Death Is Only The Beginning
Starring: Somchai Kemglad, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Leo Putt
Director: Thanakorn Pongsuwan
2007 | 110 Minutes | Rated R
“The desire for power never ceases. The question here is; what can the power get us?” – Sadok
I have been duped by a cover again. The cover for Demon Warriors aka Opapatika not only looks sweet with the dripping wet guy hunched over the melty guy (don’t know what drippy guy was doing to melty guy – probably for the best), but it also throws other movie names at me like Ong-Bak, The Protector and X-Men. It was too much for me to resist.
A detective commits suicide in order to enter the spiritual realm between life and death. His purpose: to gain supernatural powers to combat and defeat a gang of demons controlled by the evil overlord Sadok. However, with each battle he must sacrifice one of his five mortal senses. Immortality demands payment of the utmost cost.
Demon Warriors actually has some pretty original ideas, unfortunately it doesn’t play out very cleanly, leaning more on frantic action scenes and special effects than decent story telling. It becomes tough to know or remember what is going on.
There’s plenty of REALLY bloody action going on here. We’re talking gun fights, martial arts, explosions, knifings… we even see some dual wielded assault rifles. I am sure dual wielding assault rifles is only possible if one had already committed suicide to gain supernatural powers.
The action is enjoyable but I was constantly feeling like I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know who was shooting at who. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be rooting for (presumably the scarred up guy). And I certainly didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on with the story.
There is apparently some sort of message that is supposed to be gleaned from this crazy movie. Chances are you won’t get it until the very end when it is spelled out for you with text on screen that is pretty much equivalent to SUICIDE = BAD.
The special effects were surprisingly good. I don’t know why but I expected it to be very low budget looking and the special effects were pretty high quality for this random movie most people have never heard of. The big disappointment though is the blood effects. No, it isn’t CGI. The blood looks like red food colored water and sprays as if shot from a Super Soaker hidden inside everyone’s jugulars.
The only character that stood out to me was Paison who had the ability to see his enemies’ death spots but after he inflicts that death blow on his enemies the scar shows up on his own body. Yet another cool idea that isn’t fully explored.
If you are into being confused for 90 minutes while watching random Thai guys spray each other’s blood all over the street, then this is your movie. Otherwise this is a huge wasted opportunity.
Action Movie Fanatix 