Fireball

From Zanecorpwiki

Summary

Spoilers: This is currently the only review where I have spoilers in the summary, so be warned. But, it's nothing that you wouldn't figure out pretty quick and it's not narratively important (because nothing's narratively important).

Are you looking for a grittier, ultra-violent, more depressing version of Shaolin Soccer? Then Fireball may be the movie for you.

What I like about this film:

• Thai is a bad ass language.
• Thailand is apparently equivalent to the post-apocalypse movies. If you told me this movie was happening in the same universe as Mad Max, there'd be no question.
• I love parking garages... cement blocks. That and filthy underpasses make up about 90% of the scenery for this film.

So, I clearly enjoy the aesthetic of the movie, but, like so many action movies, it takes too many narrative short cuts. Why do they kill IQ and Muk Muk? There's no advantage, and the idea that all the players are psychopaths or blood thirsty is silly. The game wouldn't have lasted 35 years under those conditions.

In short, narratively quite sloppy. But what do you expect?

The ultra-violence gets to be a bit much in places. Most people may think I'm being picky here, but there's plenty of ultra-violent movies where no one actually dies, or just the bad guy who really deserves it dies. Not here! It may be a spoiler, but it's also pretty fundamental to the movie that most everyone gets killed for no clear reason. It doesn't change anything, it's justs killing for the sake of killing, and that's a bit much.

Details and Notes

Look, it's an easy trick, but the reality is that thugs aren't so capricious as all that. Why stab a guy when it's not going to win the match and, as happens, it pretty much guarantees you'll get killed yourself? Knock him out, beat him up, sure... I'm not talking about a sense of fairness... but why take action that only endangers yourself with no benefit?

Another unsupported plot point... the boss revealing his "love of the game"/"be a man, but don't be barbarous" attitude comes as no surprise, but if that's the case, why didn't he just enforce the rules before? Throw out the bosses that throw pipes into the ring and sanction the stabbing of players mid-game? There's no indication he's not in control, so why does he rely on some upstart, small time boss and his unlikely gang of misfits to set things right?