Born To Fight

Following the successful Thai action film Ong-Bak comes Born To Fight.
I missed out on seeing it a couple of months ago when it was shown at London's Frightfest but now it's out on DVD. Director Panna Rittikrai, who was action choreographer on Ong-Bak, has made an exciting, jaw-dropping, bone-crunching action fest.

Dan Chupong, stars as a Police Officer who, along with members of the Thai athletics team, visits a small poor Thai village. The athletes give out gifts to the locals who are very pleased to see them. However, it's not long before the village is taken over by an army of guerrillas who hold everyone hostage. Their aim is to get the Government to release a recently imprisoned drug dealing General. The bastards even have a nuclear missile ready to be launched towards Bangkok! It's up to our hero and the athletes to save the day.

The actors playing the athletes are real Thai sports stars and they use their gymnastic skills in some of the most outrageous fights ever seen. I haven't seen stunt men used and 'abused' like this since some of the 80s movies that came out of Hong Kong. Born To Fight owes a lot to the action mayhem previously seen in films like Police Storyand Eastern Condors. The Chinese trend recently has been to add wire-work, which can be nice to look at, but it's good to see this more 'realistic' style coming out of Thailand. OK, so the action is ramped up to such a high degree, like a video game shoot-em up, that realism goes out of the window. It doesn't matter. This film doesn't tax the brain, it's not meant to. It's pure escapist entertainment.