( 2005 / Thailand )
Review By-Paul Cooke Director: Prachya Pinkaew Starring: Tony Jaa , Petchtai Wongkamlao , Xing Ging , Johnny Nguyen & Nathan Jones Source : Cannibal King / Two Disc All Region NTSC / English Language Subtitles / Behind The Scenes Making of / Wide Screen Ratio Approx 1:77:1
Emerging world Action superstar Tony Jaa returns to the big screen , with more super channelled body cracking frenzy to excite his growing legion of fans , in Director Prachya Pinkie’s ‘Tom Yum Goong’. Director and star are reunited once again after their amazing and incredibly successful teaming for the 2003 ‘Ong Bak’.
A boy named Kam grows into adulthood surrounded by his family and friends in the peaceful jungles of Thailand. The Thai people live in harmony with the elephant and Kham works and plays alongside his father and their full grown elephant , soon joined by a baby elephant that Kham grows alongside with. The elephant family is a hunted one though by unscrupulous big game killers who hunt wildlife down for big money. As Kham reaches adulthood he is played by Tony Jaa who has to fight off the foreign hunters alongside the adult elephant as the baby becomes a target for the poachers.
Whilst at a market with the two elephants Kham’s father is shot during a deal and whilst Kham is distracted both elephants are stolen away. A smuggling net is working between Thailand and Australia , and in order to get his elephants back Kham has to travel to Australia and take on the gang himself. He soon uncovers a huge trade in live animal stock being trafficked for human consumption at a price that only the decadent and despicable lifestyle can afford. Kham must uncover where his two animal companions are being held and save them before they become part of the food chain.
It is not long before Tony Jaa is let loose to offer his audience what they have paid to see and that is the Thai martial artistry in Action. A warehouse scene has Jaa facing off against a couple of dozen henchmen , some on motorcycles , in an almost John Woo squaring down but with fists and blades replacing a multitude of guns. The Action is fast and frenetic with Jaa using every wall and flat surface to jump up , twist onto and bounce off as he throws himself into his oncoming aggressors. A back flipping Jaa just missing an oncoming motorcycle that flies over him and through a glass window is one of the many rewind moments , and a definite seek out amongst the extras to see how it was done. Upwardly aimed knee blows to chins and extended flying leg kicks abound and the end result is a carpet of groaning and twitching downed bodies , with only Jaa left able to run away to fight on !.
Petchthai Wongkamlao co stars as a Thai born Australian resident police sergeant who gets embroiled in Kham’s world and is soon picking out the bad guys involved in the animal trafficking. Together they come up against a dastardly gang of Chinese led by a lethal femme fatale. Madame Rose heads operations that also include prostitution and modern day slavery and by her side are her body guards. Johnny Nguyen is a brash Vietnamese martial artist who is sharp witted and fleet of foot and Nathan Jones plays TK , a hulking mass of a man who could easily confuse King Kong into thinking he is the Empire State Building !.
Tony Jaa has a brief scuffle with Nathan Jones in a fiery scenario that sets things up for a final stand at the movies climax. His fight off against Johnny Nguyen comes during one of the movies greatest moments as Kham storms into a multi storey restaurant that is the eating house of the big game live slaughtering. Here Tony Jaa enters at ground level and proceeds to fight his way past everything and everyone that stands in his way , charging through each level of the structure to the very top , where the affluent and arrogant people feast on the host of freshly killed animal live stock. This is an awesome four minutes or so of non stop Action that is composed of one very clever sweeping shot put together like a Brian De Palma highlight reel. Absolutely brilliant stuff from the cameramen and production team and a stand out moment to revel in.
Kham’s investigations and sergeant Mark’s trouble shooting unsettle the Chinese , and the uncovering of the illegal operations bring Kham to his beloved elephants , but all is not as he had prayed for !. Madame Rose unleashes Nathan Jones upon Kham and this time he has a couple of other human sky scrappers with him !. Sergeant Mark gets to grapple with a crooked cop as his new found young friend Kham is up against a whole force of unpleasantness , that weighs in against him like an army condensed into the form of three mighty warriors born !.
The climatic showdown is bone crunching stuff and the sight of one time World Wrestling Entertainment star Nathan Jones throwing Tony Jaa around is like seeing a temperamental child tossing his action figure across the room. With three six foot five and twenty stone plus gargantuan men bearing down upon him Kham has to balance the playing field in his favour. Bloodied and almost broken Tony Jaa improvises as he straps large elephant bones to his arms and he hits back hard and low against his opponents , in violent and bloody fashion. Crunching stuff that knocks the wind out of all concerned and shows Tony Jaa at his acrobatic best.
A basic story that is peripheral to the entertainment factor and definitely second fiddle to the magnificence of seeing Tony Jaa in Action. Look out for a very funny moment of comedic translation licence as an Asian news caster is corrected in her delivery of the pronunciation of the word ‘police’. The English subtitles cry out ‘It’s pronounced ‘Police’ , not Porice !’. The enjoy ability in ‘Tom Yum Goong’ lies in the all Action exuberance that plays out at a breakneck pace and looks good in pretty much each choreographed scene of unabated violence. It’s not ‘Tom Yum Goong With The Wind’ , but for Thai movie loving Action fans and followers of Tony Jaa , frankly you won’t give a damn !. The Tony Jaa Action Thai train is well and truly right on track.
NB: The Cannibal King Double Disc set is seemingly mastered from the VCD source. The picture quality is VHS rental comparable and the rendered subtitles are clean and sharp , very much to the usual professional standard. It is rumoured that an ‘Official’ DVD will not be forthcoming until the latter part of 2006 !.
Film : 3.5 Jaa Riffic Hits Picture : 3.0 Jaa Riffic Hits Sound : 3.5 Jaa Riffic Hits Overall : 3.5 Jaa Riffic Hits
© 2006 cinema-nocturna.com
