RAGING Phoenix would have been the best martial arts movie made in the past five years, if you had a remote in the cinema that could forward the movie when it went through its emo stages.

This Thai movie had it all. Amazing fight scenes, with most of the cast using a martial art called Meyraiyuth
(drunken muay thai) plus break-dancing. Really! That’s just crazy and cool. The moves are out of this world.

Never has the world seen, since Bruce Lee did his Jeet Kune Do, something as innovative as drunken muay thai. In fact, some scenes not only incorporate break-dancing and muay thai, but a blend of b-boy, salsa dancing, ice skating, free running, ‘martial arts trickz’, and gymnastics, under the theme “fighting dance”.

Then, they had a really good sense of humour. The two scene-stealers were real life B-boy masters Nui Sandaeng (Mr 60 Rock) who plays Kee Moo, and ‘Hess’ Sompong Lertwimonkasem who plays Kee Ma. Know what their names mean, in Thai? Pig-sh*t and dog-sh*t, respectively.

They have another friend, ‘Oman’ Boonprasert Sala-ngam whose name translates to Bull-sh*t. The laid-back slacker-attitude permeates their martial arts skill and it is a treat to watch them in fight sequences, dancing away while kicking butt.

Fight scenes? Overdone, but fantastic. Amazing, in fact. Jokes? Yes, quite entertaining.

The problem? Storyline and plot.

Raging Phoenix tells of Deu (Jija Yanin), a girl used to being rejected by almost everyone in her life. She almost gets abducted by a ring of kidnappers called the Jaguar Gang, led by London – a very muscular woman (played by Miss Asia Fitness 2009 Roongtawan Jindasing) who captures girls with a certain ‘smell’ – harvesting said ‘smell’ into a highly addictive perfumes (which apparently also turns users into sex addicts).

Deu gets rescued by Sanim (French martial arts champion Kazu Patrick Tang) and is soon trained by Dog-sh*t, Pig-sh*t and Sanim. She falls culturefor the walking-wounded Sanim, but soon discovers that he is still in love with Pie — his bride who was abducted by the Jaguar Gang three years back.

Together with the reclusive Bull-sh*t, they set out to stop Jaguar Gang’s operations.

The story sounds straightforward martial-arts-movie-straight-to-video enough, which would have been fine. However, the makers of the movie decided to go with character development on steroids, resulting in each fighting sequence being separated by long, emotional drivel.

Really, there were some scenes when all Deu did was scream ‘Saniiiiiimmmm! Saniiiiiiiiiimmmm!’ for a full five minutes.

Arguably, it is understandable that they need to put rhythm and dips and curves in the plot to set things up for the high-octane fight sequences.

However, sometimes the dip is so low that the energy was never recovered when the fighting continues.

In fact, towards the end of this movie, the final fight was so drawn out that you might be rooting for the good guys to kill the baddies (or vice versa) so you can get out of the cinema and go to the loo. The ‘dramatic’ emotional sequences alone filled up at least one-third of the movie.

Furthermore, the emotional ‘human’ moments were painful to watch because they dealt with, well, pain.

Apparently, Meyraiyuth - drunken muay thai - derives its powers from pain, which makes you drunk (huh?) and in turn makes you unpredictable and subsequently unbeatable in a fight. Which means that in order to be the ultimate Meyraiyuth fighter, you need to be in the most severe pain possible — heartbreak. Oh, the drama!
Why can’t they just make it about drinking and fighting?

Halfway through the movie, the filmmakers even forgot about the alcohol part. The characters all stopped drinking and started fighting sober, which leaves a dent in the fun. Though there is an explanation of how Deu’s tears could be the most intoxicating drug ever as she sipped her own tears before charging up for the final battle. A bit too far of a jump, perhaps?

Still, this movie delivers where it counts. It has some of the best fight sequences ever. Check out the early fight between Sanim, Deu and some stilt-fighters, or maybe ‘kangaroo street ninjas’. The fight to introduce Pig-sh*t and Dog-sh*t may be the best sequence in the movie, when we actually see the two best break-dancers in Thailand mixing their style up with muay thai.

Yanin and Kazu Patrick Tang, meanwhile are good martial artists and they can adapt to almost any style, so watching them fight was enjoyable, especially in one sequence when they combined to fight London. Jindasing, having been a Judo expert for years now, also showed that she can fight really well, and is not just another muscle-woman. In fact, she looked kind of scary and is the perfect villain for the skinny Yanin.

If only they had trimmed the movie — running time is close to two hours — and kept the drama to a minimum.

All in all, if you want to see this movie, make sure you don’t have to rush anywhere, and that you can stomach many pointless moments in an otherwise very impressive martial-arts movie since you can’t fast-forward in the cinemas... yet.

Raging Phoenix opens today in cinemas nationwide.