torsdag 18 oktober 2012

Krai Thong 2 (ไกรทอง 2, 1985)



A couple of years after the last movie Krai Thong is now back in another exciting adventure, Krai Thong 2, unfortunately watched without subtitles so I'm not 100 % sure about the story this time. Not that it seems any complicated at all. The whole movie is just one crocodile attack after another and not much more. "Well, thank you Sompote Sands!" I say and raises my hand in a respectful gesture, because that's exactly what I want with a movie like this: a rubber monster and gore!

A new evil wizard is in town and has taken over Chalawa's old golden cave. This guy also have to women down there, if they are kidnapped or not I have no idea, but they seem to like it. Anyway, it might be them - or the evil wizard - who goes on bloody rampages along the river, eating, killing and maiming everyone from little babys and children to old people and... yeah, about everyone else coming it the crocodiles way. Of course Krai Thong (Sorapong Chatree) is called into action again, probably believing it's his old nemesis Chalawa who's back in business again!

Yeah, while the story seems uncomplicated, it's a movie packed with action - a lot more than the first one and maybe much of it is stock footage from some earlier film, I don't know because I don't recognize the main set-pieces from any other proejct, but on the other hand, I haven't seen them all yet. What's a little bit of a disappointment is how little screen time Sombat Metanee has, he's just have a glorified cameo at the end and Sorapong Chatree has fairly little screen time compared to the first movie. I mean, these are the starts - and both is always brilliant whatever they do. Sorapong gets most to do, including flying on an angry crocodile...


... and Sombat just participates (in human form) in one action scene, which is a quite nice fight between him and the new evil wizard down in the golden cave. The highlight here is when the evil wizard sends several mini-crocodiles towards Sombat who has to battle those completely immovable, dead, puppets like a madman - if you need a comparison, think about Bela Lugosi vs. the giant octopus in Bride of the Monster. Another good thing with Kraithong 2 is that it's a lot gorier than the first part. First of all, there's a lot of blood-pumping attacks in the water, but during one sequence the crocodile crawls up on lands and starts tearing people apart with very gory and bloody fashion. Sompote Sands here uses real-life amputees who have fake-limbs attached to their stumps and the crocodile-puppet can chomp away as much as possible on them! It looks quite good, or at least gory.

To simplify the story and focus more on action is good for a movie like this. There's no need to follow the storyline of some ancient legend and the production actually has a less heavier tone. It's more fun, more action and more blood - but also less involving because or more undefined and weaker characters. Sombat and Sorapong is good and so is the new guy playing the evil wizard, but the rest of the characters gets lost in storyblivion and is easy to mix up with each other.

But it's clearly a better and more sellable movie, much to the joy of a popcorn cinema fan like me.