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People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely Fantastic

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

BANGKOK NINJAS: SONS OF THE WIND is a messy, plot-goes-all-over-the-place type action film designed to show off the talents of a group of Parkour practitioners who spend the entire running time showing off their skills in jumping across, up, and down buildings without causing serious injury. And there are no ninjas in it.For an obviously low budget production, this has a surprisingly intentional feel; it's a French film set partly in London and mostly in Bangkok. A group of Parkour enthusiasts head to Thailand to set up their own school for the young and underprivileged, but this soon gets forgotten in favour of helping a brother and sister to tackle Yakuza and Triad gangs.The storyline is slim in the extreme and merely serves to link a series of Parkour scenes which are a little disappointing if I'm honest. The opening sequence is lively, but subsequent shots are badly directed, with the director over-editing them to remove genuine spectacle from the shots. In one scene, a guy jumps out of a high window, we see him sailing through the air, only for the camera to cut and shoot another angle as he lands. It makes the whole thing feel false, even if the stunt was done for real.The acting is very limited, which you'd expect from a film of this type, although there's a small role for old-timer Burt Kwouk as a gangster chief. There are plenty of plot twists which are a little annoying rather than intriguing, along with a supposed large-scale climax which feels completely pointless and tame. However, there are a few fight scenes scattered throughout the running time which are pretty good; a shame there weren't more to distract us from the problems elsewhere.

A group of multi-racial pals from France love nothing more than to Parkour it up on the local buildings and walkways. They've become so accomplished at what they do, they decide to open a gym in Bangkok to teach the local, underprivileged children how to Parkour. However, they unwittingly open their gym on the turf of the Japanese Yakuza, who are making inroads into Thailand. Henceforth, the ultimate confrontation begins to bubble up to the surface: who will win, the humble Parkour-ers or the nasty gangster baddies? Dare you find out? Here's what's good about The Great Challenge: there are a lot of extremely impressive physical feats, and the stuntwork and action scenes must have taken a lot of time and work to execute. We truly appreciate that. But here's the problem: there is no plot to speak of, and there is zero character development. So, yes, what these Parkour people do is quite extraordinary, but without decent storytelling, it's hard, if not downright impossible, to care about their plight. Consequently, you "check out" and you stop caring. So as much as we wanted to care about this band of buff ragamuffins (or ragabuffins, to use the vernacular), this movie made it really hard for us to get invested.We think we see what was going on here - make a PG-13-rated movie for the younger, Mountain Dew-drinking set that leverages the current trend of Parkour to get adolescent eyeballs on the screen. One of the main characters even strongly resembles Tony Hawk. While that may not have seemed like such a terrible plan, if The Great Challenge only had characterization, and was darker, grittier, and was rated R, we might have something. As it stands, it's "in one eye and out the other", a forgettable exercise that contains a lot of jumping and CGI sequences, but fails to deliver the serious-minded, bone-crunching blows that hardcore action fans have come to expect. The final brawl is a definite movie highlight, but it should have been that way from the jump (no pun intended). The movie shouldn't have saved its capital with the audience until the very end. By then it's too little too late.In the "mildly amusing" department, the little Thai street urchins have cast-off clothing from English-speaking countries that say "no fly zone", "crabby" and one has a colorful Street Fighter shirt. It's doubtful they know what their own clothing says. But the kids do get their own training sequence, so that's not out of keeping with classic action movies. But does it pay off? Plus, the baddies have these ridiculous bunched-up blankets on their heads that don't exactly inspire fear. The movie may be fast-paced, but where is it going? After seeing the same year's District B13 (2004), there's almost no need for The Great Challenge. So despite the hardworking stunt performances, we can't really recommend this.

A group of friends go to Bangkok and set up a gym, and come across a ruthless gang that works for the Yakuza.I genuinely had high hopes for this film as the producers of District 13 were behind this...But, I realised that it was the producers not the director. The film has awful fight scenes, worthless parkour chase scenes but one thing that really bugged me was the character development, Kenji, seemed to learn Muay Thai within an afternoon.The film was all over the place...at one moment, the characters are best of friends, then they talk about leaving and then they fight, then one character begins to see ghosts and has a vision of the future...not to mention the dress code of some of the baddies...with great big hoods.Tsu played by Elodie Yung, was probably the one thing that kept this movie watchable, she was beautiful and elegant in her fight scenes, sadly the other actors were not.

This is the second feature for the French stunt acrobat group Yamakasi. They are all very talented but director Julien Seri can't capitalize on this talent to save his life. Granted, this is a bit better than the eyeball killer YAMAKASI (2001) but not by much. The group finds themselves in Thailand and they end up feuding with a local Yakuza (!) gang. Each member is given more to do this time whether it be falling in love or re-connecting with one's long dead mystical father. There are quite a few action scenes but nothing really stands out. Director Seri has an unbelievable ability to shoot stuff in a way that it has so little impact. The only high point is a shot where three guys drop about 5 stories down a series of silos that is shot in one take. Given that Thailand produced their own badass actioner in ONG BAK the year before, it is sad to see these talented guys relying on lots of wirework. I pray that someone will utilize their parkour skills in something in the future that is a bit more engaging like BANLIEUE 13.