Jukkalan

This film's American title must have been written by a master of the obvious. Heck yeah, Jija Yanin kicked plenty of butt in Chocolate and Raging Phoenix, it's not like I need a separate movie to tell me she's badass. On the other hand, having another film with Yanin kicking butt is always welcome.

The girl may be badass, but the movie isn't so much. It does have action in sporadic bursts, and they are pretty well-choreographed. A few of the fights are pretty imaginative (one cool scene involved Yanin fighting around a bicycle). But in between the action, the movie will either drag a lot with the sappy romantic subplots, or weird you out with some of the goofiest and weirdest comedy Thailand can offer. Seriously, why are there midgets everywhere? Why does the crime boss sound like a retarded kid who just sucked on a helium balloon? Why does the guy with the stupid haircut ride a fuzzy robotic horse? Why...ah, forget it.

As far as the story goes, it started off being very simple, almost to the point of being dumb and pointless. After a while, however, things just became totally random and irreverent, thanks to a number of useless subplots layered on. The main conflict gets shoved to the side, while the characters go on and on over their silly love lives. It's too disjointed to really work. And despite being really colorful and goofy, the characters aren't that well-developed either.

The film looks pretty cheap too, with standard photography and editing, and a rather low-quality production value. Acting is pretty mixed all around; Jija Yanin is probably the single most redeemable value to this film, for she does put on an appealing performance (in addition to pulling off some impressive fight moves). Everybody else ranges from being silly to being dumb. Writing is not terribly sophisticated either. This film uses a decent mix of rock and pop songs on its soundtrack.

It's a weird, stupid, fun little flick, with enough action and weirdness to appeal as a novelty. Sadly, it's nowhere near as awesome as I'd expect, especially when compared to Chocolate or Ong Bak. Unless you have an affinity for weird and silly Thai comedies, this film is not recommended.

3/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Poor | Film: Poor)

This Girl Is Bad-Ass!! (2011) is currently available on Tubi and tells the tale of a woman who is hired by two gangs to sneak items to various locations. Being stuck in the middle her life is constantly at risk...until she decides she should be the one to bring down both gangs. This movie stars and is directed by Petchtai Wongkamlao (The Bodyguard 1 & 2) and also stars JeeJa Yanin (Chocolate). The storyline for this is fairly dreadful but the fight scenes at times are really good. There are some really clever fight sequences with good use of props. There are also some comedy squeezed into this, especially one of the mob bosses voices. Overall this movie is really bad, painfully drawn out in some areas and isn't as good as Yanin's Chocolate. I would recommend watching that over this and would score this a 3/10.

From what I've seen (mostly Tony Jaa's work, plus a few others), Thai martial arts films seem to run on more frenetic energy than those of other Asian sources. That's a good thing. I've not noticed JeeJa Yanin before, but here she approaches Jaa's level of intensity, balanced with a touch of Jackie Chan's comedy. The script hovers between incoherence and stupidity, but who cares? A couple of early fight scenes, uniquely using bicycles and parts as weapons, justify watching this action comedy. The dialog only delivers a few really good laughs, but they help.

Outtakes run during the credits. But they're mostly dialog screwups, rather than the more entertaining stunt mishaps that Jackie provides.

In Germany it was released as part of the Fighting Beat "trilogy", not that this has anything in common with those other movies other than they are all from Thailand and are action orientated. This tries to up the action sequence ante, by making many of them being "on the move" (bikes and other things getting involved or being used by one or multiple participants).

The action is working, the humor another factor this tries to use as much as possible to distinguish itself from other action movies, might not hit home as often as the punches do. Depending on your sense of humor or the bar you're setting for the jokes. Not a bad effort if you consider the action sequences, but not a good overall movie either

If you enjoy the Jackie Chan style movies of comedy and action mixed together with a bunch of physical acrobatics and stunts, then you will definitely also light "Jukkalan" (with the amazingly bad English title of "This Girl is Badass").

The story is about Jukkalan (played by JeeJa Yanin) who lives with Wang (played by Petchtai Wongkamlao (who also directed the movie). Jukkalan works as a bike messenger, delivering questionable goods to an even less questionable clientèle. The young Duan (played by Chalerm Yamchamang) is in love with Jukkalan, but she doesn't acknowledge him or his courting, as she has her eyes set on Pong (played by Sthit Amornvej). Things heat up and turn dangerous as various questionable bosses wants their goods and the bike messengers soon find themselves in over their heads.

Storywise, then "Jukkalan" was adequate. The story was simple and very easy to follow, however it was simple to the point where it was starting to be a tad too much. But the pace of the movie, the action and the chance to see JeeJa Yanin in a comedic action role more than makes up for the lack of a proper storyline.

Something that really had be puzzled were the characters in the movie. Most of them were really odd and hilarious, not to mention very much out there.

While "Jukkalan" doesn't match "Chocolate" or "Raging Phoenix", it is a must watch for all fans of JeeJa Yanin.