Vengeance Of An Assassin hit Blu-ray on April 14th, 2015, from Well Go USA Entertainment
You don’t need Tony Jaa to make a great Thai action film. In fact, despite that explosive star being the reason most anyone in the world (including myself) are fans of Thai action, Jaa’s presence or absence has become less and less of an indicator of that film’s quality in more recent years. And although Jaa is the face of the Thai film industry to the rest of the world, perhaps Panna Rittikrai was the founding father. Rittikrai was himself an action star in his early days, and then moved into choreography, stunt work, and directing. Without Rittikrai there would be no Tony Jaa, and sadly we lost Rittikrai recently; Vengeance Of An Assassin is the final film of the hardworking purveyor of stunt-action insanity. And fortunately, he went out with a bang befitting him: Vengeance Of An Assassin reminds you how much fun a rip roaring Thai action film can be.
I’m going to have a lot of great things to say about the film, but I have to get on my soap box a little bit to lay out my big issue with the movie, and it is a significant problem. There’s a giant action sequence towards the end of the movie. It is intended to be the climax, although there’s a more fitting and character-driven climax that comes afterwards. But the sequence takes place on, in, and around a moving train… which is being chased by a helicopter… and the entire sequence just falls horribly flat due to blatant and wonky CGI. I’ve seen a few Thai action films now which just have the wind totally taken out of their sails by poor CGI usage. More or less, what makes us Westerners fall in love with Thai action films is how thoroughly they outmatch American filmmakers when it comes to practical stunts and nail-biting, life-endangering action sequences. The payoff is knowing real people really did the stunts. Shoddy GCI effectively removes said payoff, and the train sequence here is a perfect example of this. The sequence feels video gamey, and I call into question every stunt I see because most likely it was done on a soundstage somewhere safe, as opposed to on top of a moving train like they want me to believe. The train looks bad, the helicopter is egregious, and the whole scope of what was being attempted is sadly outdone by any mid-budget American fare. Thai action films suffer when they try to be more like US films and deliver CG spectacle, but they shine when they do their own thing and put American action to shame.
Which is why I’m thrilled to report that most of the rest of the movie relies on the strengths that caused Thai action to explode onto the international market in the first place. Re-pairing Rittikrai behind the camera with star of their previous collaboration Born To Fight Dan Chupong, there’s a gleeful rebelliousness to this film which I’ve been missing from many of the more recent Thai films I’ve seen. There’re stunt falls which leave me wincing, there’s an opening full contact soccer sequence that sprinkles in CGI in just the right quantities to help me believe these men are beating the snot out of one another inside an industrial factory set up with their own unique brand of soccer field, and there are more than one bravura, long take gunfights and hand to hand combat sequences.
The plot doesn’t matter a whole lot, and is honestly a little convoluted. There’s a central pair of brothers being raised by an uncle who swore to keep them away from their troubled pasts, but at varying times they discover a past filled with intrigue and deceit, that their parents were some type of elite assassins who were double crossed and gunned down, and so somehow these previously normal brothers magically integrate into the crime world and become badass assassins. Like I said, it is convoluted and filled with melodrama and none of it really matters because there’s JUST enough story to make you care and engage in the action fully.
And oh that action. There’s the opening soccer fight sequence, and the lame train sequence I already mentioned, but there are also two enormous gun fight sequences done in a single, long, free-floating take which are just breathtaking, down-to-the-basics scenes. The homage paid to vintage John Woo is much appreciated. But the hand to hand fights are just as thrilling, with a mega-tough female assassin who gets a couple of great fights in and even some gory kills (including a death by chicken bone that made me smile ear to ear) which feel almost atonal compared to much of the film’s otherwise “aw shucks” feel. But this manic element of shy/nice guy heroes who click into god-mode at times simply further endears me to the film.
When you find yourself cheering, rewinding to see a stunt again, and uncontrollably wincing, then Thai action is doing its job. Vengeance Of An Assassin sidesteps the high profile of Tony Jaa and reteams the excellent Born To Fight’s star and director for a back to basics, hard-R action film that makes you proud to be an action movie fan. May Panna Rittikrai rest in peace, having left behind a final action opus to be proud of and a career’s worth of cinematic action beats that will live forever in action cinema infamy.