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.
