The sequel to Mission Hunter was released on a nice looking DVD in the US as Battle Warrior, with Tony Jaa’s face all over the cover. That’s not a bad b-movie, Jaa has a small part and it has some excellent jungle-action. At first I was suspicious about the first movie. No one seemed to have seen it and I had that strange feeling that it would be a much weaker movie – and the second part is quite weak to be honest…
After forty minutes I almost gave up. A lot of people talking, joking (in Thai, with no subtitles of course), some very minor action-related scenes, all in the city. Gathering a team of experts or something, including this huge German guy with an impressive moustache and Panna Rittikrai with a mullet from hell. Then they go in the jungle and the German guy show his dick to one of the Thai guys, one of the female members seem to take a shit in front of her team mates and similar high standard comedy.
So… what was there to expect? Well, 45 minutes of mega-action!!! Yes, it’s true. After meeting some terrorists or something in the jungle, our heroes gets involved in a fuckload of action. Shootings, explosions, fighting… and then they arrive to the jungle camp, and it goes totally over-the-top. I’d never seen so many huts being blown to pieces, lots of stunts, gory and bloody squibs, some crazy fighting and much more. This is low budget, but it’s so damn spectacular in that low budget way that only Asians can do it.
It’s always fun to see older movie with Rittikrai because he and his team always tries out a lot of stunts and gags that later is made with perfection in the new movies. The truck-gag in the beginning of Born to Fight is in one of the earlier movies, so the chase-scene that Tony Jaa did in Ong Bak (in the streets, jumping over and under dangerous objects) You will recognize a lot of stuff here, but a bit rougher – and sometimes crazier.
I have no idea what the story really was in this movie, but I know that the last half was brilliant! Something for everyone that enjoys Backyard Asia-style movies!
2 comments:
Well, I enjoy movies from the Asian backyard (LOL) so I'd better let you know I'm getting more and more convinced that "Mission Hunter" is aka "Dark Day Express" which I wrote about a while back.
Recently someone left a message on my blog saying that Panna Rittikrai is in "Dark" and that an English dubbed version exists on Greek VHS. Unfortunately, he wasn't interested in swapping a copy with me. It's also out on VHS in Spain (with Spanish dub):
http://trashy-filipino-war-movies.blogspot.com/2010/06/getting-hit-by-kfc.html
J
I think the Thai VCD of this one was quite acceptable. If I squeezed the picture the ratio became correct (but slightly cropped on the sides) and it wasn't so dark or pixelated as some others I've seen. And I'm sure this is the same as mention in your post :)
Really loved this movie by the way, the action in the end was awesome! :D
Post a Comment