7 Pra Chan Ban (Heaven’s Seven)
Reviewed by Simon Booth
Director: Chalerm Wongpim
Year: 2002
Starring: Pongpat Wachirabunjong, Theng Therdtherng, Ummarin Nitipon
Time: 1 hr 51 minutes
Heaven's Seven aka 7 Prachabaan aka 7 Pra
Chan Ban aka 7 pra-jan-barn is a new movie from Thailand, billed an "action
comedy" with a seemingly high budget that's bought some explosive action and
some special effects that are quite good, in a bad sort of way (or bad in
a good sort of way). Since I'm probably one of the first westerners to have
seen the movie I probably should write a long detailed review, but there
doesn't seem much point since I'm just going to conclude that it's not a
very good movie and you'd be wasting your time trying to see it.
The movie takes a Kelly's Heroes kind of plot where 7 inept soldiers have
to transcend their failings when they get mixed up in a plot by American
soldiers to bury napalm on Thai soil, and totally mismanage it. It tries
to introduce way too many characters and fails to develop any of them. The
story has no narrative structure and fails to create any real interest. Quite
a lot of effort has been put into the action sequences, but they're still
well below the quality of a Hollywood or Hong Kong action movie.
Some of the special effects are pretty good, but they seriously overstretch
themselves in the finale and look silly as a result. The comedy either doesn't
translate well or simply isn't very funny (on the subject of translation,
I don't know how accurately the use of the word fuck in every other sentence
in the subtitles reflects the Thai, but it sounds kind of like the subtitler
was just seeing how much swearing he could get away with when nobody else
speaking English was likely to see the film).
It's always nice to see Americans as bad guys once in a while, but the movie
fails to really convince that soldiers secretly burying napalm are any worse
than the generally treacherous and mean spirited Thai soldiers that are meant
to be the heroes. The American actors in the cast are also much bigger, butcher
and meaner looking than any of the Thai cast, making it totally implausible
that they'd lose the fight. Well, I guess I already wrote more than I meant
to. Really the movie's not very good though, and I don't recommend exerting
any effort whatsoever to see it.
Reviewed by Brian
Most of the time I find myself in agreement
with Simon's opinions on the Thai films we have both seen, but I have to admit
to rather enjoying this somewhat lunatic film that mixes spitballs of action,
sentimentality and a comic irreverance. It's certainly miles from being a
classic and perhaps not even being good, but it has a spasmodic goofiness
and style that often brought a wry smile to my face. For those that may have
enjoyed Killer Tattoo, this film has a similar spirit that is also fast paced
if not always logical and has a big bang ending that seems to go on forever.
The fellow who played Elvis in Killer Tattoo has a role here as well.
It takes place during the Vietnam war and a group of ex-Thai soldiers who
fought there are hired to steal a truckload of treasure from the American
military. It turns out though that the rotten Americans are actually burying
napalm in Thailand and after the Seven steal a truck load of it, the Americans
send a platoon of nasty killers after them to get it back. It is sort of
fun seeing the American military portrayed as the very bad guys and to see
how another country can look at things very differently than we do here in
the States. Not that this is a political treatise - it is basically just
a lot of silliness, but one that clearly was meant to make the Thai audiences
feel pretty good about their boys kicking some American butt.
The Thai DVD has English subtitles.
My rating for this films: 6.0