You know, martial arts movies are kind of done.We’ve had karate.
We’ve had kung-fu and tae kwon do.
Jean-Claude Van Damme introduced muay thai to the lexicon, and Tony Jaa revived it.
Thanks to Steven Seagal, we’ve sort of had aikido.
Mixed martial-arts are everywhere.
We’ve had slow-mo (Chuck Norris), shirt ripping (Bruce Lee), bullet time (Keanu Reeves), and gun-fu (Christian Bale).
What’s left?
I know! Let’s make a movie about a guy who uses a combination of kickboxing, dynamite, and rockets!
Dynamite Warrior is a 2006 martial-arts revenge movie from Thailand has a 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where only 39% of the audience report liking it.
To find out whether you should agree with the critics or the audience, read on after the break.
Why Bother?
Do you like action-packed martial arts extravaganzas? This might be for you. I love them.
Did you like Dan Chupong in Born to Fight? He stars in this film as well, as Jone Bang Fai. I haven’t seen that one, myself.
Did you like Ong-Bak? I know that I sure did. Prachya Pinkaew produced Ong-Bak, The Protector, and this movie. That certainly seems like a recommendation.
If you understood those questions, this movie might be worth you checking out. If you (honestly) answered yes to any two of them, this movie is certainly worth seeing at least once.
I watched it
Are you ready for some action? Okay! Here it comes –
In Thailand, in the 19th Century, there was some boring trade agreement. In one part of Thailand there was rice, and in another there were buffaloes. The rice farmers needed buffaloes to plow their fields and do other work, and the buffalo farmers needed rice to eat. Action! Adventure!
Now that, right there, is a great set-up for an American-style Western.
You’ve got the natural animosity between farmer and ranchers. All you need to throw in is some cross-class romance, some rustlers, and some six-shooters.
A movie practically writes itself.
Unfortunately, it’s not this movie.
Enter Sirikorn, AKA Lord Wang.
No, I am not making that up.
He’s gotten in bed with some American tractor manufacturers and is importing those tractors to Thailand. Trouble is, they cost about as much as 20 buffaloes. Most farmers would rather have the buffaloes, so Sirikorn is suffering.
Action! Adventure!
Meanwhile, some dudes are driving some buffalo across a prairie when they encounter a lone man with a gingham scarf wrapped around his face. He demands that they stop. They outnumber him, so they charge.
He shoots them with rockets, and then rides a giant rocket in amongst them.
Yes, you read that correctly.
A muay thai exhibition breaks out, which gingham guy wins. He then rips their shirts open. Cut to a village that’s setting out to recover their stolen buffalo, except they don’t have to, because the buffalo magically reappeared, courtesy of their friendly neighborhood gingham Robin Hood.
Sirikorn isn’t taking any of this lying down.
He helps a condemned killer break free, and then hires the killer and the killer’s gang to steal buffalo. Sirikorn sells the buffalo to a butcher, the price of buffaloes goes up, and soon Sirikorn is selling tractors and living in a palatial estate.
Now enters Singh.
Following all this? Not going too fast, is it? I mean, you can see how this is an action-packed martial arts extravaganza, right? To be fair, there’s another fight when the convicted killer has to prove himself to Sirikorn, but so far the movie is lots of talking and buffalos.
Speaking of which, Singh is a buffalo herder. I think. Some reviews claim that he’s a rustler, but I didn’t see or hear anything in the film to support that. The convicted killer is watching Singh and planning to attack his herd when the gingham-clad rocket Robin Hood shows up and attacks.
Singh has magic abilities, and I really thought the movie would take off when he started using them. In addition to delivering chi punches from thirty feet away, Singh can awaken animal spirits tattooed on his lackey’s chests.
Rocket dude (who’s actually named Jone Bang Fai) kills two of the henchmen and injures several more before confronting Singh. Turns out that someone with a tattoo like Singh’s killed Jone Bang Fai’s parents, and he’s out for revenge. Singh drives him off with magic.
Sirikorn and his convicted killer take a meeting, and decide that they need magic, too. They go to see the Black Wizard (whose name is Nai Hoi Dam). The Black Wizard says they can use his virgin daughter’s menstrual blood to overcome Singh, but only if someone can get close enough to touch him. The killer immediately realizes that Jone Bang Fai could get close enough.
So a couple of Sirikorn’s cronies trick Jone Bang Fai into visiting the Black Wizard, where he falls in love with the virgin daughter.
After that, there’s more magic, more rockets, more kickboxing, treachery, revelations, and escapes.
The Verdict
Absolutely nothing in Dynamite Warrior makes complete sense.
It’s never clear why the rice farmers don’t just breed their own buffalo. Unlike tractors, animals can reproduce themselves. You’d think Sirikorn would get into that business instead of this tractor stuff.
The rockets don’t do anything, except when the director needs them to.
They don’t explode. The buffalo ignore them (I suspect because they were all CGI). Jone Bang Fai throws a lot of dynamite that never explodes. I mean, there’s literally no point to him being armed with dynamite. The movie never even explains his dynamite addiction.
That’s ignoring weird things that I assumed were cultural or period artifacts – like weird hair, black teeth, outrageous mustaches, guys painting their faces white, and a convicted killer who’s so hungry all the time that he’s constantly on the verge of cannibalism. In fact, his gang spends most of their waking interactions with him convincing him to do things to get food.
Then there’s the horrible acting, some of which is clearly done on purpose but for no clear reason.
If you watched a lot of Hong Kong action movies from the 1970s and 1980s, you know what Dynamite Warrior wants to be.
However, it isn’t, so you should Just Look Away.
