DYNAMITE WARRIOR (Thailand, 2006)
Directed by: Chalerm Wongpim
Starring: Dan Chupong, Leo Putt, Panna Rittikrai, Samart Payakarun
“Thai action cinema started 2006 with a whimper, but it’s going out with a literal bang with Dynamite Warrior...this is an explosive martial-arts action film that fires on all cylinders. In terms of story, acting and special effects, I think it's one of the best Thai films of the year.” - Wisekwai

Who knows what Magnolia Pictures were thinking when they acquired this movie for US distribution, but God bless ‘em! Zooming off the screen and into the audience like on of its wooden rockets, DYNAMITE WARRIOR is a non-stop throw-down that feels like the kind of wild, throw-it-all-against-the-wall mad, mad, mad, mad movies that came out of Hong Kong in the early 90’s. It’s an audience-pleasing machine and if there was any justice in the world it would make $100 million at the box office.

Dan Chupong (high flying star of Born to Fight) stars as Jone Bang Fai, a masked thief who flies through the air on homemade rockets and cracks skulls with Mach 3 elbow drops, looking for the tattooed man who killed his parents. He runs afoul of Lord Waeng (Leo Putt) a dandified prince who’s stealing all the water buffalo in Northern Thailand so that the locals will be forced to buy his expensive, imported tractors. To prime the market, he’s hired a giant with a bottomless appetite to run his anti-buffalo racket, but he runs afoul of a wizard who’s protecting the buffalo herds with his henchmen whom he can transform into martial arts monkeys and tigers. Cue a trip to the Black Wizard (played by Thai action legend, Panna Rittikrai, Tony Jaa’s mentor) who may look like a giant scab but who has the recipe to defeat the wizard: rub a little virgin’s menstrual blood on him and he’ll be powerless.

Unfolding like a four color Thai comic book from the 70’s, with endless scenes of exquisite action (there are literally only 30 minutes of this 103 minute movie that don’t feature some kind of martial action), water buffalos being used as an obstacle course and kuh-razy Thai magic duels, this hard-hitting dynamo runs on the fumes given off by decaying 70’s comic books and it’ll boil your brain like hot lava.