Force of Five

I don't know how the guys behind the films Ong Bak, Warrior King and Chocolate keep coming up with exciting, enthralling films but they do.

Okay the story is a little corny and schmaltzy but it does enough to make you engage with the characters to care what happens to them.

Likewise when I first imagined children taking on adults you can't help but thinking "really, won't it be them just stamping on feet like some awful Home Alone series".

Far from it, these kids know how to fight and even the biggest man can fall from a well placed knee in the nether regions or an elbow right under the chin.

The fighting is just amazing including a final sequence in a tight hallway which is balletic and breathtaking and a sequence after that which will have you clapping, laughing and gasping in it's intensity and invention.

Fabulous entertainment and proof that these guys really know how to show us proper fighting. Great fun.

Realistic acting is horrible but that's kinda normal for kid actors. The main boy and girl fighting most have been training for 3-4 years to be in this. Their fighting scenes are all done by them no stunt double. If get the blue ray you get see the behind the scenes. I won't give out spoilers like many have. This is NOT for young kids under 13. There is some swearing and the fighting is blood nothing kids 13 and older has not heard of from others. Honestly these kids if keep doing fighting like this when get older then would definitely be the next Tony Jaa.

I love Thai martial arts films, but the last couple I've seen have been disappointing purely through the choice of main actors. BANGKOK KNOCKOUT featured a cast of interchangeable teenage characters who were more irritating than inspiring, and this latest effort has a cast of kids (including BORN TO FIGHT's Sasisa Jindamanee) in place of adult stars! As a result, much of the story that plays out is slightly cheesy, child-oriented and trivial, but I guess it helped cut down on production costs. You don't have to pay kids as much as adults, right?

The DVD case bills this as an out-and-out action flick, with the aforementioned pint-sized heroes tackling terrorists at a besieged hospital. Well, yes, but that entire set-piece doesn't occur until the last half hour of the movie. Until that point, we get a very slight tale involving a martial arts school and a kid with a dodgy ticker. The melodrama is overwrought and despite a few funny scenes, it's mostly forgettable.

Then things shift to the hospital, realism goes out of the window, and the story takes a back seat to make way for a series of frenetic fight scenes featuring kids kicking and kneeing adults in the face. The bad guy duties are handled by WARRIOR KING's Johnny Nguyen, a Vietnamese fighter who kicked ass in the Tony Jaa film. Sadly, he doesn't get anything to do here, other than stand around while kids knee him in the face. The fight scenes are great, featuring the same kind of breakneck choreography and ultra-cool slow-motion shots as in the best Thai martial arts movies, and it's just a shame there weren't more of them taking place throughout the movie. That way, it might have approached greatness rather than mediocrity.

The people who have released Force of Five on DVD here in the UK have been very sneaky, the cover prominently featuring actor Johnny Nguyen (Warrior King) striking a heroic pose, when he is, in fact, the villain of the piece, while the carefully worded synopsis on the back is deliberately vague. Only those who study the postage stamp sized images on the reverse might realise what is afoot. Despite being from the producers of Ong Bak and Warrior King, as the cover proudly boasts, this isn't another brutal beat 'em up in the same vein: it's a bloody kids' movie!

The 'four young heroes' described in the blurb are actually pre-teens whose hobbies include Thai boxing and racing remote control cars, both of which come in very handy when the kids have to enter a hospital held by terrorists in order to find the replacement heart needed so badly by their little brother. With the ever-so-nasty baddies between them and the transplant organ, the kids have no choice but to put their skills to use, bashing the adults with fists, feet, elbows and knees while dodging bullets. It's all very silly, with Nguyen and his henchmen becoming bruised and battered despite being heavily armed and twice the size of their opponents.

The first half of the film, in which the kids practise their fighting, fall foul of bullies and an inebriated brute (quite possibly the worst example of drunken acting I have seen), and teach Muay Thai to an old man, is pretty tough going, neither exciting nor funny. The second half—the hospital based action—is better, with the tough Thai tykes pulling off some impressive moves, although, at the end of the day, it is still child's play compared to the action in Ong Bak or the Warrior King.

Produced by Prachya Pinkaew, who directed Ong-bak and Chocolate, two of the better martial arts films of the past decade. This one definitely doesn't measure up to those. It's about a group of kids who fight a bunch of terrorists who have taken a hospital hostage. They want to get a new heart for their dying younger brother. The story is ridiculously schmaltzy and the kids are cruddy actors. They're not bad martial artists, though. The (very short) film is almost worth watching just for the climactic fight, part of which takes place in a very thin hallway that allows the kids and their adult nemesis to bounce off the walls like crazy. It seems like the movie would be ideal for kids, but it gets far too violent, with the kids constantly being shot at with AK47s.