Phairii phinaat paa mawrana

I was intrigued by the premise - a team of cops, with a local guide, chase some hardened criminals into a reputedly cursed jungle, where they must battle not only the villains, but also... well, monsters.

The first half-hour or so was pretty fun, albeit nothing special, but I lost it as soon as the CG baby alligators appeared... then the giant snakes...

Even the appearance of cute jungle babes didn't really improve matters, since they obviously came straight from the bit of the jungle where hair products and make-up grown on trees, at which point the film lost its last shred of credibility in my eyes.

Also, I was bewildered by the censorship of the print I saw. Early on a cigarette was fuzzed out, then later guns and knives which were being used to threaten people directly. As in, pressed to their throat or head..

If they were being threatened from further away, however, that was fine. So was the almost nudity, the mild sex scene, the bloodied corpses and the use of weapons on CG reptiles. No fuzz on any of that.

It's not a terrible film by any means, but the opening had me hoping for a lot more than it delivered. I hoped for a dark, fast-paced action/horror movie with a uniquely Thai twist. What I got was a dumb fun action flick with dodgy CG monsters which followed the old Hollywood adventure-movie rules far too closely.

Some good performances, some fun fights, some cute girls, but not very satisfying, I'm afraid.

Vengeance sees a violent and stubborn cop chase a gang of escaped convicts into a cursed jungle. Lots of monsters, magic and mysticism abound. It's interesting for awhile, with some shootouts and exposition setting the scene. There's a creepy but awesome Tiger Wasp attack, that has a man ripped apart in gorerious old school fashion. However, as the monsters get bigger the effects become worse. A group of baby alligator/tree lizard things are neither convincing as animatronics or CGI. Both are rather jolty but are luckily still fun to watch. A giant CGI snake/demon is next up, which is confusingly bad, as it is so hard to get any perspective on the creature, I was surprised every time the snake grabbed someone as it never looked close enough. By the time people start turning into tree demons it's all a bit chaotic. The designs of these human/tree hybrids are wonderful, with leaf like wings and bark like skin. Again the mixture of CGI and make-up is jarring. Overall this is a fun monster movie, but has too many flaws within it's overlong running time.