Part 7 of our report on the always-outstanding 2007 Subway Cinema New York Asian Film Festival, which runs until July 8 (schedule here):

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Dynamite Warrior
AKA: Khon Fai Bin
Director: Chalerm Wongpin (Thailand 2006)
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)
Review by: David Austin

Talk about a hell of a palette-cleanser after Takashi Miike’s dreamy, homoerotic prison love story, Big Bang Love. Dynamite Warrior goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction – with over-the-top action, sophomoric humor, and guys getting kicked over water buffalos. This Thai action flick follows in the footsteps of blockbuster Ong Bak, but is more akin to Kung Fu Cult Master than to Once Upon A Time In China – almost everything is played for spectacle and laughs, with highly effective results.

The plot follows superhero/bandit Jone Bang Fai (Dan Chupong – Born to Fight), a masked man who steals from buffalo traders and give to poor villagers, in a direct paraphrase of the Robin Hood credo. In the boffo opening scene, he single-handedly takes on dozens of enemies with his bone-crunching Muay Thai kickboxing and an arsenal of rockets. Eventually he becomes entangled in a battle between good wizard Sing (Sayart Payakarun) and evil wizard Dam (Panna Ritthikrai).

Dynamite Warrior cheerfully steals from its peers – including stunts lifted from Ong Bak, gross-out special effects (though nothing too awful) and Thai black magic like in Art of the Devil, and, of course, from a a lifetime of wuxia films like Swordsman and Wing Chun. After the initial fight, I was concerned that the film would bog down in bad comedy like all-too-many Thai films, but, fortunately, all the elements come together nicely. Not only does the action come back with a vengeance, but the comedy turns out to be pretty good as well. Leo Putt sells the laughs as oily Lord Waeng, who enlists the Black Wizard’s assistance to sell tractors, and even Chupong shows solid comic timing in scenes where he tries to acquire the menstrual blood of a virgin to defeat his magical adversary.

Overall, Dynamite Warrior is a lot of fun. Magnolia Pictures has picked this one up, oddly enough, so if you miss the next NYAFF showing on July 5, this will be available on DVD on July 17. I suggest the big screen though - this one is worth it.

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Zebraman
Director: Takashi Miike (Japan 2004)
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)
Review by: David Austin

Oddly, I was less surprised to hear that Takashi Miike was making an arthouse gay prison film than I was to hear that he was filming a henshin superhero film. Somehow Miike and heroes like Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and the Power Rangers didn’t seem to go together. How wrong I was. Miike and masked superheroes go together like peanut butter and marshmallow, or tuna and pizza, resulting in the most cracked-out henshin film since Super Inframan.

In Zebraman, Miike gives us the ultimate sad sack salaryman hero, embodied by Sho Aikawa (Dead or Alive, 8000 direct-to-video productions). Sho’s Ichikawa is a sad, cuckolded loser who clings to his television hero, Zebraman, and creates his own threadbare costume. Fortunately, he rises to the occasion when the Earth is threatened by a slimy alien invasion, and by the villainy of Crab Man (Akira Emoto).

Zebraman is packed with silly parodies, like spoofs of Ring, with Sadako re-imagined as a henshin villain, and The X-Files, but still manages to maintain its emotional core. And whenever Sho dons the Zebraman suit, it’s magic. While the film is a little too long and can get draggy at points, I enjoyed it a lot. Media Blasters has been making noise about putting this out on Region 1 DVD for some time now – it remains to be seen when and if that will happen.

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Additional Links:
::: The official Subway Cinema NYAFF 2007 website
::: CSB Coverage of NYAFF 2006
::: CSB Coverage of NYAFF 2005