Raging Phoenix

Thai sensation JeeJa Yanin burst onto the martial arts movie scene in 2008 with Chocolate, wowing fight fans worldwide with her amazing performance as adorable but bad-ass autistic girl Zen (and earning her the title of 'the female Tony Jaa' in the process). Expectations were naturally high for her next film Raging Phoenix, but although Yanin once again displays incredible agility, skill, and speed, the film as a whole must be considered something of a disappointment, lacking the simplicity, charm, originality, and raw power of its predecessor.

The script flits brazenly from one nonsensical scene to the next and is irritatingly indifferent to its main gimmick, the drunken fighting style of Meyraiyuth, so carefully developed in the first half of the film yet completely ignored in the second; almost as brash are the fight scenes that vary wildly in style from bone-crunching realism to comic-book excess (with naff wire-work employed for 'cool' gravity defying moves), most of which are so highly choreographed that they are more like immaculate dance routines than amazing displays of martial arts prowess (impressive to watch, certainly, but hardly adrenaline pumping). Meanwhile, Yanin desperately struggles to create another endearing character in Deu, but thanks to far too many embarrassingly over-melodramatic moments, her street urchin with attitude comes across as more pathetic than sympathetic.

Throughout the film, there are plenty of scenes that display promise, but all ultimately fail to deliver the levels of genius that have made recent Muay Thai movies like Ong-Bak, Warrior King and Chocolate so memorable; the fact that this potential for awesomeness is so frequently and readily wasted makes Raging Phoenix an all the more frustrating experience.

An unsatisfying 5.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Having bought this movie solely on the reason because JeeJa Yanin was in the movie, and I was amazed with her performance in "Chocolate", so I had high expectations for this movie.

I must admit that it was somewhat of a struggle for me to fully sit through this movie to the end, because it had a tendency to drag out the story in a seemingly endless spiral, and took forever to go almost nowhere. The storyline was adequate enough, women getting abducted by Thai gangs, but drained of their pheromones to make a perfume? What? Are you kidding me? The story went horrible awry when that was revealed. Up until then, the movie was actually bearable.

The fighting scenes in the movie were well choreographed and well executed. There was lots of fast-paced, adrenalin-fueled action in the movie. And Thai movie makers really got a knick for this, and this movie is another dent in the belt.

That being said, then a lot of the movie, including the fight scenes, were rudely interrupted and tainted by a horrible attempt to add comedy to the movie, in the forms of the characters Pigshit and Dogshit, pardon my French, but they were actually named this in the movie. They were dreadful to look at and worse to listen to, with horrible lines and bad comedy. The movie really suffered from this approach to film making.

If you have seen "Chocolate", do not set your expectations up after that standard, because this movie is inferior to that movie by far, and inferior to the first "Ong Bak" as well. Sure, there are nice fighting scenes, but it is far from enough to carry the movie.

And what was up with the gang members jumping around on pogo-stilts? That was really lame. Who fights with such toys strapped to their feet? Come on... And the whole feeling to the underground lair of the gang was way out of proportions. Where would such a place be found? The complexity of its built, the depth in which it was found, and how would no one know of its location? Sure it looked somewhat nice, but it was too much.

For a Thai movie, it was very mediocre. Trust me, there are far better Thai action movies available. "Raging Phoenix" (or "Deu Suay Doo") might be worth a look if you are a big fan of JeeJa Yanin, but otherwise not really worth the time unless you got nothing better to do.

JeeJa Yanin has had an auspicious start to her martial arts movie career. He first film Chocolate (2008) was a solid martial arts film that showcased her ability and allowed her to downplay acting by having her being mute. She gets to talk in this film and is generally fine with her acting abilities, but her strong points are still her martial art abilities. JeeJa is the most exciting female martial artist in cinema right now. While that might not be saying much, I do find her fun to watch. Much like Tony Jaa, I feel with the right script both could do much more than with the material they are currently given.

Raging Phoenix succeeds on the action scenes but ultimately fails in the plot. JeeJa is Dea a confused slightly erratic woman down on luck with choosing boyfriends, removed from the band she was playing in because of attacking that boyfriend during a performance and of all the luck she is now targeted to be kidnapped by a gang called Jaguar who target specific smelling women who will be harvested of their pheromones to sell on the black market as a sex aphrodisiac. That just sounds silly doesn't it? Wait it gets better. She is saved by Sanim (Kazu Patrick Tang: Bangkok Adrenaline) a practitioner of a martial art called Meiraiyuth who is part of a group of marauding good guys who have lost their significant others to this nefarious gang. These include three others named Pig Poop (Nui Sandang), Dog Poop (Sompong Leartvimolkasame), and Bull Poop(Boonprasayrit Salangam) NOTE: I modified the names for IMDb. She then becomes their student in learning this martial art to use in destroying all of these kidnappers and in search of the head of the serpent of the gang played by Thai/Indian bodybuilding champion (and once was part of the Royal Thai Police) Roongtawan Jindasing in her first movie appearance. Of course she has to survive the training which involves imbibing much liquor and getting beaten up.

The first fight scene is partially impressive. I love the use of modified powerisers the bad guys have which are like a pogo stick per leg but longer and built with blades. I was skeptical at first, but it came out quite creative and entertaining. I would love to have those, though I would probably kill a few people while learning it and potential decapitating myself.

While the use of wires to accent the fight scenes is overused, they do help create an aesthetically pleasing martial arts style in Meiraiyuth. It is a mixture of drunken boxing, Muay Thai, break-dancing and Capoeira. While it may not always be advantageous to throw in a dance move while beating someone up it is impressive here. One problem that occasionally comes up is that when doing extremely flexible moves at impossible angles the impact of the blow comes off as very soft and the overreaction of the opponent is forced though I have seen this issue in many action films (as well as the mysterious blow that completely misses the person yet that person is blown over by the wind of the punch or kick).

But besides the plot I have one other issue that annoyed me. Some of the CGI use is pretty bad. This is especially evident when they are trying to break into the lair of Jaguar. At its worst is when they initially break in and fall or "slide" down to the lower depths. They basically looked like they were moving their arms and legs while the background is changing. The bridge fight scene is also hurt by this where much around them looks like they are in a computer game from the mid 1990s. When you watch something as impressive as the few fight scenes you wonder why they resorted to this phony graphics manipulation.

I have to admit I had a fun time watching this movie. The story is not as solid as Chocolate (though better than Ong Bak 2) and like many Thai action films they feel derivative (or homage) of other successful Asian films especially ones from Hong Kong. The incorporation of Meiraiyuth reminds me quite a bit of drunken boxing and it is impossible not to think of Drunken Master. Early on the manipulation of Deu's body as a weapon by Sanim certainly reminds me of its use in Dirty Ho, but a few Jackie Chan films as well. The film seemed to completely forget the drinking part of the art in the later part of the film.

I have the Magnet R1 release. It has two main extras: a "Making of Raging Phoenix" and "Behind the Scenes of Raging Phoenix." The "Making of Raging Phoenix" (11m.53s) is in Thai/French with removable English subtitles. It is a fun extra though you wonder how/why the director Rashane Limtrakul spent a year writing the script. Patrick Tang speaks French in the extra. The "Behind the Scenes of Raging Phoenix" (10m.35s) is pretty much showing them practice the fighting scenes (and some drum training) to a Thai(?) rap beat. However like in the end credits of a Jackie Chan film you get to see mishaps and the dangers of this type of film when JeeJa Yanin hurts her neck and gets put into a brace. And to top it off it has the international trailer (3m.34s) of this film and various trailers "Also From Magnolia Home Entertainment." There is an English dub and the English subs do not appear to be dubtitles though many of the sentences are the same.

I greatly value originality in any story or flick. When I see something I've seen before, I recognize it and it's somewhat off-putting. This flick has a lot of martial arts that's unique but that's not the half of it. This is a martial arts flick with amazing, unique locations. Best of all it has a unique and original story line. One of the sets appears to be an abandoned hotel at the beach that was demolished in Thailand by the tidal wave. Another set is a labyrinth of tunnels and sewers. That's not all. This movie has atmosphere to spare. The characters are also original but I will not reveal anything about the unique, original story line.

Fans of martial arts action films in this region would find reason to celebrate recently with the introduction of Iko Uwais showcasing some combat Silat in Merantau and while I had counted him in amongst peers such as Tony Jaa, Jija Yanin stands out for being the only female of the lot who can dish out as much punishment as she could receive, and breakthrough performances aside, I think the real test comes in the follow up film, if it's either more of the same, or if it'll have enough bandwidth to allow the martial artist to go some distance from their maiden performance.

And I had enjoyed Raging Phoenix a lot more than Chocolate, which I felt had plenty of room in which to improve upon, especially in the editing department which didn't quite do that film justice in having Jija's character seem to go through each fight sequence like a video game, beginning each scene with the on-guard position. However, that film allowed her to showcase a whole range of moves and weapons, and in this one, her character sticks to one, which is a Chinese drunken fist equivalent, where the pupil downs gallons of alcohol, and through that intoxicated state, learn to internalize the alcohol and purge that high energy into something more hard hitting, channeling that deep down hurt and heartfelt pain they have to intrinsically possess into power through the knuckles.

The form of the martial arts clearly has plenty of Muay Thai in it, with the usual exploitation of elbows and knees to inflict maximum damage, though this time round the choreographers smartly fused some hip-hop break dancing moves into the martial arts, since those dance movies would already prep you that those spins and turns, and feigns with the feet, could actually translate to deadly assault steps to incapacitate any enemy. Yes you read me right, but it didn't turn out as bad as it sounded, and soon enough you just won't feel that it's an amalgamation of two different forms, at least not when the catchy Thai hip hop song Yong- Wai stops playing.

As the story goes (yes, you still need one), it was a wee bit different from the usual to say the least, though the inevitable melodramatic moments did prolong the runtime without welcome. The narrative for Raging Phoenix played out just like its title, where it starts off really slowly and in some ways quite the bore, before its form got junked and transformed, into something more engaging as the story progressed, right after Jija's Deu gets saved from the clutches of the evil Jaguar Gang, whose mission statement is to kidnap girls with unique pheromones. Cue obligatory training montage as she becomes the protégé of Sanim (Kazu Patrick Tang), Dog, Pig and Bull, and convoluted initiation rites later, she gets accepted into the vigilante group, seeking out the Jaguars to exact their individual vendettas.

Ranging Phoenix didn't turn out to be a one-woman show, which meant Jija had to step aside to allow her co-stars to shine, especially since her character is the rookie in this form of martial arts, and have to rely on the others to save her hide at first. It was a little painful to watch since we all know that this girl can really kick butt, though it made it all the more sweeter when she finally does. What she cannot do though, despite her new hairdo and cute- as-a-button features, is to play that romantic role given that there's a subplot involving unrequited love with her trainer Sanim, which was somewhat essential to fuel that new found strength (from depression actually) in the finale.

​A Thai film would seem incomplete without the obligatory evil transsexual, and Raging had one featured early for some comic relief. The chief villain, played by Roongtawan Jindasing, a body building champion, cuts a figure quite similar to Grace Jones's May Day in A View to a Kill, matching our heroine strength for strength, though triumphing with her D-cups, which I thought in a battle sequence she had used to knock Deu off her feet. Fight sequences had resorted to MTV-styled quick cut editing, though it did pace itself nicely through some slow- motion when required to allow the audience to take it all in. Fights were also nicely framed, especially when killer moves get employed, or when director Rashane Limtrakul decides to want to show you just how close and realistic the actors and stunt crew can get when they pull off hard hitting, bone-crunching action.

I would have thought that the film would have featured some outtakes – you know, for the filmmakers to show off that "real fights, real injuries" tagline, but to my surprise there was absolutely none. I would have loved to see whether some suspicion in the use of wire-work could be proved through the outtakes, since there were definitely some moves which were too hard to believe they can be executed without employing one. Padding also was visible though, for safety's sake of course, but don't let that distract you as much as it did to me.

Raging Phoenix isn't perfect, but it is yet another milestone for Jija Yanin to prove what she can do. Call me a fan as I am liking her films already, and can't wait to see her in more action films!