
were just people in Mardi Gras masks. Sao is killed but brought back to life
as Hanuman. Or something. Hell of I know. Some nice fights and finally we
get to the fight between Sao and Le. The highlight of the film. In a narrow
hallway. Sped up some but still a treat. But someone out there has to put
these two guys into a decently budgeted Hong Kong film. The Executive Producer
of this was Prachya Pinkaew, the guy who was behind as either producer or
director of most of the great Thai action films. He also was producer of
Bangkok Dog. So he knows what he has. Just find them a better film.
