Supelice Dreadfully Boring

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Leofwine_draca 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.

HaemovoreRex Team Yamakazi get to display their amazing Free Running skills again in this their second feature film. Once again like the previous movie, the acrobatic abilities of these seemingly fearless individuals is guaranteed to leave ones mouth agape at the sheer spectacle on display here – this truly is an awesome art form and one which proves to be a perfect bedfellow for the action movie genre.Added to the crazy physical shenanigans we are also treated to some highly stylish visuals throughout especially courtesy of the stunning scenery in Thailand and a number of instances of highly imaginative and impressive visual effects such as in one scene wherein our main protagonists are seen traversing continents in one fluid take. Great stuff!Unfortunately however, despite the above glowing accolades, beneath all the surface gloss, it has to be said that when all is said and done the film in question has very little actual substance within.One of the main problems here lay in the fact that there are simply too many sub stories running throughout. Each of our main characters has their own separate 'adventures' in addition to the encompassing plot. Personal voyages of self discovery, the blossoming of love, loneliness, personal ambition and home sickness all feature here which in a much longer film might have sat more easily. However at a mere 90 or so minutes the actual effect is one of disjointedness and one that in addition actually serves to detract from the main plot. Certainly there were those who criticised the first film for the same principle, but it was not nearly as pronounced there as it is here.On the other hand, perhaps it is redundant to judge the film on such principles. After all, as an action movie this delivers some absolutely incredible set pieces; Indeed for pure kinetic enjoyment only the works of the likes of Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa etc are going to provide the same sort of adrenaline fix.In the final analysis then I feel that it is best to judge this film on it's merits as opposed to its flaws and with this in mind I would certainly recommend it highly to fans of crazy stunts, martial arts and general urban mayhem.Overall: An entirely respectable 7 out of 10 (Just don't go trying the stunts at home!)

clabook Being a fan of parkour I have to agree they did some pretty amazing stunts,but what it all added up to in the end was a kung-fu movie. I swear, this movie must have the worst plot in history.Everybody fighting everybody for no apparent reason,random action (they fight when they should run and run when they should fight) adding up to a lot of pointless action.It's all so drawn out I stopped watching by the last 20 minutes or so. Good if you're looking for some stunts out of the ordinary category of Hollywood crap,for rainy afternoons.Also be sure to watch the chick that doesn't change facial expressions the whole movie.Also there is no sex in this one, which is pretty amazing by action flick standards.

Simon Booth 5 years after YAMAKASI failed to introduce Les Groupe Yamakasi's brand of Parkour to the wider world, the members are reunited by director Julien Seri for a semi-sequel, this time taking the action to Bangkok for a change of scenery. The group are all a bit more mature, and so is the film - not so much a kids movie anymore. Time does not appear to have diminished their "Free Running" skills - in fact I *think* they've gotten quite a bit better. I have to qualify that observation because it's really hard to tell - the director belongs to that school of thought which says that action scenes are more exciting if you can't tell what on earth is going on :( That was the main problem with the first YAMAKASI film, and I really hoped some lessons would have been learnt and this time they'd leave the camera in one place a bit longer and actually let us see the Parkour the group are performing... that _is_ why you'd hire them all to be in a film, after all.Sadly, Julien Seri seems to have missed the point entirely, and shoots all the action in the most infuriating way possible. He proudly tells us in the extra features that he used 4 cameras to shoot the action, and he really enjoys "just getting the camera on my shoulder and running about" when he's on set, but "the most creative part is in the editing room". What this means is that as soon as the cast start moving at more than 3mph, the camera starts zooming and shaking and we rarely get a shot that lasts more than 1/3rd of the second before it cuts to another angle. What we do get to see of the action looks amazing... the film mixes up Parkour with Muay Thai and other martial arts styles in a way that could have produced an absolute classic. In the right hands this could have been the beginning of a whole new action film style, as exciting an action film as ONG BAK. Sadly, Seri clearly does not have the right hands :( I suppose some comments about the story are appropriate... it's rather daft. The Yamakasi go to Bangkok to help set up a gym for poor kids, and accidentally get involved in a turf war between the Triads and the Yakuza (who all speak French. In Thailand). A pair of French-Chinese siblings are the catalyst for much of this - a brother who wants to get into the Yakuza because the Triads rejected their mixed blood, and his sister who thinks all this crime is maybe a bad thing.The film suffers from chronic "orientalism" - the insidious form of racism which certainly doesn't think Asian people are inferior to westerners, no way Jose - in fact it thinks they're great... with their ancient traditions, quasi-mystical religions and mad martial arts skillz - they probably just need a group of westerners to spend a few days with them and sort out their generations old blood feuds (and teach their ladies how to love). The Bangkok setting is beautiful, but it seems to be populated entirely by gangsters, monks, Muay Thai rings and alleyway markets.LES FILS DU VENT could have been great - the design of the action scenes is brilliant, and Les Groupe Yamakasi really deserve a vehicle that showcases their skills rather than trying to hide them. Again they've been let down by a director who's so in love with himself he's perhaps afraid that if he let us see them in action for more than half a second we'd start thinking it was *their* film, not his. If that was his worry, he definitely shot himself in the foot (actually head), because all he accomplished with his camera work and editing was to make me hate him.The film still manages to be enjoyable, but you have to look past what you're actually seeing to what was really being done to appreciate it. I'm torn between loving the ideas and the actors and hating what was done with them on screen. That leaves me somewhere around... 6/10.