Review for Force Of Five

Introduction

I always get the impression that a genre is in trouble when it starts using the gimmicks. Surely it's far too soon for the Muay Thai martial arts movie to be in such dire straits, but already we have a gimmick movie. Force of Five is a kids' Muay Thai movie; Home Alone with a knee to the face. It also brings to mind the differing approaches to children's entertainment across the world. I've seen it many a time with anime, where cartoons like Naruto that would happily play to family audiences in Japan, get rated 12 or 15 in the UK because of questionable content. I had a look at that fount of information, the IMDB, and learned that in nearby Singapore, Force of Five got a PG rating. In the US, Power Kids as it is known is rated R. It's got a 15 rating here in the UK, but the concern is that as a movie targeted at a younger audience, it may not play as well. You can find out when Cine Asia release Force of Five on DVD and Blu-ray, but I'm looking at the DVD release.


It's a fun and almost idyllic childhood, not counting the arduous Muay Thai training, and regular canings for real and perceived transgressions, but for five friends life revolves around their youngest member, Wun, whose weak heart has left him in desperate need of a transplant, and with a brother and three friends who dote on him. They are always sneaking out, or getting into some sort of mischief to brighten up his day, but the worst happens when they go to a remote control car race, and a bully puts Wun in hospital. His only chance now is an immediate transplant, and the good news is that there is a donor organ at another hospital. The bad news is that terrorists have just taken over the hospital, grabbed a visiting US ambassador, and have issued their demands. Now young Wuth, Catt, Pong, and Jib have just four hours to get there, infiltrate the hospital, beat the armed terrorists and get the new heart for Wun.

The Disc

Force of Five gets a 1.85:1 anamorphic PAL transfer, and the image is clear and free of problems throughout, except maybe some slight aliasing, and some strong reds. You have a choice between DD 5.1 and 2.0 Thai, but the English subtitles are of the player forced variety, even for the poorly acted English dialogue. The surround is acceptable, portraying the action adequately enough.

Extras

You'll find trailers for 12 other Cine Asia releases, as well as the original trailer for Force of Five.


The Interview Gallery offers talking head pieces with all four of the young action stars of the future, the main villain Jonny Nguyen, and the director Kriosanapong Radchata. There's 23 minutes in total. It's also totally unwatchable. At least that's how it was for me, with interviews that were more black screen and question caption than actual answer. You'd get 5 seconds of sound bite before a pause for a new question, and worse, the footage would be edited, cut down, and quick cut to sort out the key points. They may as well have constructed each response word by word to suit whatever answer they required. It's horrific.

The Making Of last 6 minutes, which is really more of the same, and there is a Behind The Scenes b-roll piece which may be the most coherent bit of video on the whole disc.

Conclusion

On paper, Force of Five reads something like a cross between Mission Without Permission, John Q, and Die Hard. In actuality the result is something a lot more putrid, and it's only a small favour that the film is a mercifully short 73 minutes in length. Yet I would have been happier if it were shorter still. I think a lot of it comes down to cultural sensibilities, what passes for children's entertainment in one part of the world is anything but in another. At least I hope this is supposed to be children's entertainment, as the dumbed down story and script surely can't be aimed at adults.


Kids in peril on screen are a thorny enough issue. A kid's action movie I can enjoy, if the tone is right, and something like The Goonies is a prime example of getting the tone right. Kids versus murderous armed terrorists is another thing altogether, kids in brutal Muay Thai fights…kids being shot… kids beating an adult to death… This may pass for family entertainment in Singapore and Thailand, but I'd rather show a kid the Texas Chainsaw Massacre before showing them Force of Five, this film might give them ideas. I never thought that I'd be squeamish when it comes to film censorship; after all I have rolled my eyes at BBFC decisions more times than I care to recall. Yet with this film, I'm actually surprised that they passed it. I found Force of Five to be reprehensible, exploitative and just plain nasty.


If you can look at the film dispassionately, and not be concerned about the content, you'll probably be impressed with some well-choreographed and energetic fight sequences, and there is also some entertaining comedy early on in the film while the characters are being developed. But I can't look at this film dispassionately. It's a horrid execution of a gimmick stretched into a movie. I remember feeling a slight queasiness at the Hob character in Robocop 2, and that at least was handled with some degree of delicacy. This has none of that delicacy, and the queasiness is replaced by a full-blown nausea. Force of Five also has the dumbest ending of a movie that I have seen in many a year.


If you do succumb to idle curiosity, then treat this like any prescribed drug. Keep well out of reach of children. Now I have to find a way to erase this thing from my memory. Mental bleach please…