BKO: Bangkok Knockout is anther action and martial arts fest from Thailand by the same creators behind Ong Bak.
The movie starts off with a group of students competing against one another in a competition. The winner of the competition gets to go to Hollywood with their team and be in a martial arts movie. A team of Thai students win, and celebrate afterwards with a few drinks. The next morning they wake up, finding it hard to remember exactly what happened.
They soon discover they are being hunted by Assassins, and before long it is revealed that they are being filmed as a sort of reality TV Bloodsport set in Bangkok, where all of their lives are in real danger.
The men behind the group have a small audience of people who are allowed to take bets on fights as the group is split up. So after a few run-ins the group divides and ends up facing off against different opponents with different attacks, ultimately leading to them showing off their martial arts skill in order to defend themselves.
Simple Concept & Thin Storyline
There’s not much more to say about the story that hasn’t already been said. It’s a simple concept of a group having to fight to survive, and of course you get the idea that at the end of the film they would (and d0) turn against the film makers and avenge their experience.
A few very shallow attempts were made to keep things interesting. There was a bit of a ‘love triangle’ sort of situation between two young guys Pom and Pod and a young girl in their group. Of course one of the boys ends up being on side with the film makers, then another few twists occur as another friend is behind their capture;. But to top it off there is a weird Wedding DJ who shows up before they’re captured and apparently he is in on it too! It gets a bit predicatable and overcooked – but the story would have severely lacked without these somewhat predictable twists.
This movie, like many others, houses an excellent amount of action with interesting opponents set in an industrial environment.
The Action & Martial Arts
The fights are exciting, fast paced and really make the movie awesome to watch – it truly is the star of the film. Each fight scene has a slightly different edge to it with many different characters showing off some tremendous moves in the process. They recruited some top talent for this film.
The opponents themselves were interesting and created an awesome look to film. You’ve got guys with masks, even in one scene the group are attacked by someone driving an old car trying to run them down. There’s a big heavy set guy who takes a lot of punishment in the film, being punched and kicked without reaction, he even gets lit on fire and continues his rampage.
It’s hard hitting, fast and well choreographed like we’ve come to expect from Thailand, truly an action driven film.
Would I recommend it?
This is type of movie you watch when you just want to see a bunch of mindless fight scenes and a pretty transparent storyline. I definitely recommend it for the high quality of the action.
On Blu Ray –
Region A (US & Canada)
BKO: Bangkok Knockout on Blu-ray
Region B (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, etc)
Knockout! on Blu-ray
On DVD –
Region 1 (US & Canada)
BKO: Bangkok Knockout on DVD
Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
Knockout! on DVD
Region 4 (Australia, New Zealand, etc)
Bangkok Knockout on DVD
Where is soundtrack?