Fireball

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

The Thais are fast taking over the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese in terms of producing the most acclaimed martial arts films in the heart of their home countries, without the aid of any Hollywood CGI or props to spruce them up. We've had Tony Jaa in the Ong-bak films delivering his breath taking visual displays and now we have this less successful effort from director and co writer Thanakorn Pongsuwan, focusing on some competitors in an underground interfusion of basketball and muay thai, that obligatorily forgoes the use of a decent plot and unhammy acting. Sadly, it's also just never any fun, the close ups on the fights and their sheer relentless nature proving more distracting than entertaining and it all ends up feeling like it's really dragging on. Some fun here and there, but generally as much fun as a 'fireball' in the gut. **

The idea of integrating two of my favorite sports of martial arts and basket ball sounds like action heaven!! But this movie is poorly executed. The performers certainly do what they can, but no matter how their acting performances are or martial acrobatics. It just doesn't get off the ground to involve or genuinely excite you. The cinematography is all over the place, leaving you confused about who is who or simply feeling queasy from the all the shaking and spinning camera angles. The martial arts and acrobatics is nothing that you haven't seen before, even placed with the basketball skills and setting. Even the emotional subplots aren't enough to get you connected to the characters to care about what happens to them in the brutal "life and death" basket ball courts. Better to spend your time watching the other quality Thai action movies like Ong Bak, Chocolate, Raging Phoenix and Bangkok Knockout...

Theres nothing else really to see in the movie, consant fighting from start to end!

Its ok, but i also didnt like too fast camera movement and changing angles all the time .it doesnt seem realistic and i got tired at some time. Too much fighting in the dark. Someone should see it only if they wish to see a full only battle movie.

Rather than Fireball: Muay Thai Dunk, this could have been more aptly titled as Firebrawl: Anything Goes, and I mean that in a nice way. We know enough of how sports and martial arts can coexist in movies, either in comical fashion like Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer, or played in a more deadpan, idol-movie like manner with the Jay Chou vehicle Kung Fu Dunk. Joining their ranks is this latest action film directed by Thanakorn Pongsuwan, which fuses an illegal underground basketball league, and Muay Thai fighting.

For those who want to organize their own tournament, here are the extremely simple rules as explained in the movie. It's your standard 5 on 5 basketball on a full length court, except that when the whistle blows, you can brawl with your opponent immediately, which makes it something like a WWE Royal Rumble, only faster and more brutal. To win, you still have to put the ball into your opponent's goal/basket (it's still basketball after all), but it only takes one dunk to win. Either that, or the team with the last man standing will be the victor. Killing your opponent is allowed, but only within the court (anything outside equals to punishment for the team), but there's no replacement players allowed as you progress through the stages. Which means survivors get to split more cash between them, but suffer from numerical disadvantage. Weapons are optional too.

Which makes the film perfect as an all out actioner, and Pongsuwan doesn't think twice about indulging the audience into detailed, well executed fights which take precedence over a decent game of basketball. While watching the film I felt it was a throwback to the 80s Bloodsport type of movie with gladiators battling in an arena, sans plot and character development, where the focus is to let the fists and feet do most of the talking. That said, the fight sequences were nicely shot and tightly choreographed, though it seemed more like an all-out street brawl than sticking to Muay Thai principles. Fans of hard-hitting action will definitely appreciate the ring-side seat to all of the action here, which is relentless in pace and powerful in execution.

Story-wise, it tells of the tale of Tai (Preeti Barameeanat), who has recently been released from prison because twin brother Tan got him out of jail by raising required funds for bribery, but at the price of fighting for his life in a coma at the hospital. Tai learns from Tan's main squeeze Pang (Khanutra Chuchuaysuwan), who provides a cursory and unnecessary romantic angle, that Tan often got himself badly knocked up, and discovers that his twin was actually knocked comatose by an opponent in a Fireball tournament. So like a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, Tai adopts Tan's identity, and finds himself looking for a team to join for the tournament, seeking revenge.

Enter Boss Den (Phutharit Prombandal), who recruits Tai's Tan into his Fireball team, led by captain and best fighter of the lot Zing (9 Million Sam, yes you read that right!), with Muk (Kumpanat Oungsoongnern), K (Anuwat Saejao) and teenager IQ (Kannut Samerjai) as the rag-tag, hastily assembled team with trust issues amongst one another, and personal issues, each from the doldrums of society, mercenaries for hire if you like, eyeing that prize money at the end of the rainbow in order to lift their lot. Throw in some match-fixing potential, which is de-facto in any underground fights, and nasty opponents with no qualms for un- sportsmanship behaviour, and you're all set for a non-stop action film where the drama in between becomes an excuse to glue the multi-faceted fight scenarios together. One of the best involves a training sequence where the boys play a friendly in and around a narrow and cramped apartment block, resembling a parkour-yamakasi piece.

Given knowledge that a prequel will be made, I can't help but to think that this film could end up as the "middle" movie, since it ended the way it did with doors opened for a sequel, and of course the story of Tan provides ample room for scenes before the opening shot here. The players too are likely to be similar for the prequel, and it could follow John Woo's A Better Tomorrow where you can bring back the key actor from the excuse that we're looking at the twin / likeness resembling relative, which this film had all set up, and set subsequent movies back in time too.

That said, as a basketball-type movie, Fireball would not muster any merit for lay-ups and slam dunks. But as an action film, then yes, it will satisfy any action junkie who misses the good old days of no holds barred fights, multiplied by the number of players on the court all happening at the same time.

Action movies are a dime a dozen in the world of DVD. Go to any rental or place that carried DVD's, and you will find several-sometimes many-action movies that didn't get a theatrical release in the U.S. Personally, I think that the king of this market may be Lionsgate, who seem to crank out Direct to DVD exploitation junk on a regular basis, and action and horror are the main course. Ususally, this kind of fair tends to be nearly excruciatingly bad ("Wrong Side of Town" for example), so while not a miracle, it's almost sort of refreshing to find a watchable entry in the Thai action flick "Fireball."

Arrested on a crime charge, Tai (Preeti Barameeanat) is set free thanks to his twin brother Tan. Problem is, Tan has suffered severe injuries and is in a coma (I know, I know it's serious.) Trying to trace how his brother ended up like this, Tai discovers the world of underground basketball gambling. He ends up in a "Fireball" team, or a team of five players who play-and fight-to the death until there is one man left standing, and in the process, learns more about what happened to Tan.

On the plus side, the action scenes in "Fireball" are fantastic, not to mention bloody. People are impaled, bones are broken, flying kicks and punches are traded, blood spills-I could go on, but this aspect of the film is a lot of fun, and certainly earns it's R-rating. At it's best, the movie reminded me at times of 80's action movies like "Bloodsport", in that it shares a similar plot and has no clearer ambitions other than to give the viewer a bloody action movie that doesn't demand too much. In some cases here, it certainly succeeds.

That out of the way, while the acting is fine, the movie falters in the fact that there is little is any real characterization going on in the film. Without anybody to care about, many of the scenes in which there isn't anything action or maybe even sex related feel too long, not to mention kind of boring. The fact that there isn't much as far as characterization is concerned also hurts the various sub-plots-particularly one involving mob bosses-as we aren't given any other reason to take interest other than "Hey, look at what's happening now!" Without any way for the audience to invest in any of these characters or plot points, the viewer ends up getting bored, waiting for the next action scene.

I really can't recommend "Fireball", as it feels a bit too much like a missed opportunity to be a really fun piece of action trash. That out of the way, the action scenes are a lot of fun, and for a rainy day viewing, you can do a whole lot worse.