Bangkok Adrénaline

"Danger is my breakfast, tell me more."

If a bunch of frat boys got together and decided to make a modern, more "extreme" version of Ong-Bak, you'd get Bangkok Dangerous. It's so macho that it's downright goofy, and there's only the barest skeleton of a plot, but I have to admit that it was a pretty fun movie to watch. 

The story is as basic as possible. Four Brits looking for a good time in Thailand get into serious gambling debts, and decide to kidnap the pretty daughter of a rich businessman and use her ransom to pay their way out of trouble. The scheme goes awry, and they end up having to protect the girl they kidnapped. 

See? Basic. But with lots and lots of opportunities for fighting. 90% of the movie is one of the guys fighting someone or running from someone. Two of the main characters are capable martial artists, and do most of the fighting. Another is a really huge muscular man who just smashes things/people, and the fourth is basically supposed to be comic relief. Like most of the attempts at humor in the movie, it doesn't really work. He's more annoying than anything else.

The fighting is pretty cool, but at times, the choreography seems stiff and obvious. It takes you out of the action when you see people repeatedly prepare for blows, consciously make sure they're in the right place to be hit, etc. Still, the action was frenetic, non-stop, and enjoyable.

Bangkok Adrenaline is a long way from a well-made action movie, but I've seen much worse. Keep your expectations at a suitably restrained level, and you'll probably get some mindless kicks out of it.

Forget the acting – it's horrible. Forget the direction – it's perfunctory at best. Forget the story – it's non-existent, and so embarrassingly simplistic that a child probably came up with it. Forget the humour – it's as dumb as it comes.

Embrace the action – for action is what BANGKOK ADRENALINE is all about, and as a fluid, action-packed movie, it works pretty well. It's essentially one lengthy chase film, with a mixed bunch of western actors finding themselves beset on all sides by various criminal gangs, henchmen, mafia bosses and general corrupt people, and having to use their impressive martial arts ability to fend the bad guys off. There's no more to it than that, but for what it does, BANGKOK ADRENALINE works well.

Thai producers have obviously twigged that there's a demand in the west for the kind of action-heavy product that Tony Jaa popularised back in the day, because they've made this film with western actors and shot it largely in English. Personally, I wish they'd stuck with Thai actors, because the one thing you quickly notice when watching Asian movies is that the western actors always stick out like sore thumbs and also give the worst performances; this film is no exception.

Of the group, only Conan Stevens makes an impressive as a hulking giant of a guy, but as far as I can remember, he only gets a single fight scene. I know the Thais love these massive muscle-bound characters – who can forget Nathan Jones in WARRIOR KING, after all? – and Stevens needs more screen time. Instead he's bypassed in favour of the bland younger actors with the aforementioned sucky acting abilities.

Still, the action holds up and that's what counts for martial arts fans. The fights are mixed and widespread, throwing in stunts, massive brawls and a few one-on-one showdowns; the martial arts choreography is excellent, and there's a long-running bit of free-running thrown into the mix to keep things moving merrily along. BANGKOK ADRENALINE is certainly a step up from the disappointing and ultra low budget BANGKOK KNOCKOUT, and it makes me look forward to Tony Jaa's return to the big screen all the more

"Bangkok Adrenaline" is a non-stop action movie from the start to the very end. And the action is off the charts, no wires, no CGI, just pure action and martial arts.

The story in "Bangkok Adrenaline", however, was fairly unimaginative and rather simple. A group of foreigners in Thailand end up with a massive gambling dept, and in order to raise money for paying the dept then decide to kidnap the daughter of a millionaire. Demanding a ransom for the girl's release, the foreigners have taken on a bit more than they initially thought was going to be a piece of cake.

I found the story to be moving ahead at snail speed, taking forever to get almost nowhere. That, however, was fortunately helped along by lots and lots of action and fighting. And all these action scenes were really great, well executed and delivered, and the fighting scenes were raw, brutal and hard-hitting.

The acting in the movie was mediocre, so don't expect to see award-winning performances here. Some people put on better performances than others, of course, but the overall was just mediocre. Despite these mediocre acting, it was really nice to see westerners in a Thai fighting movie of this caliber, especially because the fighting was just like what you'd see in a Tony Jaa movie, so there really is a lot of cool action and fighting scenes here.

If you like the action/fighting movies that have come from Thailand in the recent years, then "Bangkok Adrenaline" is well worth sitting down for a watch. I was thoroughly entertained by the sheer action, and the poor storyline fell in the background, overshadowed by the great adrenaline-filled action.

First let me ask you a question when renting a martial arts flick what is the most important thing to you? If your answer was anything but for the fights then steer clear of this movie. If you are a true junkie for "kung fu" movies though this is a must watch movie.

With a leading actor that is believable in his moves who also happened to be the choreographer and the wonderful background of Thailand fights were often laid out in interesting ways. Quite a bit of parkour tricks laid out during chases including a very non flashy but if you follow parkour very impressive stunt.

In the story department this movie falls very short, do not expect a Once Upon a Time in China or House of Flying Daggers. If anything this movie makes the Tony Jaa movies seem like Shakespeare. The acting by many of the actors falls very flat but there are some honest moments of good acting, can't complain when for most of the cast this is their first time getting real solid screen time.

In short this movie is a prime example of Thailand taking the martial arts movie crown especially since so many of the Chinese greats went Hollywood.

*score marked down due to lack of story keeping it from being anything near a flawless movie though I would score it higher then some movies with a great story but the martial arts is weak in.

Please allow me to get one thing out of the way right from the start: If what Eli Roth makes is what people like to call "torture porn", then this film might as well be "action porn"...doing away with any pretense of a plot in the name of action sequences. It's certainly a bit lacking in story, but who cares? There's a very, very good chance you weren't watching this for the plot twists and deep philosophical implications. And that's just great, because everything besides the story is pretty badass.

The basic plot is 4 friends (all inexplicably with different accents) travel to Thailand and run afoul of some criminals while gambling. Two of the friends have some pretty wicked martial arts skills, one is enormous, and the other is...well...he's pretty much just some useless hippie-looking guy. Then there's a whole kidnapping thing that reminded me The Big Hit, but again, this movie is just a vehicle for pure, unadulterated violence. This, apparently, the only way Thais know how to make action movies (and I love them for it). As per usual with modern Thai martial arts movies the stunts and action scenes are very well done and...wait...was there any other reason to watch this movie? In any event, it's massive amounts of fun provided you don't expect it to be a thinking man's movie. Just sit back, open a beer (or 6) and enjoy.