Tom Yum Goong
Reviewed by Anabela Voi You

Director: Prachya Pinkaew
Cast:  Tony Jaa, Bongkot Kongmalai, Petchthai Wongkamlao (Mom Jokmok)
Year: 2005
Runtime: ?? minutes

Tony Jaa was simply brilliant – I can’t recall anyone better in dislocating people’s joints so methodically on screen. At one point I was convinced that the muscled dudes in the movie were so bright they could have been theoretical mathematicians and martial artists; it seemed that they all fell for Tony’s joint-dislocation moves for the 700th time. These potential theoretical mathematicians and astrophysicists didn’t detect Tony’s bona fide move of grab-your-arm-go-behind-you-and-twist-the-hell-out-of-you move, even though he must have used it on the entire cast at least 12 times. For the guys out there, the chick (Bongkot Kongmalai) of the story almost went nude during a mud bath. Although it was a teaser this alluring Thai actress won’t disappoint. It was funny that her tease was used to cause a dude’s heart attack, because I have seen quite a few times when the female sexual power was used to kill men via heart attacks… again, on screen of course. It would be problematic if I actually witnessed the dislocation of body parts and using sex to kill people on a daily basis.

I liked the story and I don’t set high standards for plot when it comes to action flicks, because if intelligence and common sense is actually required, then the existence of these films would be obliterated. The opening was innocent, sweet, and oh-so sentimental that Hollywood and soaps will have trouble catching up. I didn’t have a problem with it, as I love elephants almost as much as Tony’s character did, and interestingly enough, imdb.com also mentions that Tony Jaa really did grow up with elephants. I liked using Thailand’s national symbol as the theme for the movie. Elephants are magnificent creatures and there should be more movies on them. And if Tony is there to defend and fight for their existence, even better. There were lots of explosions, reckless chase scenes, big muscles, good fighters, general havoc, and mandatory destruction of all standing objects, so it will definitely entertain. Jackie Chan’s New Police Story, a very good recent action flick, doesn’t even match up presenting enough rampage as Tom Yum Goong does. The plot though is better over-looked. Basically, Tony is a nature-loving man of an ethnic minority in Thailand, and he lives peacefully and lovingly with his family and elephants. On one really bad day, some evil poachers steal his elephant friends and they all disappear. In no time Tony figures out all his enemies and elephants are in Australia, and he goes all the way there (the issues of visas and air ticket prices don’t exist) to save his elephants and embark on a huge destructive spree of great proportions. His victims’ medical and funeral bills as well as civic structural damages to Sydney might take at least 30 lifetimes to pay off – that is, if you work as a yuppie in the G8. Of course, you forgive Tony because he’s the hero and he’s only hurting the bad guys. Massive destruction is justified if you’re trying to save two cuddly gentle creatures; it’s really no argument unless you’re in an academic in philosophy class.
For Tony, no structure is too high for him to kick and pulverize, no bones impossible to crack, no limits to the possibility of how many acrobatic tricks he can perform just about anywhere with just about anything. Sometimes it just seems he is indeed airborne. His signature move of flipping backwards to kick a high lamppost bulb is awesome, and the classic scenario where the hero is the last man standing in a room full of big, defeated dudes groaning on the floor happened a few times. While one can say that Jackie’s style mostly consisted of the Peking Opera School of acrobatics and self-styled stunts or while Jet Li is the exemplary performer of traditional Chinese martial arts, Tony Jaa seems to combine many martial arts traditions to the point of where it’s hard to trace what is what. Obviously, his eclectic style consists of many muay thai moves, but at one point I was wondering how in the world he could master gymnastics as well as do kicks that were clearly more Korean than Thai. He’s definitely a hard worker, experimenter, and indeed it’s hard to find someone who can absorb and master so many martial arts traditions. Recently, it just seems that crime films won’t lay off doing criminal network stories without going to several international locations, and this is one of them.
Moving on, the villains in the movies were appropriately despicable, although the problem on how to finish them off satisfactorily is a creative problem for scriptwriters. The villain didn’t quite die and not well enough. The sets were quite impressive as one can tell that much deliberation and creative input was invested in the grotesque visuals, costumes, and character sketches. At one point the set resembled the contrived, disturbing interior of a video game. The restaurant/headquarters of endangered species, drug and human-trafficking were so eerie and disturbing that I actually think this movie, as intelligently limited as it is, did justly address the shamefulness of these issues by its sheer visual presentation. It’s nice to see the villain be a female bitch for once, and she was oh-so vicious, an accomplished mistress of poison as well. Evil males have been over-used and usually the women are just victims. The number of good fighters was impressive. Even in Jet Li and Jackie Chan films there weren’t so many eccentric fighters as in Tom Gum Yom. In any case, Tony reunites with his elephant and justice prevails. It’s good, go see it, Tony Jaa’s stylish and unreal physical skills might just replace Jackie and Jet, who are getting older, as the next action hero for coming generation. And he well deserves it.

A note of little interest: Tom Yum Goong is a Thai dish of prawn soup with Lemongrass.

Rating: 8

Sars Wars

Director: Taweewat Wantha
Cast: Suppakorn Kitsuwan, Thep Pho-Ngan, Lena Christiansen, Phintusuda Tunphairao
Year: 2004
Running Time: 87 minutes

Crazy comic zombie movies seem to be in vogue again with films like "Battlefield Baseball", "Wild Zero" and "Shaun of the Dead" all arriving over the past few years and now Thailand has entered the ranks of this spaced out genre with the absolutely ludicrously delightful SARS WARS - that begins at silly and only escalates from there to complete foolishness. This film refuses to take itself seriously for even an iota of a nanosecond and exists only to try and generate laughs - sometimes successfully, sometimes not - but it tries so eagerly like a dog bringing you the slippers that it’s hard not to feel affection for this loopy contraption. They throw everything into this film from school girls in short skirts with axes to a condominium full of munching zombies to heroes with magic swords that need batteries to a killing fetus baby on the loose. As one character looks around at the situation and sees the zombies, a giant boa constrictor and C4 explosives set to go off; he remarks, "We are in deep shit". No kidding. With more severed body parts and exploding heads than a heavy metal concert weekend, this is strictly for those who like their movies idiotic, fast moving, bloody, zany and very fun. No Mensa's need apply.

A group of bad guys headed by Yai (Sumlek Sakdigel) kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman by distracting her bodyguards with a bikini clad babe on the side of the road - who later of course turns out to be a man - what's a Thai comedy without at least one gender bender moment - and expect an even freakier one later on that will make you gurgle with absurd pleasure. A ransom tape is sent to the father explaining that if they don't receive money then the girl Lia (Phintusuda Tunphairao) will become more intimately involved with a long vegetable than she probably wants to. The father goes to Master Tape (Thep Pho-Ngan - "Killer Tattoo") to hire him to rescue Lia, but instead the Master suggests that his much younger stud assistant Khun (Suppakorn Kitsuwan - "Monrak Transistor" and "Tears of the Black Tiger") do the duties of rescuing Lia.
Meanwhile, as a spokesperson for the Thai government is crowing about eradicating all viruses in Thailand, a busy little insect has flown out of a corpse in Africa and is merrily making its way to Thailand carrying the SARS virus – which kills you in quick time and turns you into a zombie soon afterwards. Its first victim is a falang (played by Andrew Biggs - a well-known writer/host in Thailand) who after being bit begins to spew bile upon others and helps begin a mass infection of the apartment dwellers of a certain condo - a certain high-rise condo in which the kidnappers are holding Lai. Master Tape and Khun figure out the location because the villains put their return address on the ransom package. It only gets sillier - a pet boa constrictor eats an infected cat and turns into a giant killer, a pregnant woman is bit and her baby bursts out of her stomach with a deep hunger, a female scientist (Lena Christiansen - "Tesseract") goes into the building with a vaccine and loses her clothes and has to go the rest of the film dressed in black mesh lingerie and leather short shorts (and has to perform a go-go dance to start someone's heart up again), there is a sex act called "Crouching Tiger Eats Noodles", a disco full of oxygen tank hipsters turn into zombies, there is a Kill Bill like anime flashback and the building is about to be blown up. Master Tape turns to the audience after one more absurd turn of events and says, "Well you've watched it this far" and high fives Khun. And so we have! You have to be in the right mood for this over the top burbling blood gushing illogical oddity, but if you are enjoy, open a beer and bite the person next to you.

My rating for this film: 7.5