Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Thai Police Story (1986)

I guess you've seen that cheap collection of three thai action movies? It's the more famous of Panna Rittikrai's movies, Born to Fight and then we have the ultra-boring Spirited Killer. Born to Fight is quite good and has some good action and stunts, but the strange thing is the third movie - first released as a bonus flick during it's BCI-run - Thai Police Story (The original title is 2 Nuk Soo Poo Ying Yai). But even if it's dubbed, has a crappy print and fullscreen this is actually the best movie of the set - at least if you want wonderful, crazy micro-budget thai-action!

The story is forgettable, but it's something about the son of a mafia boss who befriends one of his bodyguards (played by Panna by the way), and this bodyguard is also friend with a police - and they're friends, but on opposite side of the law. Of course another gang want's more power and the action begins. And action is the main word here. The movie is 57 minutes long and and has so much fun and ultra-violent action that it just never becomes boring. Here we have real contact fighting, fucking painful stunts, big squibs, bad overacting and more stunts.

As usual with Panna Rittikrai's early movies you see a lot of stunts that later was perfected in modern Tony Jaa-movies. Here we have a fight with (I think) six people on top of a truck, people falling off of course, which echoes the in title-only remake of Born to Fight (good one by the way, Dan Chupong should get more work!) and a lot of moves and gags that you can see in all the new movies now. The fighting is actually very good, but here the focus is painful stunts instead of long fighting scenes.

If you enjoy lowbudget asian action flicks that's more obscure than a lot of other movies, give Thai Police Story a chance and I'm quite sure you won't be disappointed. This is good stuff from the master of stupid stunts, Panna Rittikrai!

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