Born to Fight

Well I'm still quite impressed or just stunned with the lengths these guys will go to for a stunt. I wouldn't be surprised if there really were some casualties at the end of the filming. But anyway, as a newcomer to Thai cinema, I can say that the actual fight sequences are choreographed pretty well, the elaborate death blows thrown in the world of Muay Thai are seen here, along with a little different touch as well. As good as the choreography is, the lack of coherency far out paces it though, which leads me to believe that the story is just somehow weaved in-between these high flying fight scenes. Which I think is further shown with the always surprising use of the slow-motion instant replay (for all of us with broken rewind buttons?), which they use for those really sweet stunts. But hey, since when do judge an action movie by it's coherence, that would take out all the fun out of it. While not a great movie it is still quite entertaining, and if you don't actually speak Thai well you can probably skip the subtitles seeing as the dialogue adds little too the movie, just watch these little thai guys running around jumping off stuff and you'll be alright.

cheers

Oh, I have an idea. Let's build a village, put some people there and then some evil men who shoot them. But here is the thing: They have athletes among them who will fight. Oh, and in the end let's blow up the village. That way we don't even have to tidy up a set. Let's call it ''Born to Fight''. If you want to see one and a half hour of people getting killed then this is your movie. They didn't waste time for something called a storyline or dialogue. OK given, the stunts are brilliant, probably some of the best ever filmed. But if I only want to see stunts I watch a broadcast of a martial arts tournament. The ''actors/actresses'' have nothing more than a few lines before the killing starts. No character depth, no development and no acting. There are probably 15 minutes without killing, not even done ''nicely''. You can't even memorize the names before the ''action'' starts. Also, I don't call it fighting but killing, on purpose. The movie is like an ego-shooter, like a scene from Rambo. The basic story was actually OK and you could see that the actors/actresses would have been able to act if given the chance. The characters just didn't interact at all with each other. Everyone says hi and that's it. Bum, bam, shot people falling down, an explosion here and there. The End. What a waste.

Riding on the international success of Ong Bak as a sort of quasi-sequel, Born to Fight works on the simple principle that it's easier to teach fighters to act than actors to fight. It was this that prompted me to watch it without subtitles, not speaking a word of Thai. Bear that in mind when I attempt to explain the plot. Not that the film requires any for if you've seen 'Air Force One' or 'The Rock' you'll have seen this movie before.

Following the daring kidnap of a rebel leader in which his partner heroically dies, our hero seeks solace in a small village. There will be no peace for him for the rebels storm the village, gun down countless children and brutally execute the police officer there before demanding the government release their leader. And in the midst of this, our hero finds himself out gunned and outnumbered, and all that stands between the villagers and certain death.

The hero now wanders the village alone despatching a few guerrillas before being captured: strictly formula stuff. What makes 'Born to Fight' different from American movies is that when the inevitable fight is taken to the villains, it's not just the hero who takes on the terrorists: it's the entire village who take them on. And this is the film's real muscle: athletes and martial artists all showcasing their arcane talents in a fightback that lasts almost half the length of the film.

The low budget means that this isn't a CGI fest of Michael Bay proportions but more in the vein of the gutsy Golan & Globus thrillers of the 80's. Low on money but laden with good and often ingenious stunts 'Born to Fight' is the direct descendant of movies like 'The Delta Force'. It's got limited budget, lots of guns, knives and cheap wooden huts to be destroyed. In fact, at times it's more like playing 'Far Cry' than watching a movie, with pistols, shotguns and machetes used in turn to despatch the red-scarved rebels while the suitably repetitive soundtrack hammers away.

'Born to Fight' is a film out of time, some twenty years too late for the cinema but by no means a bad film, and a welcome one on DVD if you need to kill an hour. You genuinely won't need subtitles for this movie, just a remote control to fast-forward the few dialogue scenes. If you're in the market for more eye-watering stunts I'd strongly go for Ong Bak instead.

Where ONG-BAK is a traditional martial arts film that strings a series of muay-thai fights and Jackie Chan-style chase scenes together with a simple plot, BORN TO FIGHT is an action film more akin to DIE HARD. That means plenty of John Woo-esquire gun battles and an incredibly high body count, with a sprinkling of brutal stunts. BORN TO FIGHT is not a sequel to ONG-BAK, its not "the next ONG-BAK", its simply a highly entertaining actioner that will keep fans of this director satisfied until TUM YUM GOONG is released.

The opening sequence, featuring people leaping between 2 moving trucks, is reminiscent of similar classic scenes from POLICE STORY. The story then switches gear, seemingly heading towards simple martial arts film territory (our hero is challenged by a local thug over the affections of a girl) before a hail of gunfire signals a massive change in direction. The next portion of the film is a relentlessly brutal slaughter-fest, as the evil villains randomly gun down villagers without a second thought, to levels you would never see in a Hollywood film. Hans Gruber has nothing on these guys! Finally, after a few false starts and a rendition of the Thai national anthem, our plucky villagers rise up, although quite how they manage to slaughter so many villains in revenge despite being outnumbered, unarmed, and constantly being killed in the gunfire is never entirely clear. What is clear is that the ridiculously gimmicky "gymnastics fights" are fun to watch, the ball-kicking guys who fire kettles and things at the heads of their enemies deserve a SHAOLIN SOCCER type film of their own, and there's nothing cuter than seeing a little kick-boxing girl kick the hell out of a baddie.

Our hero has a few moves of his own, but the film's focus is wider than ONG-BAK, concentrating on the efforts of a team rather than a lone individual, nevertheless he is the star of two wonderful gun battles shot in single takes without cuts: forget DOOM's first-person-shooter scene, this is the true visual embodiment of the modern shooter game, a breathtaking yet agonisingly short sequence inspired by similar sequences in John Woo's HARD BOILED and John Carpenter's THEY LIVE.

What BORN TO FIGHT lacks in coherence, it makes up for in energy. This is the modern equivalent of the kind of crazy rule-breaking action films Hong Kong could churn out so successfully in the 1980s. And its the perfect appetiser for TUM YUM GOONG to come.

I will start out by saying that "Born to Fight" is an action movie in every sense of the word. It is full of adrenaline and martial arts. However, the movie does suffer from a fairly mediocre storyline.

The story in "Born to Fight" is about a drug bust going awry, when Deaw's boss is killed in an explosion. Upset with the situation, Deaw joins his sister and a group of Thailand's top professional athletes to go to a village to do charity work. However, the village falls prey to terrorists demanding the drug lord released, while they plan to blow up Bangkok with a nuclear missile. But Deaw and the athletes do not sit idly by and let this happen.

There is a lot of action sequences in the movie, and they are really nicely executed, plus filmed in great angles as well. Plus there is a lot of martial arts as well. And they even implemented ways to bring in gymnastics, rugby and soccer into the fights, which for most parts worked out nicely enough. Personally, I think the scenes with the soccer and ball-kicking during gunfights was a little bit too much, it just didn't seem all that plausible.

"Born to Fight" had an impressive array of athletes on the cast list, each displaying some impressive stuff from their given fields of expertise. Dan Chupong (playing Deaw) is a great newcomer to the Thai martial arts movies, and I think we will see more great martial arts movies from him in the future. Acting-wise, well not the best of performances in this movie, but it is not the acting you watch these movies for, it is the sheer, brutal action.

However, the storyline in "Born to Fight" was very predictable, you knew immediately how the movie would end. Plus it was something that didn't bring anything particularly new to the genre. Sure there were new stunts and fights, but the plot in general was generic and stereotypical, which was a shame, because it did bring down the movie a bit. And also, for a Thai action movie, then "Born to Fight" didn't fully bring what you'd expect from it. It had a lot of great action, but in other Thai action movies, you just get that one extra length, which was missing from this movie.

The fighting in "Born to Fight" was great. I, personally, really love watching Thai martial arts movies, because they are so raw, brutal and direct. You can see how feet and hands impact with whatever they are striking, and you can see that it is forceful and hard hitting. Lots of contact with knees and elbows to various parts of the body. And in "Born to Fight" you also have a lot of scenes where people bang against various physical objects; wooden fences, poles, etc. and you can see that it is real and there is a lot of speed and force behind those impacts, which makes you either cringe and curl your toes in sympathy pain, or makes you go 'wow, that is just awesome'. And that is one of the great things about Thai martial arts movies; no wires, no silken gloves, just sheer, pure action.