Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Muay Thai Warrior Blu-ray Movie Review

A smackdown by any other name. . .

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 26, 2013

There is such a glut of specialized martial arts techniques that if asked to describe them, some Westerners at least are probably going to be prone to haul out that rightly disparaged old saying that bigots used to denigrate various races with, saying “they all look the same to me”. Would many uninitiated viewers really know the difference between karate, judo, Kung Fu, T’ai Chi, and countless other vaunted approaches if they weren’t told or shown what those differences are? And that same epithet might even be slightly morphed in starting to talk about Muay Thai Warrior by stating “all the titles look the same to me”, for lovers of the martial arts genre might initially be forgiven for mistaking this film for Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior, for a couple of reasons. First of all, Ong Bak is listed prominently in a pull quote on the front cover, but perhaps more importantly Ong Bak was released in many markets with the title Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior. There’s perhaps some intentional consternation in all of this, a potential intentionality only heightened by the fact that this film was evidently originally titled either Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya or simply The Samurai of Ayothaya. The British Blu-ray of this film was released under the title Yamada: Way of the Samurai, and it’s obviously no mere coincidence that the other film prominently mentioned in the pull quote on the cover is The Last Samurai. Even putting aside all of this deliberate obfuscation of the film’s title, obviously meant to link it to other, better known, fare, chances are some viewers will be at least momentarily confused by a piece which plops them down in an intercultural war which very few of them will know much about.

The title character in the film (no matter which title you choose) is actually based on a real life adventurer named Yamada Nagamasa, who lived a relatively short but incredibly eventful life from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. Yamada spent the bulk of his adult life in the Thai city of Ayutthaya (both the city and the same named region are transliterated variously according to different sources), where according to several legends he became a confidante of the regional King whose provinces included Ayutthaya. As with a lot of supposed “historical” epics, Muay Thai Warrior takes some basic facts and twists them to achieve a fanciful narrative that may or may not have much connection to what actually happened. In this formulation, Yamada (Seigi Ozeki) starts out in Japan as a confidante of that country’s ruler, only to become aware of a Ninja conspiracy to assassinate that leader. Yamada is brutally attacked by the Ninja one night, but shortly before passing out witnesses a crew of half dressed combatants (some with improbably large mustaches) who begin taking out the Ninja with some amazingly brutal fighting techniques.

There’s a very logical reason that films typically attempt to trade in on another production’s cachet, and it’s typically because those other films have trod the same territory before and better. And that’s largely the case with regard to Muay Thai Warrior. The film is in fact like a mash up of any number of previous films, not just the two aforementioned features that are prominently displayed on the cover’s pull quote. But despite this “been there, fought that” quality to Muay Thai Warrior, there are still some passing pleasures to be had along the way.

First of all, there’s a rather lush scenic quality to the film, helped immeasurably by some incredible location footage that highlights the towering Buddha statues and unique multi-tiered architecture that have become a staple in depictions of Thailand. The film also rather nicely recreates its historical epoch, nicely detailing the agrarian lifestyle of the Thai people, at least tangentially as Yamada moves through various environments. That said, the political posturing in the film is pretty confusing, especially for Western audiences who probably don’t know (and perhaps couldn’t care less) about the roiling relationship between Thailand and Japan.

But by far the most visceral element in this film is in fact its martial arts sequences. The fighting technique that Yamada is schooled in is called Muay Boran, and I’m frankly one of those brain dead Americans who couldn’t tell you the difference between this technique and any others even if a clenched fist (or foot) was being held to my head. I will say that a lot of the matches here hover perilously close to kickboxing or some of the moves (which may in fact be Muay Boran) which are seen in some Ultimate Cage Fighting matches. The fight sequences elevate this film at least slightly above its predictable, cliché ridden plot and probably provide the greatest argument to check it out. (The film's large supporting cast evidently includes several very well known practitioners of Muay Thai, including Buakaw Banchamek, who fought under the name Buakaw Por. Pramuk.)

A special note (no pun intended) must be made about one of the more inartfully mixed and edited music scores in recent memory, however. The score is by one Palphas Silp, whose only credit this film appears to be, and the score is made up of frankly pretty Western sounding melodies that are augmented by some admittedly beautiful sounding ethnic instruments. But the mixing and editing is just bargain basement throughout this film. A cue will start, only to be faded out precariously quickly, perhaps replaced with another equally brief cue, and that in turn followed by the return of the first cue. Often there seems to be little if any connection between the score and the on screen action. For those who wonder about how much an effective score contributes to a film’s impact, Muay Thai Warrior may be a copious example of everything that can go wrong.

Muay Thai Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Muay Thai Warrior is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. A little internet sleuthing disclosed that this film was evidently made on an extremely small budget, which may account at least in part for how relatively shoddy this high definition presentation looks, at least in part. The entire film is really very soft looking, with only extreme close-ups offering anything approaching decent looking "pop" and fine detail (see the first screenshot for a good example). Unfortunately, the bulk of this outing is marred by fuzziness, lack of shadow detail and outright digital noise in a lot of the more dimly lit sequences, although things are rather strangely highly variable throughout this presentation, almost as if either different cameras were utilized or different source elements in the transfer. Look for example at screenshots 2, 8 and 10, which are on the soft side, and compare them with some of the others (3 and 5, for example) and you'll get an idea of the differing quality that's quite noticeable here.

Muay Thai Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Muay Thai Warrior's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Thai mix is considerably more effective than the image quality, though it is marred both by the incompetent music mixing and editing (as outlined above in the main body of the review) as well as a tendency to deliver too much bass at times, resulting in an overall rumbling quality that persists through vast swaths of the film. That said, fidelity is excellent and surround activity is quite consistent. Dialogue is cleanly presented and dynamic range is extremely wide.

Muay Thai Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:28)

Muay Thai Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Muay Thai Warrior is kind of a hodgepodge of other, better films, as is immediately made apparent by its many "borrowed" titles as well as its emphasis on two of its forebears on its cover's pull quote. There's definitely an interesting story here, even if it's not particularly well connected to actual historical events, but the film is often haphazardly put together, with some amateurish performances and a lack of narrative momentum that will probably leave most people checking their watches until the next fight sequence is cued up. Thai films have really experienced an explosion in popularity over the past few years, but Muay Thai Warrior is simply a pretty rote retread of material we've all seen before. Still, those who love martial arts flicks may want to check this out as at least a rental, for the fight scenes are very dramatic and generally well staged.