Glory be, Dan Chupong is back! While he may not be quite as talented a pure martial artist as his compatriot, the ever-serious Tony Jaa, Born to Fight star Dan Chupong brings one important element to the table that Jaa, so far, has lacked: a sense of humor. While Jaa continues to position himself as an ambassador for Thai culture, Chupong simply wants to kick some ass in the name of entertainment and that he does.
Chupong stars as the titular Dynamite Warrior - real name Siang - a mysterious masked Robin Hood type figure who battles cattle barons and rustlers alike with a blend of muay thai and rocketry. Siang is a hero to the poor for stealing cattle from the rich and powerful and delivering them to poor villages but there is a dark edge to his philanthropy: Siang is searching for the cattle thieves who killed his parents before his young eyes many years before, thieves he will recognize by the distinctive tattoo on their leader’s chest. And when he finds that man, Siang will kill him. But things are never that simple. The tattooed man is Sing, a powerful cattle merchant, the tattoo a magical talisman that renders Sing invulnerable while also giving his followers magical powers. Sing, for his part, has also been marked for elimination by a powerful local lord intent on depleting cattle stocks to help sell the tractors that have just arrived for the west – making the lord a small fortune in the process. Believing the lord to be an ally Siang follows his lead in hiring the Black Wizard to break Sing’s magic – a task that can only be accomplished through the application of a virgin’s menstrual blood – only to discover at the end that he has been duped into attacking the wrong man.
Follow all that? A remake of a classic Thai action film from the 70s, Dynamite Warrior is pure pulp serial, pure adolescent fantasy with characters and action sequences lifted straight from the comics and adventure novels that surely fueled the director’s childhood. Martial arts, magic, romance, cartoonish villains and a hero that rides into battle standing on a flying rocket hand made from a hollowed out log. A little bit chaotic and more than a little goofy it’s all good fun, fun that builds to a hand to hand battle between Chupong and hugely influential Thai action choreographer and mentor to both Chupong and Jaa, Panna Rittikrai, who gets his first starring role in years as the Black Wizard.
For a stunt man turned leading man Chupong has solid on screen charisma, projecting a bashful sort of charming awkwardness that carries him a long way. He may not bowl you over with stellar acting abilities but heck, you just want to like the guy. And I put it forward here that nobody in the international action film world, absolutely nobody, takes a beating better than Chupong. Hard on the heels of the disappointing Mercury Man, Dynamite Warrior is the second well budgeted (by Thai standards) film to feature action choreography by Rittikrai that breaks from the all-natural mantra of Ong Bak, Tom Yum Goong and Born to Fight, employing wire work extensively and CGI for little visual flourishes that enhance without ever replacing the physical action. And this is both a blessing and a curse. The wire work leads to some incredibly inventive sequences - most involve Chupong and his rockets - but by using artificially enhanced action sequences throughout the film seems to back itself into a pair of corners. First, the action sequences early on seem to have been executed at something a little below full speed to give the later, climactic battles a little extra oomph. Second, the final battle between Chupong and Rittikrai dominantly features wire work and from-a-distance palm blasts rather than giving us an actual hand to hand battle, which seems a wasted opportunity. With Rittikrai on screen for the first time in so long I had hoped for something more.
A deliberate, pulpy b-film, Dynamite Warrior takes a little while to get going, needing to first establish its broad range of characters. Once things get rolling, though, it continues along at a brisk clip and establishes, once again, that Chupong is a more than worthy peer for Jaa.