Opapatika

"Demon Warrior" (or "Opapatika") was an interesting movie in different ways. Especially because of the supernatural aspect to it combined with the level of action and martial arts there were in it.

Story-wise, then "Demon Warrior" sort of halters. And by that I don't mean that it is a bad storyline, far from it, but that the movie is not driven by the story, but driven by the action and fighting primarily. Plus I found the whole 'suicide is a mortal sin' lecture a bit pretentious and lecturing, bordering on being religious propaganda.

But moving on. The story is about Taesit who commits suicide and is thus turned into an opapatika. He is recruited by another opapatika to track down other opapatikas, but this is not an easy task. Opapatikas hold superhuman abilities and senses, living out their cursed existences amongst mortals on our world.

I will say that the opapatika abilities were interesting and the movie did entertain, although it had a fairly weak storyline. The action and fighting in "Demon Warrior" was off the charts - as it usually is with Thai action movies. And it was from the producers of "Ong Bak", so thumbs up for the action here. One thing did annoy me in the movie, was the constant sound of a growling big cat (lion, tiger, or whatever) there was around some of the opapatikas. It was more of a nuisances than it was a flavor that helped the movie along in any way.

The effects in "Demon Warrior" were quite good as well. And what the movie lacks in a solid story line it more than makes up for in brutal action, blood and violence.

"Demon Warrior" combines elements from the action genre and dark fantasy genre quite well. Sort of think the "Supernatural" series, just added with a heap of action and more interesting supernatural beings. If you enjoy Thai movies, then "Demon Warrior" is definitely worth watching.

It's not often I watch a film where I haven't got a clue what's going on, but that's what happened in the case of DEMON WARRIORS: come the ending, I still hadn't the foggiest about what I'd just watched. The plot, if you can describe it thus, seems to be about a young man who's advised to commit suicide by his aged mentor, only to return as an ass-kicking 'demon warrior' with special supernatural powers. His job? To bump off the rest of the 'demon warriors' that are out there.

There's some Thai religious mumbo-jumbo talk in an effort to explain the discrepancies of the plot, but you'll be bypassing that in favour of checking out the various warriors and their special skills. By far the most interesting is an immortal fighter whose body bears the scars of each person he's killed – a neat idea that sadly isn't explore to the fullest extent, as it could have been with a more skilled writer behind it. In some ways, this is like a grown-up version of X-MEN, with the addition of a series of bloody and sadistic fight scenes.

There's action aplenty, and lots of CGI blood, but the choreography is pretty poor, it has to be said. Even worse is the script, which makes no effort to characterise each of the principals, so that the demon warriors themselves are more often than not interchangeable. The acting is dodgy to say the least, and director Thanakorn Pongsuwan needs to go back to film school to figure out how to make a real movie next time, instead of this silly, noisy nonsense.

The whole story behind this film was really interesting. But they did not piece it together very well. Through 90 percent of the movie, it leaves you confused. Then finally at the end, it starts to make sense, but you are still left unsatisfied. The only thing to keep you interested would be all the fight scenes. But there was more gun shooting than anything. I wanted to see more fighting with fists and kicks, but there was not much. The story behind it all is that you kill yourself and it is a sin. So you are in a world between reality and Heaven, or Hell. In this world you are granted a special power, but in return for your sin, you have a pain also. For example; one guy has the ability to see all kill points and kill them really fast. In return, he gets a scar on his body where he killed the guy. If you notice, most are by his heart. I admit that each character was kind of cool to see. There powers were interesting, but there was really not that much back story at all to the characters, leaving it hard to enjoy them to the fullest. Basically, what this movie was missing was full out, a storyline. It had the ability to create one, but like I said, it leaves you confused on how they try to do it. This really could of been one great action film if done right.

Being from Thailand and from the producers of the legendary 'Ong Bak' movie, this was a major disappointment. I understood the story but only on a basic level and I'm sure a lot of the intricate plot details, got lost in translation. I felt the action, usually the strongest feature was pretty mediocre, which was a big let down as 'Ong Bak', contained the most thrilling cinema history. For me it just became a bit of a drag and after a thousand rounds of gunfire (towards those supernatural beings), the protagonists still kept firing (to absolutely no effect)!?

When I saw this film featured on Netflix's streaming service I was intrigued, being a fan of both supernatural themed and martial arts movies. Pleasantly Opapatika fulfills both those requirements although not as thoroughly I would have liked. It feels like the story is never really explained well and you definitely have to be on the ball when watching to follow it. One also has to be willing to forgive what I can only guess are translation errors in the subbing although they weren't bad enough to really mar the movie experience for me.

Opapatika does however is provide a unique story experience. I can honestly say that there aren't many movies that I have seen that take such an innovative approach to the use of extraordinary/supernatural powers. The fight scenes are quite enjoyable with each opapatika showing off his special ability. There are plenty of "ouch" moments along with one or two jaw dropping ones. I would caution that this movie is very violent with lots gore and death but more in a "Kill Bill" sort of way, not something realistically graphic like a "Saving Private Ryan".

I don't normally think or say this but it would be nice to see this remade or redone in the States like what was done with the movie "The Ring" (or "Ringu" in Japanese). The plot is truly original and deserves to be completely fleshed out.

Overall, Opapatika is an enjoyable movie with plenty of twists to keep it from being predictable and the main theme tells us that nothing comes without a price and that sometimes when you get what you've been hoping for, it isn't always what you wanted, just like this movie.