THE VANQUISHER is possibly the worst Thai film I've ever watched, and I've sat through some of their dodgy horror and ghost flicks in my time. This low budget action film is basically the Thai version of THE BOURNE IDENTITY. It stars Sophita Sriban (wooden) as a member of an assassin squad, working for the CIA, who is betrayed and left for dead by her own team leader (the equally wooden Jacqui A. Thananon).
Years later, the hunt for Middle Eastern terrorist Wajib sees the two cross paths once more as they become caught up in a needlessly complicated storyline involving the CIA, a crusading police squad, hired mercenaries, and a gang of evil Japanese ninjas. The plotting is completely confusing and doesn't seem to make much sense, leading me to scratch my head for the most part.
If you thought the writing was bad, check out the action sequences. They're hideously conceived and directed in the most awful way imaginable. Occasionally a scene of gob-smacking awfulness comes along (the CGI train, for instance) to distract you from the general inanity of it all for a few minutes, but only for a few minutes. But then you're back in the B-movie universe of Thai cinema, where the actresses struggle to speak their English lines phonetically and have zero inflection in their voices. It does pick up slightly - very slightly - in the last half an hour, but this is never anything less than a complete dud.
