Movie:
Disc:
Even
though it is at times downright weird and eccentric, Dynamite Warrior
isn't all that original or new, especially if you've seen movies such as
Kung Fu Hustle and Ong-Bak.
It is Thailand, 1920, but
you wouldn't have guessed it as it looks more like a Sergio Leone Western,
but with kickboxing Asians instead of Clint Eastwood and Lee van Cleef.
Thailand is modernizing,
but progress is slow. Ask Lord Wang (Leo Putt, in a wildly over-the-top
performance) who is trying to sell imported tractors to local peasants. The
tractors are expensive and a small farmer would rather buy ten cattle with
the money he would have spent on one of Wang's tractors. Thus Wang decides
on a novel solution: simply eliminate the competition by stealing all the
cattle and selling them to be slaughtered.
Into this scenario steps
Jone Bang Fai (Dan Chupong), our titular hero, the Dynamite Warrior
(although he is never called that in the movie itself).
Jones bent on revenge
after he witnessed his parents being killed as a child by a cruel cattle
rustler. Since then he has stolen cattle from both legit cattle traders as
well as rustlers and giving them to the peasants which makes him a sort of
Robin Hood. Or a Mao Zedong if you prefer.
Despite his ?Dynamite
Warrior? nomenclature, Jone actually doesn't use sticks of dynamite on his
opponents, but rather uses primitive rockets. Lots of them. That is when he
isn't kicking the crap out of them with moves he no doubt learnt from having
watched Ong-Bak (also a Thai martial arts movie like this one)
several times.
Jone has however learned
that the killer of his parents is a powerful warlock who can only harmed by
weapons treated with the menstrual blood of a young virgin . . .
Dynamite
Warrior is filled with wild over-the-top action scenes and the same goes
for the attempts at humor. (Some gore is jarring though.) However, if
you've seen flicks such as Kung Fu Hustle and even Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon then much of Dynamite Warrior wouldn't seem
all that fresh or original.
Still, if the idea of movie
in which a powerful warlock has to be killed by weapons treated with the
menstrual blood of a virgin appeals to you, then Dynamite Warrior is
definitely for you. It is a real-life anime cartoon come to life and there
are definitely worse ways to waste one-and-a-half hours of your life than
Dynamite Warrior . . .
