Audience Member
I went to see this film when I was in Thailand, and I watched it with English subtitles. When I left the theatre, I left without understanding any of what I had just watched. I would have put this down to poor subtitles (a personal favourite line was "Life is like a dog."), but I was with two native Thai speakers and they also had no idea what had happened! The plot made no sense at all, it was unclear who was who and what was happening and why. We got the vague idea that he was avenging his parents' murders, but that was as far as we got in terms of comprehension. At one point I left to go to the bathroom and stopped at the arcade on my way back for a minute, and when I re-entered the screen it had jumped from the assassin being in a graveyard to him running across the top of an exploding train with a strange princess in tow. I asked my friend sitting next to me to explain what I had missed, but he couldn't. The one good thing about this film was that it was very funny, but I'm going to have a guess and say that that was unintentional... 1/5 stars - not recommended.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I didn't watch this for the story, I came for the action. Muddled and messy, the plot focuses on two brothers whose parents were assassins. They were killed, and they want revenge or something. The usage of CGI in some aspects was really lame, and goes against the rest of the gritty stunts/fight scenes. There are a few good moments, involving glass, free falling, and a fight on a train. (with visual effects that look like shit btw) There's not much else that's great about Panna Rittikrai's last film, except a one shot execution scene where an assassin takes out an entire room, in one take. Despite that, Vengeance of an Assassin is an admirable attempt in the vein of Hard Boiled or Jackie Chan, but just falls shy of unlocking its true potential.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
One of the most brutal and amazingly choreographed foreign action films I've seen. Hand-to-hand combat like The Raid (1&2), shootin' tootin like Shoot 'em-up, weapons combat like The Transporter 2 and explosions like Live Free or Die Hard. Granted -- the plot is super cliche and the acting is atrocious, I don't think anyone really watches Asian Kung-Fu movies for the plot. See this. It's available on Amazon Instant Video. Very very awesome.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Amazing stunts, atrocious script. It's incredible how a movie can be so brilliant in one aspect and completely abysmal in the rest. Vengeance of an Assassin has a really excellent choreography on par with The Raid and Ong Bak, but it lacks any logical structure and understanding of reality. The plot is nonsensical and inconceivable, there's really not enough to string together a story here. This film is made for action fans and admittedly there's plenty adrenaline rush to be had here, though majority of the audience will find the lack of basic story to be unappealing.
Story follows a kidnapped princess who is saved by children of special agents, kind of. Screenplay is erratic throughout the entire movie, it doesn't deliver crucial plot points or just simply skims over them. There are literally scenes that are glossed over by people shooting the very next minute. Thailand movies are notorious for this, but at least they still have set-up for character, back story and such.
Vengeance of an Assassin doesn't even cover these basics, it just a few dialogues cobbled together to fill space between the action. Acting is either lackluster or overly enthusiastic. Not to mention there are many plot devices that defies law of nature. It tends to underwhelm the production when a movie pretends basic concept of reality or common sense doesn't apply to them.
Nevertheless, the action is superb. Fight scenes are made with robust motion. The movie has authentic way of combat, using nt only Muay Thai, but also acrobat and even ordinary items for maximum damage. It's brutal, unrelenting and will definitely delight action fans. Choreography also includes a couple of continuous shots which resembles the best of John Woo's movie decades ago. There's no shortage of climatic combat when the talking stops, although a few of CGI sequences look rather inorganic.
There was definitely a lot of production value invested in the movie, it's just unfortunate that barely any of it went to screenplay and script.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
Full Review
born k
Weak story, with weak acting, and many no sense thing in the action (like windows that break and in the next scene are there to be broken again, bullets that doesn't trespass wood, etc.) - but the action scenes are too intense. and with nice choreography. The movie ends with a hook to a sequence that I am surelly gonna pass.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
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