Tom Yum Goong 2 (Review)
Tom Yum Goong 2
aka ต้มยำกุ้ง 2 aka The Protector 2
2013
Written by Eakisit Thairaat
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
An elephant gets stolen again, causing Tony Jaa to kick lots of people again. This time, the stunts are bigger and 3D driven, but also more CGI enhanced and less realistic, which is a shame. There is no long tracking shot like in Tom Yum Goong, and the more memorable fights are remembered because of their gimmicks, not because of their awesomeness. But that sounds like I’m bagging on Tom Yum Goong 2 a bit hard, it was still some good fun, even if it can’t live up to it’s predecessor. And let’s face it, there aren’t many martial arts films that can.
Tom Yum Goong 2 went into production in August 2011. It was delayed by horrible Thailand floods, Tony Jaa doing weird things, production infighting, Jeeja’s unplanned pregnancy, and a bunch of other problems too boring to reiterate. It’s more of a minor miracle the film was completed at all, and isn’t terrible. But the money and the problems changed a few things for the worse, and didn’t give anything in return.
The fights are now 3D, so there is less continual choreography and long shots and more 3D-ish effects, which sort of makes them worse. The made-for-3Dness makes the CGI additions a lot more noticeable, especially when you aren’t watching in 3D. But even if I was, there wasn’t that much going on that made me wish I was watching in 3D. 3D doesn’t make the kicks any harder, nor does it make the tracking shots suddenly several minutes long. All we get is a few random CGI items floating across the screen. The most creative shots they didn’t even use outside of one part, which was a POV facecam as Kham was running from a bunch of goons.
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Jeeja Vismistananda, Jeeja Yanin, Marrese Crump, martial arts, Petchtai Wongkamlao, RZA, Thailand, Tom-Yum-Goong 2, Tony Jaa, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam
Tom-Yum-Goong (Review)
Tom-Yum-Goong
aka ต้มยำกุ้ง aka The Protector
2005
Written by Prachya Pinkaew, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee, Napalee, Piyaros Thongdee, and Joe Wannapin
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
“Where’s my elephant?” – Kham, like 1000 times.
“Where’s my elephant?” demanded the small man with the big confidence. The goons stood and smirked, surely this small man was small and thus no threat. The next thing they remember is waking up in the hospital, having been kicked through the door. Thus the adventure begins as Tony Jaa searches for his missing elephants and people get the crap beat out of them from Thailand to Australia. Along the way there is a complicated plot about illegal food smugglers and amoral businesses and gang rivalries, but the plot is the least of our worries. Because Tom-Yum-Goong (or The Protector if you’re watching the American version) is the film that features a 4 minute long single take of Tony Jaa fighting his way up several flights of stairs with goons all the way. It is, quite simply, one of the most amazing fight sequences in cinema.
Tom-Yum-Goong is the followup to Ong Bak, the film that put Tony Jaa and Prachya Pinkaew on the international map. Jaa and Pinkaew would have on set troubles in all subsequent films, with the two feuding about funding and unexplained absences. Ong Bak 2, Ong Bak 3, and Tom Yum Goong 2 would all have various production problems and delays, with causes ranging from the aforementioned arguing to political strife to disastrous flooding to a marriage and a pregnancy!
Whatever future events would be, the fact is that everything aligned to make Tom-Yum-Goong an amazing action film. The choreography is amazing, Tony Jaa pulls off a huge assortment of stunts and once he gets going, will fight what amounts to a ridiculous amount of opponents on his quest to rescue his elephants. We don’t even see the beginning shot, we just see the bodyguard fly into the room to signify that Kham and begun to beat everyone up. That was an editing choice, as the initial punches were filmed, but it works so much better to have the sudden crash. Tom-Yum-Goong is filled with creativity, from the fight up the stairway that just goes on and on to the fights in a flooded temple that is visually stunning. The villains have at their disposal a near limitless amount of goons on extreme sports equipment, from inline skates to dirt bikes, all of which come riding in to beat the tar out of Kham, and all of which fail miserably. Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai even developed a new style of Muay Thai they called Muay Koshasan to represent an elephant fighting style. The attention to little details that have a big impact to make the film look unique is all part of the charm.
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Bongkoj Khongmalai, Johnny Nguyen, Jon Foo, Lateef Crowder, martial arts, Nathan Jones, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Prachya Pinkaew, Sotorn Rungruaeng, Thailand, Tony Jaa, Xing Jin
Tom Yum Goong 2 trailers and posters
Media for the upcoming Tom Yum Goong 2 has begun appearing online. First up was a first trailer, followed by the above-embedded second teaser. In addition, the Tom Yum Goong 2 facebook page has been posting character posters, which are posted below. There are posters for Tony Jaa as Kham, Jija Yanin as Pingping (who uses flying needles), Petchai Wongkamlao as Sgt. Mark, Ying Ratha as No. 20, RZA as Mr. LC, and Marrese Crump as No. II. The stunts look amazing, and I hope this troubled production pulls together and turns into something magical. Really pulling for this one.
via WiseKwai
Categories: Movie News Tags: Jeeja Vismistanada, Jija Yanin, Petchtai Wongkamlao, RZA, Thailand, Tom-Yum-Goong 2, Tony Jaa, Ying Ratha
The Kick
The Kick
aka 더 킥 aka วอนโดนเตะ!!
2011
Story by Prachya Pinkaew
Screenplay by Lee Jong-suk Lee
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
Thai and Korean co-production The Kick shot on people’s radar for two reasons: Director Prachya Pinkaew, and Jija Yanin having a supporting role in the film. That’s all that was reported, and for the longest time it was hard to tell what kind of role Jija even had in the flick. Well, time has passed, and now The Kick is available on DVD and we can see Jija has a substantial supporting role in the last 2/3rds of the flick and participates in several fight scenes. There is also plenty of other action from the Korean actors, but the film does drag at points due to pacing and humor issues. It is far from Prachya Pinkaew’s best work. It’s almost another Jakkalan, though it does give us an interesting Korean/Thai hybrid film, something I don’t think there are too many examples of.
Though I thought I wouldn’t care about the Korean family, they began to grow on me (except for the young kid!) and even though they spend a good amount of time yelling at each other, they also come together to deal with bigger threats. Each family member has a different martial arts move skill, and the fights jump from solo to various pairings to group fighting. Unfortunately due to the amount of characters we rotate through the scenes quickly when all hell is breaking loose. The fight scenes in the last 20 minutes are great, but they also make the prior 90 minutes look terrible. I wish it had been more consistent on the choreography. In fact, I’d probably suggest just skipping until the end for most casual fans and people who don’t like putting up with nonsense.
Prachya Pinkaew has become a household name in martial arts film fan circles, with Ong-Bak, Tom-Yum-Goong, and Chocolate under his belt, and several upcoming films that look to be awesome as well. Several of the stars are members of the Korean Tigers tae kwon do group.
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Cho Jae-hyun, Jeeja Yanin, Jija, K Kim, Kim Yi-roo, Korea, Lee Jong-suk Lee, Lee Kwan-hun, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Prachya Pinkaew, Taejoo, Thailand, Yea Ji-won
Dangerous Flowers (Review)
Dangerous Flowers
aka Chai lai
2006
Directed by Poj Arnon
Charlie’s Angels left a legacy of countless imitators. The original series spawned many copycats, and the recent movies also spawned copies. As the new movies decided to be action comedies, so did many of the copycat movies. And since the new movies decided to not be very good, the copycats decided to one-up them and be even worse! One of those copies is reviewed here today. The 2006 film from Thailand was originally entitled Chai Lais or Chai Lais Angels, and eventually became known as Dangerous Flowers. I wonder what the “Chai Lai” trying to sound like… Charlie’s Angels copies from Asia are vary common, we even reviewed Asian Charlie’s Angels a while back. We get five beautiful Thai women who fight crime, fail at their missions, and blow stuff up. The film begs you to not take it seriously, yet then throws in a few people getting killed violently just to screw with you.
The film has a few quirks in the subtitles, firstly they refer to the girls as “chai Lais”, notice how the first letter of chai is not capitalized. It never is, but the L in Lai is always capitalized. I don’t know what that means, but it probably means something stupid. So we’ll got with it for the entire review. Take that, bad subtitles!
We got five Angels, excuse me, FLOWERS, who we will just hit the Roll Call for now, as well as the peripheral characters. The film is forgettable, unexceptional, and nothing you haven’t seen before. Unless you are blind, in which case you probably aren’t reading this anyway. Or are you?
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