6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.8 |
Wut, Kat, Pong, Woon and Jib are five kids who have grown up in a martial art school. Jib urgently needs to a heart transplant but the hospital is being occupied by ruthless terrorists so the children join forces to protect their friend and the country to fight for victory.
Starring: Nantawooti Boonrapsap, Sasisa Jindamanee, Pimchanok Leuwisetpaiboon, Johnny Nguyen, Richard William LordForeign | 100% |
Martial arts | 60% |
Action | 44% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Thai: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
First off, Power Kids isn’t exactly a kid’s flick. Well, maybe in its native Thailand it is, but here in the good old U.S. of A, we don’t generally like our children’s movies to feature armed-to-the-teeth terrorists mowing down hostages at a hospital. Stateside, in movies aimed squarely at the under-12 set, you won’t usually find exploding, blood-filled squibs, vicious kicks to the face, or copious amounts of swearing. That said, if I were ten years old, I’m pretty sure I would think Power Kids was totally awesome, and I would probably go around for days trying to elbow drop my brother and do flips over the living room couch, all while cursing like a piss-drunk sailor on shore leave. So, parents be forewarned: Power Kids isn’t Spy Kids or Shark Boy and Lava Girl. The violence is much more brutal, the tone is more realistic—as realistic as a film about a group of kids foiling a terrorist plot can be—and, well, it is rated R for a reason.
It's obvious from the start that Power Kids is a much lower budgeted production than some of the other Thai imports we've gotten recently, like Ong Bak 2 or Legend of the Tsunami Warrior. I haven't been able to verify, but it looks to me like the film was shot on 16mm, as the 1080p/AVC-encoded image has a softer, grainier look than you'd expect from 35mm. It's all still noticeably high definition, but the picture lacks fine detail—skin and clothing texture, for instance— even in tight close-ups. Longer shots, then, have an especially undefined quality. It's also clear that the film didn't undergo much color correction in post. During many of the outdoor scenes, black levels are hazy, colors look washed out and overexposed—the remote control car race, in particular, looks terrible—and the indoor sequences don't fare much better, with lifeless hues and an overly cool white balance. The film sits on a 25 GB disc, but aside from some occasionally splotchy colors and a bit of noise, there aren't really any distracting compression problems. I like to cut low-budget films some slack in the picture quality department—this is probably the best Power Kids is ever going to look—so just make sure you lower your expectations accordingly.
Magnolia Home Entertainment likes to bundle its import releases with two lossless audio tracks, an English dub and an original language mix, and Power Kids is no exception. The dub is unsurprisingly awful—the kids doing the English voiceovers ham it up even more than their Thai counterparts already do—but if you're looking for a good laugh, have at it. I opted to watch the film with the Thai DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track as accompaniment, and like the picture quality, the sound definitely shows its low-budget origins. There's a commendable attempt at crafting some immersive audio action—machine gun fire pinging through the rears, remote control cars zipping cross-channel, crickets singing at night—but it's all somewhat lo-fi and unsubtle. The dialogue is also inconsistent, sometimes seeming perfectly balanced and other times sounding slightly muffled or low. The music, at least, has some kick, not to mention a strange 1980s vibe, making the whole film feel like some long-lost Thai made-for-TV relic, something you'd have watched in '85 between episodes of The A-Team and MacGuyver.
The Making of Power Kids (SD, 8:41)
A straightforward making of documentary, featuring clips from the film, b-roll footage, and interviews
with director Kridsanapong Radchata and most of the child actors.
Behind the Scenes Footage (SD, 4:38)
A mix of outtakes, stunt work, and injuries. But mostly injuries.
Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment (1080p, 6:19)
Includes trailers for The Warlords, Red Cliff, and District 13: Ultimatum, along
with a promo for HDNet.
Power Kids is one of those films that you'll either love (especially if you ironically venerate crappy martial arts movies) or feel almost completely ambivalent towards. Too hardcore for kids and too lightweight for adults, it occupies a strange cinematic nether region. For those interested, a rental is probably a safe bet.
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