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 hile
originally made in 2000, the Thai war epic "Bang Rajan" didn't get
much exposure outside of Asia despite being the most successful film in Thai
history at the time. That is, until maverick U.S. director Oliver Stone ("Natural
Born Killers") championed its distribution in 2004. The movie tells the
tale of a legendary, but ill-fated skirmish between invading Burmese hordes and
the small Thai farming village of Bang Rajan in 1765. Despite being outnumbered
100 to 1, the scrappy villagers manage to hold off repeated attacks from the
significantly better armed Burmese army for nearly 8 months. A watershed moment
in Thai history, the incident is still used today as a patriotic rallying point
by Thais.
Director Thanit Jitnukul's film
covers similar themes as "The
Legend Of Suriyothai," but whereas that film was more interested in the
political machinations of Thailand's struggle against Burma, "Bang
Rajan" is all about the action. Jitnukul sets the tone immediately, opening
the film with a Burmese military trumpeter getting shot through his instrument
by a Thai sharpshooter. The bloody opening salvo leads to a brutal pitched
battle between the loincloth clad villagers and the heavily armed Burmese.
Hiding in muddy ponds and swinging down from trees, the
villagers manage to beat back the Burmese, but not before the village elder Taen
(Suntharee Maila-or) is seriously wounded. No longer able to lead his warriors
into battle, Taen sends the village's best warrior, Inn (Winai Kraibutr), to
recruit a notorious vigilante named Chan (Jaran Ngamdee), a rebel warrior with a
Groucho Marx moustache, so that he can take over as leader. Steeled by Chan's
leadership, the villagers stage more daring campaigns, repeatedly frustrating
and stymieing the Burmese army's progress into Thailand.
The film is constructed in similar fashion to Kurosawa's
"The
Seven Samurai," but presents itself more like "Braveheart."
The battle sequences are the highlights of the film, and are staged with
disorganized vigor, as if the director told the actors to actually attack each
other and let the bodies fall where they may. While this style doesn't offer the
technical precision of a Hollywood production, it does lend a gritty realism to
the combat.
"Bang Rajan" also pulls no punches when it comes
to depicting the brutality of medieval warfare. The Foley artists work overtime,
giving every impact between steel and flesh a sickeningly juicy thwack,
while actors and stuntmen earn their pay convincingly as they portray the
physicality of hand-to-hand combat. The battles are filmed with an
'in-your-face' directness, the camera lens often getting splashed with mud as
bodies are tossed to and fro. The filmmakers even take time to come up with
iconic shots, such as the village drunk, Tong Menn (Bin Bunluerit), wading into
battle through the morning mist on the back of a huge, obnoxiously large horned
water buffalo, all the while swinging two equally large battle axes.
Surprisingly, and despite the brutality of it all, the
battles are fairly bloodless till the very end, when director Jitnukul opens the
floodgates with impalements, dismemberments and bludgeonings galore. The period
details are also nice, and while not quite as extravagant as
"Suriyothai," from the simple jungle village and its loincloth-clad
inhabitants to the comparatively opulent Burmese military encampments and their
ornate battle armor, "Bang Rajan" was obviously put together with a
great deal of care. The attention to detail extends to the characters, most of
who are festooned with wacky, individualized hairstyles, wild body art and betel
nut-rotted teeth.
An overly stereotypical, but
nevertheless rousing patriotic epic, "Bang Rajan" is not a subtle film
by any stretch. For the most part the characters are strongly drawn, but their
range runs the gamut of war movie clichés we've seen many times before. There
is the itinerant drunkard with a tragic past, the reluctant hero who struggles
with his confidence, and the fierce family man who tries his best to prevent his
familial concerns from interfering with his duties on the battlefield. And as we
get closer to the end, director Jitnukul lays the melodrama on thick, complete
with dying lovers crawling towards each other on the battlefield, as well as a
"Hero"-esque
epilogue.
Fortunately the gory battles, strong characters and
rousing soundtrack do manage to keep the melodrama from degrading into schmaltz.
As a result, "Bang Rajan", by any standards, is an evocatively filmed
epic, packed to the gills with equal parts vicious, blood-soaked combat and
earnest emotion.
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