The Kick
Director: Prachya Pinkaew
Year: 2011
Rating: 5.5
Country:
Thailand
This is a bit of an oddball film that
I stumbled across. It is a Korean-Thai co-production or perhaps Thai-Korean.
Hard to say. Most of the actors are Korean but it takes place in Bangkok
and the director is Prachya Pinkaew, who was behind those Thai action films
like Chocolate, Ong-Bak and The Bodyguard. And he brings in two Thai actors
who are familiar to most of us from his action films - Mum Jokmok and the
wonderful Jeeja Yanin (This Girl is Bad Ass, Raging Phoenix). It is a real
mixed bag as is the film itself. It has some truly awful drama with a number
of action set-pieces that range from ok to pretty inventive. But I had just
finished watching a Hong Kong kung-fu film from the 1970s and in comparison,
the fighting felt lackluster and soft. No one seems to be able to hit hard
- none of it feels real. Like everyone is holding back in fear they will
hurt the other actor. Sammo has said to make it seem real it has to be real
- you have to be willing to take a punch. It feels like feather dusting at
times. On the other hand, there is some real physical talent on board but
that is primarily showcased in the gymnastics - the incredible high kicks
and flips.
It centers on a Korean family that has moved
to Bangkok and set up a Taekwondo gym. The father, the mother and their three
children are all trained in Taekwondo. The father wants his son Tae Yang
to try out for the Olympics but all the son really wants to do is become
a pop singer and dancer. Tae Yang is played by Na Tae-joo who has won competitions
in Taekwondo and shows some astonishing agility in the film. Unfortunately,
he has the screen presence of a lump of butter. When he isn't in movement,
he practically disappears. Or you wish he would. Thailand has just received
an ancient artifact called the Kris of Kings - a blade of sorts in which
it is told that it has the power to . . . you got it . . . to control the
world. A few Korean villains with an endless supply of Thai thugs steal it
and then lose it to Tae Yang who has seen what it is. In the fight his teenage
sister joins in and they recover it and become heroes. The sister is Tai-mi
and she also shows some fine skills.
The bad Koreans want revenge against the
family and keep getting their asses kicked - so the parents send their children
to stay with a Thai friend. This is where Mum finally shows up - and his
niece played by Jeeja. They live on an animal preserve with elephants and
monkeys. The kids initially hate it because they are out of wifi range and
have no Facebook but they are adjusting when a boatload of thugs show up
and kidnap the young boy. Tae Yang is losing fights until a monkey turns
on his phone with his dance music and using his dance moves - even the moon
walk - and kicks their asses. All of them. And then tries to take a shortcut
to catch the van by jumping off a cliff about 50-feet high into a waterfall
to catch them. Some shortcut! He doesn't catch them.
The big finale at the Bangkok Zoo is actually
fairly impressive in which all of them take on an army of bad guys with pots
and pans, elephants and some great stunts. Tae Yang kicks a guy off of an
elephant from the ground without wires. The mother runs through a bunch of
sleepy crocodiles, Jeeja and the Tai-mi just beat the hell out of a lot of
guys. This goes on for about 20-minutes and amazingly there is no staff,
no customers and the police only show up when it is finished. Still there
are some nifty bits in there - one fight on top of some crates with fans
revolving right above them and people getting clanged if they stand too high.
This should have been better - it is all there but it feels like family entertainment
and we can't show any real violence. Jeeja of course rocks.
