Director: Sor Saengchai
Year: 2023
Country: Thailand
Alternate Titles: Kla Fun
Genre: Action
Plot:
When a shipment is stolen, a crime boss decides to investigate who sniped the goods from him which soon gets back to an underling associate of his at a local gym where he’s hosting a special MMA fight in the area. Knowing that one of his employees is a capable hand to launch a decoy mission that will nab the guilty party, he takes the guy and his team together to prepare for the assignment only for him to be distracted when his sister takes on the fight at the event as the payout will allow her to help with their mother's medical bills. Knowing the stakes and deciding to risk everything, they set out with their missions to assist however they can.
Review:
Overall, this was a fairly fun low-budget Action film. Among the better features here is the rather strong setup that manages to bring about several different aspects together for a surprisingly layered story. The initial focus is seemingly on the crime boss trying to investigate who stole his goods in the opening moments as his team recovers enough evidence of foul play on his transported goods that requires the training team to prepare for a new shipment as he investigates what’s going on. This brings the brother into the mix by being the main driver on the next shipment going out as he’s the next hotshot member on the team that’s secretly being used to transport everything. The secondary story about the sister’s determination to train and win the MMA fight is the main one that gets added depth as the focus on her training regiments, the different setbacks, and the personal rivalry she has with her opponent makes for a great touch already before adding in the personal motivation of doing this for the money needed to save their dying mother. All told, these manage to set up a surprisingly emotional and somewhat straightforward storyline.
From there, the film adds quite a lot of solid and surprisingly enjoyable action throughout here. The main focus is on the big MMA fight that comes together as a big-time showcase which makes for a fun time as this undergoes the usual series of training montages and skill challenges she needs to prepare for the encounter. The series of sessions needed to get her skills up to par work quite nicely here as there’s a decided disadvantage to where she starts and where she ends up as she takes it to the champ in the final fight which is a fun and lively bout with some solid choreography allowing a bit of indecision over who’s going to come out the winner. The more traditional action scenes involve the chasing and racing going on while attempting to get the stolen goods back which includes a series of solid stunts of the high-speed cars zooming through the streets and crashing through obstacles resulting in some highly effective sequences that match the other scenes here quite nicely. These all manage to provide the film with some solid points that hold it up.
This one does have a few minor issues that hold it down. Among the main drawbacks to this one is the straightforward angle in the storyline here that leaves the film with some confusing elements at points. There’s a strangely secretive nature regarding who the offending party is that took the stolen material from the crime boss that it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s really the one that’s stealing everything which is the point in that it’s a mystery to be solved. Still, there’s not much about how the villain comes across and what type of motivation is there for the actions so this screams as an unnecessary element to be included for no reason. On top of that, the whole thing tends to be far too brief at the end to expose what’s going on, tending to offer up a kind of heartbreaking twist that solves everyone’s issue at once but never gives it a chance to breathe as if it tended to introduce everything only to then completely zoom past it to the point of not getting any kind of resolution out of it. It’s not nearly as damaging but does serve to knock this down somewhat.
Overview: ***.5/5
A fairly fun and somewhat enjoyable low-budget Action effort, there’s enough to this one to enjoy that it comes off surprisingly well for what it is as only a few minor drawbacks are there to hold it down. Give it a chance if you’re a fan of this kind of feature or are not too bothered with the type of flaws present here while most others might want to heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment