Bangkok Knockout

I’m not sure what’s happened to the Thai film industry of late: they’ve either stopped making decent movies altogether, or at the very least have stopped exporting them to Australia.  To the best of my knowledge the last three Thai films to gain a local release have been Fireball, Vanquisher and Bangkok Knockout, and none of these rather silly low-budget action efforts is exactly indicative of a country at the forefront of cinematic achievement. 

This latter outing prominently displays all the hallmarks of straight-to-video fare: shoddy acting, incongruous dialogue, stilted exchanges straight out of an Ed Wood film.  It’s marketed as a kind of Pan Asian Fight Club (the film’s alternate title is the not so subtle Fighting Club), but whereas Fight Club featured an engaging premise, first rate performances and a snappy screenplay, Bangkok Knockout features a Thai lookalike of Elton John, distractingly bad hairstyles and all the production values of a mental home Christmas panto filmed on a camera phone. 

A confusing blend of campy humour, largely pointless exchanges, comic relief and the odd roundhouse kick, Bangkok Knockoff tries its hardest to please, but ultimately fails on all counts.  The ladies are undeniably leggy and the intermittent fight sequences, when they actually occur, are equally well put together.  Ultimately however the patchwork approach taken by co-directors Panna Rittikrai and Marokot Kaewthanee dissipates any tension before it gets a chance to build, and the end result, even as a low budget pastiche, proves more than a little ineffectual. 

Special Features

8 interviews with the directors and principal cast members, 12 minutes of behind the scenes footage, and a bunch of trailers.