Mayhem!

Been awhile. The last film I saw from Gens was Frontier(s) some years back which was eye opening and fiersome.

Fast forward, and here we are. He's done some "smaller" projects I believe since my indoctrination into Euro horror and thrillers, abd this one did not disappoint.

All too familiar tropes won't work if you don't have the atmospheres, the cinematography, and in this particular case, the extreme violent sequences. So beware, this film was far away from the faint of heart, but he did pay over and above homage to some of the better directors in the subgenre---Takashi Miike, Perk Chan Wook and the more recent to join in this clan, Gareth Evans.

It's bleak, it's realistic and graphic at the core of the violence. But when you have a solid lead protagonist---the violence comes through that character rather easily. It's a story of redemption in its infancy that turns on its heels into one of the best revenge films of the the past 10 years. Gritty, beautifully shot, and gripping enough to hold you, and even hard to look away when its at it most challengingly disturbing.

Bring on the XG shark film...

Let's get straight to the point. The fight scenes in this movie are amazing, some of the best I've seen. And I've seen a lot. I am well-versed on the artistry of movie fight scenes. This is about as clear and hard-hitting as they come.

You can see everything. You can feel the hits. You almost experience the pain felt by these characters. My jaw dropped repeatedly. And there are a bunch of cool shots and camera movements during the fights.

As for the rest of the movie, there really isn't much there. It's the most bare-bones revenge plot we've seen a thousand times. Technical aspects are more than fine, but there isn't much to latch onto.

You could argue the same about GOAT action movie The Raid: Redemption. The difference is, The Raid doesn't focus on that bare-bones story. 70% of the movie is action scenes. It's more like 10% in this movie. Action is scarce until the climax and most of the focus is on the uninteresting story.

My personal recommendation: watch only the hallway/elevator scene at the end.

(1 viewing, 1/15/2024)

The movie looked to me like a modern approach to a 90's scenario, which isn't something bad, I am just noticing it - one goes on a straight revenge over the bad guys.

We don't get to know the full story of Sam, but it's seems he is the typical French of non-French origin - involved in gang life. However, he decides to leave it, but as it's well known - you can't leave it if it doesn't leave you. So even in his attempt, unwillingly, he still stays a criminal which he never stops being - even after restarting everything in Thailand, the first big thing he wants to achieve in life, he tries it the criminal way, which brought all the consequences it could - one reckless decision.

The actor performs very good in the fighting scenes, they are a slight copy of the series of martial arts and raw violence movies from Indonesia (The Raid, The Raid 2, The Night Comes for us, Headshot etc.) which is fine, but is kind of obvious.

The acting is good, the music and the camera are fine. The Thai atmosphere is well recreated. It's overall a simple movie, but well-made and in case you have nothing better to watch or just need some good fighting one "Farang" ("Mayhem!") is worth it.

I had waited months for this to come be available in North America. I had high expectations given the episodes from Gangs of London and Frontieres. The last 20 mins was well choreographed and as violent as I would have expected the rest of the movie to be, in the end felt like some missed opportunities to ratchet up the action. Some of the locations were amazing. Overall worth it fro the elevator scene! The story felt way too dramatic when in reality it was a cookie cutter revenge story. Not sure about the lead actor - he was good in the action scenes but the dramatic parts were too drawn out.

No pun intended - a human is who he is. We are mostly unable to escape our true self. No matter the country we end up in ... our true colors will shine through. Of course if that means, you get to show off your fighting skills .. well that is very much appreciated.

Xavier Gens - he has done quite a few good movies. Some may argue it has been some time since his last good one. I will leave that judgement up to you. I know if you like action movies, you will have a field day here. The action choreography is really top notch. The level of violence through the roof ... the stunt people are quite known (tv show which I have not seen yet).

Main character is good, pacing may be a bit too slow for some I reckon ... but you can't have fighting all the time ... there needs to be some story in between ... even if it seems to lead nowhere ...