Red Eagle
Director: Wisit Sasanatieng
Year: 2010
Country: Thailand
Starring: Ananda Everingham
In another lifetime and in another galaxy not far from here I used to
help program the New York Asian Film Festival and one of my annual duties
was to check in with Five Star Production Company to see if the film Red
Eagle would be ready for our festival. This went on for five years and every
year the answer would come back “Not yet”. It was a long gestation, but the
film finally hit the screens in Bangkok last week with a publicity bang.
Red Eagle is a modern updating of a very beloved film character from a series
of films in the 1960’s played by then action superstar Mitr Chaibancha. The
films and Mitr gained even more legendary status when he died doing a stunt
in what turned out to be the final film in the series in 1970.
That wasn’t the reason though that the NYAFF was so excited about the film
since none of us had seen any of those old films. Our excitement stemmed
from the fact that the director put in charge of the project was Wisit Sasanatieng,
whose film debut Tears of the Black Tiger in 2000 was simply one of the most
marvelously inventive and playful blasts of color and design ever put to
canvass. His 2004 follow-up Citizen Dog was also awash in colors and eccentricities
and this created a certain cult status around the director in the West. In
2006 his third film, The Unseeable, was released and it disappointed many
fans in that he backed away from the eye-popping color palette of his two
previous films to deliver an old fashioned atmospheric haunted house tale
that was miles away from the current typical blood and entrails Thai horror
film. What all three films had in common besides a clear love on Wisit’s
part for old Thai films was box office failure. They all bombed. More Westerners
have probably seen his films than Thai’s. This recently had Wisit saying
that after those three films he had to have a commercial success or no one
would invest in his films anymore. He went on to say that he would have loved
to have made Red Eagle in the same style as the old series but that would
never work for today’s audience. This film needed to make real money and
not just be a film festival favorite. This background brings us to and explains
to a large degree Red Eagle.
Though Red Eagle has a few splashes of style (with a Bond like opening sequence
and credits) and a few drops of humor, it is overall a very standard conventional
angst ridden super hero film along the lines of Batman or The Punisher. It
is surprisingly violent with decapitated heads and arms flying around like
awoken bats in a dark cave. The narrative is simplistic and the characterization
is almost non-existent. Red Eagle is out for vengeance in an angry sullen
morphine addicted manner, but very little of his past is shown and he never
engenders any sympathy or understanding. He is a cipher behind his mask and
his muted expressions. The other characters are all from the stock storage
room – the young cute cop out to get him, the evil doers behind their masks,
the girl who loves him for unknown reasons and a bunch of salacious corrupt
politicians who litter the landscape.
What makes the film work though to a large degree is that Wisit fills the
running time with one action sequence after another and they are fairly well
done. In particular, when you consider that the budget though high for a
Thai film is still miniscule compared to an action film made in Hollywood.
Wisit had to make a decision I suppose at some point whether to use a high
profile leading man or one of Thailand’s many action stars. He went with
the former choice in Ananda Everingham, one of Thailand’s best known young
actors – but one clearly not up to snuff in martial arts. Therefore the film
is very closely and quickly edited and I would have to assume doubled. Even
so, the action sequences are theatrical, imaginative, suspenseful and are
like waiting for a bus – there is another one coming right around the corner.
The standout sequence is when Red Eagle is pitted against a paid assassin,
Black Devil, and their combat takes them across the rooftops of the city,
crashing into and demolishing a department store and fighting on top of a
falling elevator. It is a pretty terrific set piece. But when the action
stops, the sludge begins of ill-fated romance, social issues, corrupt politics
and silly cops.
What really came as a surprise was the ending – there isn’t one ala Ong Bak
2. Sitting there I was beginning to think that this was going to be a very
long movie because there were loads of bad guys still to be killed, when
suddenly the film announces that this concludes Part 1. I thought it was
an in-joke regarding the serial nature of the old films – but nope it was
really the end and the lights were coming on. I don’t know if Part II is
already in the can (a quick glimpse of the next film – morbidly Red Eagle
is on a ladder trying to board a helicopter – i.e. how Mitr died - was shown)
or whether the success of this film will determine whether it is made. But
Wisit has already made noises that Red Eagle will be his last film and one
senses that he is very burned out. Maybe critical success came too early.
My rating for this film: 7.5
