While Born to Fight is not the true follow-up to Ong-Bak (Tom Yum Goong holds that spot), it will more than satisfy fans of this new, wild wave of ridiculous Thai martial arts films, packed with insane stunts and innovative action. Panna Rittikrai, the co-writer and action director of Ong-Bak, helms the pic, but the real credit goes to the unmatchable stunt team that risks life and limb for the sake of unaided and realistic looking stunts.
The only problem is the long wait to get these moments. While the film begins with a short action sequence (featuring a stuntman who falls in between two trucks and comes centimeters away from losing his head), the subsequent hour of the film sits like a dud, waiting to explode. The wafer thin plot deals with a group of athletes—which includes a couple soccer players, some gymnasts, a Taekwondo fighter and her cop boyfriend—who travel to a poor village and donate blankets, toys and friendship to win the hearts of both the villagers and the viewers alike. Once they get settled in, a squad of violent terrorists comes marching in, massacring a great deal of the village and rounding up the survivors to be held hostage. They get the government’s attention with the massacre and the threat of a nuke, and demand the release of a prisoner. Whether they receive their demands or not, they don’t seem to care about the villagers, so the athletes soon decide they must take it upon themselves if they want to survive.
Rittikrai does not take the pacing cue from Ong-Bak though and he sits tight with typical dialogue and trite scenes to serve as a massive chunk of filler before any real action starts. The film uses the simplest of formulas, relying on comically evil terrorists to brutally murder innocent people, and builds up to a big nationalist explosion when the athletes fight back. This works wonderfully for riling up simple emotions from the viewer—we want to root for the good guys because as far as we know, they are wholly good without any complications. This simplicity succeeds in Ong-Bak as well because the stunts and choreography are the main attractions, and a complex storyline would only weaken the satisfaction of the good guy spin-kicking the bad.
Born to Fight, however, suffers from a lack of action to break the schmaltz up. Rittikrai piles on “we’re all happy in our peaceful village scenes,” slow-motion massacre scenes and a hammy moment where the villagers are riled up and loudly sing the national anthem—all these scenes one after another. Viewers will find the crude process incredibly tiresome, but when the build-up and eruption occur, even the sleepiest will revive and savor the thirty minutes of pure, unadulterated, blissful action.
And though Rittikrai is behind this work, the action owes less to Ong-Bak than it does to 80’s Hong Kong action like Police Story. Muay Thai is abandoned, but the stuntmen maintain their same pledge to refrain from wires, CGI, and any other cop-outs, and simply rely on the set and camera trickery at best. The last act of the film plays out like an stunt reel cutting between each athlete’s plights over and over again with refreshing set pieces and inspired action choices. A gymnast knocks a few terrorists out with the aide of a pummel horse, even and uneven bars. One takes advantage of a balance beam for somersaulting action. The soccer plays use anything and everything round at their disposal for over-the-top visuals when they kick balls with astounding accuracy straight at enemy heads. Even the cop character, who sticks with his gun, is filmed with an immersive camera angle that resembles a third-person video game shooter, where enemies pop out of surprising places. And that does not even cover the vehicular stunts with motorcycles and trucks that will assuredly cause a viewer to spit out any food they may have in their mouth.
While it may be debatable whether the first hour is worth the time for the stirring build-up, or if it warrants skipping, the power and wonder of the final act will be unanimously loved. The film’s end credits, recalling Jackie Chan’s 80’s films, showcase Born to Fight’s bloopers and accidents to reminds its audience how much blood, pain and effort goes into these projects. Viewers too young to have lived through the 80’s Hong Kong action wave will surely not want to miss out on experiencing a similar sort of magic here.
Reviewed by Tarun
