7 Pra Chan Ban (Heaven’s Seven)
Reviewed by Simon Booth
Director: Chalerm Wongpim
Year: 2002
Starring: Pongpat Wachirabunjong, Theng Therdtherng,
Ummarin Nitipon
Time: 1 hr 51 minutes
Heaven's Seven aka 7 Prachabaan aka 7 Pra Chan
Ban aka 7 pra-jan-barn is a new movie from Thailand, billed an "action
comedy" with a seemingly high budget that's bought some explosive action
and some special effects that are quite good, in a bad sort of way (or
bad in a good sort of way). Since I'm probably one of the first westerners
to have seen the movie I probably should write a long detailed review,
but there doesn't seem much point since I'm just going to conclude that
it's not a very good movie and you'd be wasting your time trying to see
it.
The movie takes a Kelly's Heroes kind of plot
where 7 inept soldiers have to transcend their failings when they get mixed
up in a plot by American soldiers to bury napalm on Thai soil, and totally
mismanage it. It tries to introduce way too many characters and fails to
develop any of them. The story has no narrative structure and fails to
create any real interest. Quite a lot of effort has been put into the action
sequences, but they're still well below the quality of a Hollywood or Hong
Kong action movie.
Some of the special effects are pretty good, but
they seriously overstretch themselves in the finale and look silly as a
result. The comedy either doesn't translate well or simply isn't very funny
(on the subject of translation, I don't know how accurately the use of
the word fuck in every other sentence in the subtitles reflects the Thai,
but it sounds kind of like the subtitler was just seeing how much swearing
he could get away with when nobody else speaking English was likely to
see the film).
It's always nice to see Americans as bad guys
once in a while, but the movie fails to really convince that soldiers secretly
burying napalm are any worse than the generally treacherous and mean spirited
Thai soldiers that are meant to be the heroes. The American actors in the
cast are also much bigger, butcher and meaner looking than any of the Thai
cast, making it totally implausible that they'd lose the fight. Well, I
guess I already wrote more than I meant to. Really the movie's not very
good though, and I don't recommend exerting any effort whatsoever to see
it.
Reviewed by Brian
Most of the time I find myself in agreement
with Simon's opinions on the Thai films we have both seen, but I have to
admit to rather enjoying this somewhat lunatic film that mixes spitballs
of action, sentimentality and a comic irreverance. It's certainly miles
from being a classic and perhaps not even being good, but it has a spasmodic
goofiness and style that often brought a wry smile to my face. For those
that may have enjoyed Killer Tattoo, this film has a similar spirit that
is also fast paced if not always logical and has a big bang ending that
seems to go on forever. The fellow who played Elvis in Killer Tattoo has
a role here as well.
It takes place during the Vietnam war and a group
of ex-Thai soldiers who fought there are hired to steal a truckload of
treasure from the American military. It turns out though that the rotten
Americans are actually burying napalm in Thailand and after the Seven steal
a truck load of it, the Americans send a platoon of nasty killers after
them to get it back. It is sort of fun seeing the American military portrayed
as the very bad guys and to see how another country can look at things
very differently than we do here in the States. Not that this is a political
treatise - it is basically just a lot of silliness, but one that clearly
was meant to make the Thai audiences feel pretty good about their boys
kicking some American butt.
The Thai DVD has English subtitles.
My rating for this films: 6.0