I lent this on VCD from a friend of mine and I was impressed. I watched a non-subtitled thai version and I don't understand a word thai.
this movie re-accounts the struggle of a small village against one of 2 burmese invasion armies and holds out for about 5 months -against all odds.
I was pleasantly surprized to find a thrilling action movie without too much sentiments, but just enough to not all hack & slash and not to much to become hollywoodish overly dramatic to the very annoying level of fase-turn-off-the-dvd-player (like Peal Harbour). The comparison with braveheart is easlily made -since this movie has one of the last mass-armies scenes that is not computer enhanced (like 10 soldiers digitally multiplied by 1000)Which is a very impressive scene
There are a few flaws. I thought the fight scenes a filmed a bit messy. It does creatw a feeling of the chaos that is melee, but unfortunately, if one can't tell one villager from another -the all look a-like, which makes the action scene little difficult to follow(compare Black Hawk Down where all were mostly caucasian and had short trimmed hair, underneath the identical helmet all wore in combination with the same desertpaterned uniforms). Concerning the main characters, this problem is solved by giving one a babyface, another a mowhawk hairsyle and british-like moustache and another a beard etc. The more you watch the the less this problem becomes The other flaw are the special effects, these are really bad. BUT I must say that didn't annoy me.
The story is easy to follow, even the flashbacks are easily spotted. The acting is good (for me I watched bodylanguage, facial expressions and intonation of voice, what else can you do when you don't understand the language) The actionscenes are very impreessive especially those with lots and lots of people fighting. The music is great as well, maybe no John Williams, but more than adequate enough to accompany any feeling a scene should return, whether it's a gentle look between 2lovers or an all out end battle
Great movie -I'm still impressed!
