Review: Sars Wars

Sheer unadulterated genius. SARS WARS is a gut-wrenchingly funny, utterly deranged, deliriously original, absurdist zom-com from Thailand.

A team of thugs kidnap pretty schoolgirl Liu and hold her hostage in an apartment block. Little do they know, a zombie outbreak is taking place in the very same apartment, a giant snake is on the loose, and the government have set a timer to blow up the building to contain the outbreak. Think that sounds crazy? We haven't met the good guys yet: Khun Khrabii, a stoic hero sent to rescue Liu, his master Thep, a balding lecher with a battery-powered light saber, and sexy scientist Dr. Diana, creator of an antiviral shot that has a 25 in 26 chance of accidentally making the patient's head explode. And then there's the bad guys...

Director Taweewat Wantha and his team of writers have crafted something akin to the fevered imagination of Peter Jackson's BRAINDEAD, combined with the wild "mo-lei-tau" surreal/spoof humour of Hong Kong's Stephen Chow. The actual zombie and horror-themed content is surpisingly well realised, with excellent make-up effects, some great CGI sequences, and a real sense of tension; but its in the ridiculous send-ups of everything from Japanimation to John Woo to Star Wars to The Crying Game that the movie really takes off.

Thoroughly self-aware, characters constantly make references to the film's attempts to "make money, not win awards": a little unfair, because there is far more craft and ability on view in this film than in a hundred Hollywood blockbusters put together. Certainly none of the recent crop of zombie films pouring out of Hollywood come close. Even Stephen Chow, the acknowledged king of this style of comedy, should feel threatened: this is a better film than KUNG FU HUSTLE, and is possibly even better than SHAOLIN SOCCER too.

Review: Born To Fight

Where ONG-BAK is a traditional martial arts film that strings a series of muay-thai fights and Jackie Chan-style chase scenes together with a simple plot, BORN TO FIGHT is an action film more akin to DIE HARD. That means plenty of John Woo-esquire gun battles and an incredibly high body count, with a sprinkling of brutal stunts. BORN TO FIGHT is not a sequel to ONG-BAK, its not "the next ONG-BAK", its simply a highly entertaining actioner that will keep fans of this director satisfied until TUM YUM GOONG is released.

The opening sequence, featuring people leaping between 2 moving trucks, is reminiscent of similar classic scenes from POLICE STORY. The story then switches gear, seemingly heading towards simple martial arts film territory (our hero is challenged by a local thug over the affections of a girl) before a hail of gunfire signals a massive change in direction.

The next portion of the film is a relentlessly brutal slaughter-fest, as the evil villains randomly gun down villagers without a second thought, to levels you would never see in a Hollywood film. Hans Gruber has nothing on these guys! Finally, after a few false starts and a rendition of the Thai national anthem, our plucky villagers rise up, although quite how they manage to slaughter so many villains in revenge despite being outnumbered, unarmed, and constantly being killed in the gunfire is never entirely clear.

What is clear is that the ridiculously gimmicky "gymnastics fights" are fun to watch, the ball-kicking guys who fire kettles and things at the heads of their enemies deserve a SHAOLIN SOCCER type film of their own, and there's nothing cuter than seeing a little kick-boxing girl kick the hell out of a baddie.

Our hero has a few moves of his own, but the film's focus is wider than ONG-BAK, concentrating on the efforts of a team rather than a lone individual, nevertheless he is the star of two wonderful gun battles shot in single takes without cuts: forget DOOM's first-person-shooter scene, this is the true visual embodiment of the modern shooter game, a breathtaking yet agonisingly short sequence inspired by similar sequences in John Woo's HARD BOILED and John Carpenter's THEY LIVE.

What BORN TO FIGHT lacks in coherence, it makes up for in energy. This is the modern equivalent of the kind of crazy rule-breaking action films Hong Kong could churn out so successfully in the 1980s. And its the perfect appetiser for TUM YUM GOONG to come.