My review of 'Raging Phoenix'

Source: http://www.freewebs.com/mhrap

I hope you enjoy it!

RAGING PHOENIX (2009)
(Directed by Rashane Limtrakul)

"Ugh, cool fight scenes vs stupid comedic bits.....Which one wins for you?"- Signed by MartialHorror.

Plot: After nearly being abducted herself, a woman joins a group of martial artists who are hunting down as a gang of sex traffickers.

Review:

I can only think of describing “Raging Phoenix” in one way. Remember when Tony Jaa elbowed his way onto the scene with “Ong Bak” and everyone was simply stunned at how awesome he was? Then remember how disappointed we were when he released “The Protector”? Oh sure, it wasn't bad. We tended to acknowledge that it was modestly entertaining thanks to some decent fight scenes, but the low budget became more apparent and the direction was sometimes amateurish. Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda had a similar impact on us with “Chocolate”, which sported some amazing and diverse fight scenes itself. Sure, it's faults as a film were more apparent than the ones in “Ong Bak”, but it was a great martial arts movie. She was pretty much the female Tony Jaa and our hopes were even higher, as Jaa himself had pretty much gone insane by the time Yanin came around. Unfortunately, “Raging Phoenix” is Yanin's “The Protector”. It's modestly enjoyable and has some good fights, but something seems wrong about the movie. It's not bad. It's just cheap looking, amateurish, and a bit of a let down.....

Deu (Yanin Vismistananda) is a lonely, angry woman whose kicked out of her band when she beats up her cheating boyfriend. Drunk and bitter, she's nearly abducted by a gang of sex traffickers. Luckily, she's rescued by Sanim (Kazu Patrick Tang), a badass martial artist who practices in an art that can be described as “drunken muy thai”. He brings her back to their base, where Deu meets his accomplices...Pig *beep* (Nui Saendaeng as Kee Moo) and Dog *beep* (Sompong Lertwimonkaisom as Kee Ma)...Yes, you heard that correctly. It turns out the gang who tried to take her also took Sanim's wife, and they have a special reason for going after Deu. So the trio must train Deu in martial arts, so they can ambush the gang and rescue Sanim's wife.

“Raging Phoenix” does a few things right. Perhaps most importantly, it gives Yanin a lot more to do. She was very believable as the autistic kid in “Chocolate”, but this is a completely different kind of role. She's fiery, loud and arrogant. Her crying and screaming scenes reminded me a bit too much of the girl from “Ong Bak”, so she might be annoying, but I thought Yanin handled her dramatic scenes very well. In fact, some of these scenes are handled beautifully, showing that Yanin can be subtle too. This puts her above Tony Jaa, whose either awkward or over-the-top when he tries to be dramatic. She also seems to be having fun with the films more comedic bits, which is good because I didn't. While the names of Dog *beep* and Pig *beep* made me laugh a little, most of the comedic bits are too broad for me to enjoy. The comical music especially becomes redundant and made me irritable and I'm not sure I liked the break-dance fighting stuff. Most of all, having goofy scenes spliced in with a story about sexual slavery is a bit unsettling. It's not quite as jarring as some of Hong Kong's stuff, where slapstick comedy is mixed in with a woman being raped to death by chop sticks (“The Untold Story”), but I've never cared for such wish washy tones. Still, in its attempts to be hip and cool, there are some interesting ideas. I mean, bad guys attack people on these pogo stick-like-stilts...weird.

The fight scenes are.......decent, in a way they're like the ones found in “Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen”. There are some really impressive moves and some really impressive scenarios in which to use said moves. But those moves are only found amidst mostly okay choreography. To be fair, the comical antics got distracting at times (Deu has a fight scene where she keeps dancing throughout it, which ruined what would've been a pretty cool fight scene......keeping in mind I didn't agree with this films sense of humor to begin with). I don't know, it just always seemed like the director was shooting these battles the wrong way, or the cinematographer made things either too bright or too dark. It always made the fights lack impact, especially compared to the ones found in “Chocolate”, although they still aren't that bad. The stunts are brutal looking though, so the film is a mild success in that regard.

The directing is rather amateurish in general. As Prachya Pinkaew revealed his own weaknesses as a director when he wasn't making a movie that was 90% fight scenes, Limtrakul's direction sometimes downright sucks. His attempts to be dramatic and arty are unintentionally funny and sometimes even confusing. He allows some bad looking shots into the picture (when the guys are sliding down a green screen), but they're worse because they were pointless additions. Furthermore, while most martial arts movies tend to be about getting to the next fight scene, “Raging Phoenix” has this same philosophy but then drags its ass. It moves too fast to allow the drama to really sink in, so the relationships don't matter. But it moves too slow to where we really want the film to get to the next fight scene, but it doesn't.

Yet sometimes the talent involved helps serve Limtrakul. There are always cliched shots of the martial artist training on top of some big establishment, like when Jaden Pinkett Smith is training on the Great Wall of China (amongst other epic establishments) in “The Karate Kid (2010)”, while the camera moves around to capture it in all its glory. It's a cliché I don't mind, as it always looks gorgeous, but this movie really benefits from it by having our protagonists do some truly spectacular demonstrations of their strength. But most importantly, the movie becomes AWESOME in the end. The absurd sequence where Sanim and Deu fight London (Roongtawan Jindasing) on a bunch of bridges in her secret lair (!!) is just as stupid as it is awesome. The stunts look epic and the fights are sharp, crisp and inventive. The following fight scene is just as good as the ones found in “Chocolate”, being extensively brutal and stylized. So there is some great stuff here, you just really have to endure the lesser stuff.

I think a lot of the problem is that “Raging Phoenix” is Yanim's salute to Jackie Chan (and later on, Jet Li). Unfortunately, she can't do Chan as well as she can do Bruce Lee or Tony Jaa (both of whom she saluted in her previous film). But if you enjoyed the films comical tone, then obviously what I say is irrelevant. Whereas (mostly) everything in “Chocolate” served to create a badass kung fu film, “Raging Phoenix” is a bit of a mess...Not even a “High Kick Girl” type of mess. It's a movie where there are too many fight scenes and training montages to allow the drama to kick in, but there are too many dramatic scenes to fully enjoy it as a martial arts film. Yet Yanim does a good job and the fight scenes are still decent, if not pretty good. But you'd have to be a fan of Yanim and the genre to really enjoy It.

Violence: Rated R worthy. Pretty brutal at times.

Nudity: None, although Yanim is naked a few times, you dont see anything. Also, while sex trafficking is a theme, there's nothing explicit about it.

Overall: If you're a fan of the people behind/in front of the scenes or like martial arts movies, “Raging Phoenix” is worth a look but I would keep my expectations low. It has a lot of good stuff along with the bad stuff.

2.5/4 stars


my reviews of martial arts and horror films
http://freewebs.com/martialhorror