Since her huge break back in 2008, Jija Yanin of “Chocolate” fame is back for more head-cracking elbow strikes. For those of you who are not familiar with Thai action-martial arts scene, “Chocolate” features Jija as an autistic child with extremely great memory skills, who remembers every fight steps and not to forget her awesome lightning speed reflexes. Following her debut, the pint-sized Jija proves that she can handle both her dialogues as well as fists well. In “Raging Phoenix,” she trades her cute-looking locks for cool and bold appearances. Bearing a shorter trim this time, it’s quite hard to miss this female version of Tony Jaa who goes on the motto of “real fights, real injuries.” Ouch.
Like it or not, the moment Jija appears on the silver screen the only one thing that audiences wish to see is her unique fighting ability. Screw the emotional scenes. But, it is a different connotation put in by director Rashane Limtrakul, who spent more than a year writing the screenplay. According to Limtrakul, “the most difficult part is to fuse both love and fighting together, without dragging the whole story into the drowning sea of drama.” While emotion still runs high especially towards the ending, thank goodness the actions are not left out. The entire run time takes about one hour and 55 minutes, so expect a high dosage of flying-knee actions.
This is what you get if you try to mess up with me!
“Raging Phoenix” has this upshot that the moment the reel began to roll, you wish that everything can be done sooner. But, as the story began to gain its own momentum, you silently wish that the film will never have to end too soon. Effects wise, they are engaging and never seem to last. Never mind the long fighting scene throughout the movie, which can probably take up to a good 10 minutes or more.
Instead of the old school kind of martial arts movie, “Raging Phoenix” is a bold move to combine Muay Thai with breakdancing, salsa, free running and bone-cracking acrobatic moves. Now, is that awesome or what? Trust me, with all that high kicks and knock out strikes you couldn’t afford to blink even an eye.
Actions and emo scenes aside, another up side of “Raging Phoenix” is its excellent cinematography. Most of the non-action scenes particularly those involving flashbacks are shot in colour-saturated hues giving it an artistic and contemporary feel. Large quantities of artistic shots are done superbly by three of Thailand’s top cinematographers. It looks great especially when the cinematographer decides to use natural lighting and elements to generate a certain mood.
But the rather uneven and loopy plot towards the end seems a little disturbing to me, despite Jija’s best “finish-her-off” final battle with Jaguar, played by the intimidating-looking female bodybuilder, Roongtawan Jindasee. The ending is pretty much open-ended leaving things as it is, perhaps leaving rooms for a sequel later. And hopefully this time round, there will be more actions and the pace be quickened without damaging the story later. Let’s keep our fingers cross.
Ratings: 3/5 stars
