Okay, so lets sum up the plot pretty quickly: four Europeans get into gambling problems in Thailand, and decide to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy man in order to collect the money and solve their problems.
That pretty much sums it up, and although there are some minor variances, that's it. Indeed, at some points the film descends into obnoxiousness, apparently for no other reason than because it's depraved sense of humour swings that way.
For instance, the useless dread locked crack head (I still am not sure if he's French, German or English...at various times, his accent seemed to swing back an forth), watching a debtor having his fingers broken for not paying his debt as a warning, pipes in to remind the gangster that he hasn't broken enough of the debtor's fingers. I mean, WTF??? Yes, there's action...but the problem with martial arts films of this day is that they try so hard to look groundbreaking that at the end of the day, they look overdone.
So much energy expended to rotate ten times more than is necessary to kick the tar out of anonymous henchmen...kinda defeats the purpose of martial arts that were designed to maximize defensive technique with minimal energy expended! After a time, it gets so redundant that it's tiresome! I guess there are a few very pretty guys in the film, and so there is some eye candy...but not enough to save this dreck from being a stinker you should avoid!
That pretty much sums it up, and although there are some minor variances, that's it. Indeed, at some points the film descends into obnoxiousness, apparently for no other reason than because it's depraved sense of humour swings that way.
For instance, the useless dread locked crack head (I still am not sure if he's French, German or English...at various times, his accent seemed to swing back an forth), watching a debtor having his fingers broken for not paying his debt as a warning, pipes in to remind the gangster that he hasn't broken enough of the debtor's fingers. I mean, WTF??? Yes, there's action...but the problem with martial arts films of this day is that they try so hard to look groundbreaking that at the end of the day, they look overdone.
So much energy expended to rotate ten times more than is necessary to kick the tar out of anonymous henchmen...kinda defeats the purpose of martial arts that were designed to maximize defensive technique with minimal energy expended! After a time, it gets so redundant that it's tiresome! I guess there are a few very pretty guys in the film, and so there is some eye candy...but not enough to save this dreck from being a stinker you should avoid!