The Kick

When I happened to come across the movie by sheer random luck, I was rather thrilled, as the cover looked appealing and the mixture of action/martial arts and comedy is just great, so I bought this movie right away. It does help a lot that I am a massive fan of Asian cinema to begin with.

"The Kick" is, however, not really standing out in the Asian market of movies, as there are far better movies out there. That being said, don't get me wrong, because I am not saying that "The Kick" is a bad movie, far from it, it is just doesn't stand out in a market of action/comedy movies.

The story is about a Korean family who honor the ancient Korean martial arts of Tae Kwon Do, who live in Thailand. They end up getting mixed up in a web of abductions, crime and gangsters, as they are forced to steal a national Thai treasure if they want to have the youngest family member returned to them after being abducted.

"The Kick" has a good variety of characters. Characters that are well portrayed on the screen and all have very different traits, characteristics and personalities. And thumbs up for this, because they really managed to put together a good group of people to portray these colorful characters. In that aspect, then "The Kick" really does impress.

However, it is the overall storyline that sort of drags the movie down and fails to stand out with a lasting impression. And that is a shame, because there is a lot of nice things to the movie. If you enjoy martial arts, then there is a good display of that in the movie. And personally, I found it to be a really nice treat to find JeeJa Yanin (playing Wawa) in the movie, but also hats off to Kyung-suk Kim (playing Tae Mi) and Tae-joo Na (playing Tae Yang). As much as I don't like dancing, then Tae-joo Na managed some really impressive jumps, spins and fighting in general.

"The Kick" is sort of a martial arts movie for the entire family, as it is not overly violent, but has elements for all ages in the movie. There is action, martial arts and comedy. This could very well be considered a Korean / Thai version of a Jackie Chan movie.

I love this movie, has all the right mixes of action, adventure, comedy, etc. I only have one regret, I wish jeeja yanin had a bigger part in this movie, I think she's great.

From the director of Ong-bak, The Protector and Chocolate comes this Thai/Korean co-production. A family of taekwondo instructors living in Bangkok foils a group of smugglers after they steal a priceless Thai artifact. The gangsters target the family and turn the tables on them, forcing them to steal back the artifact. JeeJa Yanin (of Chocolate fame) shows up about forty minutes into the film and helps the family kick butt. She's as awesome as ever. The teenage son of the family (I think the actor's name is Kyung-suk Kim) is an awesome martial artist - in the film he does a combination of taekwondo and hip-hop dancing, looking kind of similar to capoeira. I'd love to see this kid star in more movies, perhaps more of them with JeeJa. The action is often awesome in this flick, though I could have done without all the CGI (in particular the awful CGI crocodiles). This film never showed up in Region 1, though it's been on the internet for a couple of years (as have subtitles).

This movie has all the elements, action, comedy, suspense, I absolutely love this movie

The title says it all. Or better said, all the positive aspects. The script is just too silly. The family makes decisions that endanger themselves and the youngest kid all the time and whenever things go their way, it's just due to plot armor. Don't even bother with any dialog, just skip from one fight scene to the next. Oh, except for the kitchen fight scene; skip that one. I came back to this review to lower one star because of that scene.