Dan Chupong plays a young warrior, armed with rockets and martial arts skills, who roams the Thai countryside in the 19th Century, searching for the man who killed his parents. His only clues are that he trades in buffalo and is a unique tattoo on his chest. He finds the man he believes is his target, but this trader, who possesses magical powers, is also in the sights of an evil local aristocrat who is trying to get rid of the local buffalo population in order to drive up sales for his tractor franchise. Said ne’er-do-well sets up our hero to do his dirty work.
The first fifteen minutes or so are a bit confusing as the plot gets all its ducks lined up, but once everything is in motion, the storyline clears up. The action, a mix of traditional stunt work and wire work, is not on the same level as Ong-Bak, but it is still exciting, and there’s plenty of it. If the lead-in to act 3 drags a bit, with an excessive use of flashbacks filling in events the audience has already figure out, the payoff makes it all worthwhile.
Audio
Avoid the English dub, which is not only horrendous, but blots out some of the film’s original sound design. The original Thai 5.1 is infinitely better. The dialogue has no distortion (though when it comes to the voice of the villain, which is perhaps THE MOST IRRITATING IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA, you might almost wish it had). The score is huge, and the effects, especially the explosions, are thunderous.
Video
The colours are bright and engaging, but not consistent, sometimes shifting in tonal quality in the middle of a scene. On the other hand, the image is sharp, and grain and edge enhancement are not issues here. Contrasts and blacks are fine, too. Everything generally looks so good that the colour fluctuations are all the more noticeable.
Special Features
The making-of featurette is a fairly typical affair, but isn’t a waste of time, at least. All the other featurettes (behind-the-scenes stunts, on-the-set footage, special effects makeup) are so short – running less than 2 minutes each – that they barely rate mentioning.
Closing Thoughts
Good fun, at times resembling a martial arts-inflected Western.
