Mue prab puen hode

A close study of the moody DVD cover art for Hard Gun, which depicts its sharp-suited stars Panna Rittikrai and Tony Jaa brandishing guns in front of a grimy cityscape, reveals the use of some sneaky Photoshop work to disguise the true nature of the film inside: Jaa's image is lifted from another movie entirely (probably Ong Bak—the same portrait shot was also used for the cover of Jaa's debut, Spirited Warrior), the suits and guns have been digitally painted, and the whole thing has been given some slick metallic typography to give a contemporary, hard-edged feel to the design.

The small, grainy screen shots on the reverse of the box give a much better idea of what to expect: they show Rittikrai and Jaa in more casual gear and sporting embarrassingly dated hair styles, and reveal that the setting for the film is not downtown Bangkok, but rather a dusty provincial town of the kind inhabited by toothless simpletons, gambling layabouts and drunken wife-beaters. But even these crappy images cannot fully prepare viewers for the turgid mess that is Hard Guns...

According to the DVD's synopsis, Panna and Tony play members of a desperate gang of thieves who are forced into hiding after a robbery goes wrong; when the police launch a raid on their hide-out, the pair are forced to make a bid for freedom, and in the ensuing battle, Panna's 'brother' is shot and killed. Narrowly escaping the clutches of the law themselves, the duo plan to take revenge on Pitak, the cop who fired the fatal bullet.

But whilst this all sounds like fairly exciting stuff, what the copy conveniently neglects to mention is that 90% of the film actually revolves around Pitak's return to his home town, where he is reunited with his father, hangs out with his sister Ann and 'brother' Lau, and gets involved in all sorts of comical shenanigans, including brawling and competing with a local gang, gambling, and having bicycle races. The revenge aspect only kicks in towards the end of the film, by which time most people will have been driven almost insane by the mind-numbingly awful Benny Hill-style, sped up comedy.

Rittikrai and Jaa finally make their move, kidnapping Ann and forcing Pitak and his father to attempt a daring rescue, which ultimately leads to a climactic fight between Pitak and Jaa atop a rocky hill; this allows the Ong Bak star to finally show off his array of acrobatic and martial arts skills, which are very impressive, but still not enough to make up for all that has gone before.

I stumbled upon the 1996 Thai action movie "Mue prab puen hode" (aka "Hard Gun") here in 2021. I saw that the movie had Tony Jaa on the cover, and since this was a movie I hadn't already seen and it having Tony Jaa in it, of course I had to sit down and watch it.

Well, first of all, this movie felt like it was from 1976 and not 1996. Wow, the picture and sound quality of this movie was just atrocious. And it felt like they had even gone back to put a new audio track on to it, because the voices were all over the place. Especially all the bad guys, they had voices that were just cartoonish and bad, making it a very laughable experience to sit through this movie.

Aside from poor picture and audio, then the acting in "Hard Gun" was just downright abysmal. It felt like I was watching something a group of buddies made up in their backyard while barbecuing and having one beer too many.

The storyline told in "Hard Gun", as written by Nueng Nuengnued, was just rubbish. Sure, there was a red thread to the storyline, but everything felt just random and incoherent actually, which made for a less than adequate and even less wholesome movie.

As for Tony Jaa being on the movie's cover, well sure. Of course he was there to sell the movie. But the fact of the matter was that he was a mere support cast in the movie, playing a very minor role. And he didn't have all that much screen time actually. But anything to sell a movie, huh?

If you enjoy Thai action movies, and if you enjoy Tony Jaa movies, then do yourself a favor and stay clear of "Hard Gun". This gun fired only blanks.

My rating of "Hard Gun" from director Prapon Petchinn lands on a mere three out of ten stars.

Early Tony Jaa martial arts madness that rewardingly feels like an especially bizarre, Joseph Lai 80s cut n' paste chopsocky freak out! This one genuinely caught me totally unawares; a deliciously unconventional Thai fight flick with a palpably hallucinatory strangeness. Hard Gun's generosity of enjoyably clunky Gunfu, acrobatic, old school kung fu, and profoundly eccentric slapstick comedy interludes should prove maddeningly irresistible to Kung fools of all ages!!!!

Director, Prapon Petchinn's hilariously hyperactive, marvellously madcap martial arts oddity bemusingly delivers a boisterous bonanza of wholly unpredictable action cinema, perhaps, a rarefied genre unto itself, the kooky, 'Hard Gun' is truly astonishing in esoteric ways the director may not have strictly intended it to be! So ungovernably silly, galvanized by such an excess of brazen incongruity you simply cannot help but be dizzyingly swept up in this mind-tweaking squall of B-Movie insanity, and, sweet jumping Jehoshaphat!!! The faux Joe Satriani/Kraftwerk score is manifestly no less incongruous than one of the anxious cop's inexplicable need to liberally douse his boatrace in talcum powder before a shoot-out!!?? Far from half cocked, Bad movie aficionados really NEED to draw a bead on, 'Hard Gun'.