Plot: A group of “fight club” friends, whose styles vary from Muay Thai, Capoeira to Kung Fu and Tai Chi, must join forces and fight for their lives in a daring rescue of a kidnapped friend.
Last week I got an awesome email from someone who said he was a huge fan of this site and noticed we hadn’t covered BKO: Bangkok Knockout. To correct this failure, I watched it over the weekend and here we are.
The first 20-30 minutes take a little while for anything to happen, but it’s just setting everything up in order to have the next hour and 20 minutes be filled with some of the most insane action scenes you’ll ever see.
There are wall-to-wall fight scenes, some incredible stunts in the finale and I’m pretty sure everyone involved was either crippled or killed making this film. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as BKO is directed by Panna Rittikrai (R.I.P.) who also helmed the Ong Bak sequels and Born to Fight. I remember when watching Born to Fight for the first time that it looked like the entire cast met similar fates as the action was off the scale with some breathtaking stuntwork. There is a little bit of wirework here and there, but not enough to ruin the action.
Some of the acting in this movie is questionable at best and that Wedding Singer character with the stupid hair and glasses is up there with Jar Jar Binks in terms of the most annoying characters ever created. Still, at least he gets the absolute shit beaten out of him at the end which is thoroughly satisfying.
Our main hero is named Pod (Chatchapol Kulsiriwuthichai) and he and his group of friends think they are auditioning to get into Hollywood, but they end up being drugged, waking up and finding out it was a ruse and that they will have to fight for survival. What they don’t know is that some of their friends can’t be trusted with a few surprising double crosses I didn’t see coming.
It’s for the most part a straightforward story and there isn’t much in the way of emotional heft, but we aren’t here for Tolstoy, we’re here for beatdowns and boy, does this film deliver. You could have maybe trimmed a few minutes off the runtime, especially the first 30 minutes, but this is still one entertaining fight flick.
Overall, BKO: Bangkok Knockout delivers plenty of breakneck fight scenes and jaw dropping stunts; there are some less than stellar performances and terrible hairstyles, but for pure, hardcore action this is a fun ride. Thanks to Bops for recommending we cover the film and if you have any suggestions for reviews, articles or ideas, feel free to contact us and give me some suggestions. Just be nice, please. I get enough abuse.
