★★★½
“Dressed to kill.”
For a TV movie, this is very impressive. When you hear that phrase, I usually think of something which appears on Lifetime or, worse still, Hallmark. But it seems that Thai television is made of sterner stuff. This plays much tougher, more like something you might see on AMC or FX. The story may not be particularly original, but it’s done with enough style and energy to make for more than passable entertainment The heroine is Angie (Rittapinun), an orphan who was brought up by her uncle and trained as an assassin. Her latest mission involves the retrieval of a data chip which contains a list of all the members in the organization of which she’s part. In the wrong hands, it could be disastrous.
Except the mission goes wrong, and the chip ends up in the hands of a hooker, Nina (Pitaktrairong), whom Angie let live because she was reminded of her sister, not seen since the day their parents were killed. This gets Angie disavowed by the organization, and they send further killers after her. Meanwhile, detective Sam (Asavanond) is hot on the trail of Angie for all the corpses left in her wake. Policeman and hitwoman are – probably inevitably – forced to team up, because the conspiracy behind things has tentacles considerably closer to home than is comfortable for either of them. It all leads to a confrontation where the truth about Angie’s bloody childhood is revealed.
Yeah, there’s not a lot here which you won’t have seen done before. It seems to be inspired mostly by Hong Kong movies like Naked Weapon, and that’s certainly not a bad place from which to start. It is refreshingly free of romance: I kept expecting Sam and Angie to fall for each other, but their relationship is kept strictly professional. [Sam, instead, is heavily crushed on by a policewoman at the station] I was a little disappointed that the film does not follow through on the bleak tone for which it appeared to be heading. Too many people who are supposed to be dead, turn out not to be, though there is at least one fairly unexpected fatality.
The action isn’t bad, even if I was amused by the Imperial Stormtrooper level of marksmanship displayed, as a way of getting round the whole pesky firearms problem. Rittapinun snaps off some nice kicks, making an especially good first impression with some high-heeled kung-fu, aided by enthusiastic stuntwork from those she’s fighting. While there does appear to be some doubling for the more gymnastic moments, it’s done well enough to pass muster. An occasionally over-melodramatic moment or two don’t harm proceedings too badly either, and the makers keep things moving along at a brisk pace, with few pauses of excessive length. I found the performances hit their mark, even if there’s nothing particularly novel about the characters: cop who gets 48 hours to solve the case, troubled assassin with a heart of gold, etc. This is still pretty serviceable and I enjoyed it – though after Ninja: Prophecy of Death, anything would seem an upgrade.
Dir: Chalerm Wongpim
Star: Thikumporn Rittapinun, Sarawut Mardthong, Netchanok Pitaktrairong, David Asavanond


By that, I am referring to the unnamed heroine of this film, because she doesn’t have to leave the house. She works as a hitwoman for Yakuza boss Yasuhiro Kokubu (Katô), and he delivers the targets to the front-door of her rural home, on the pretext of her being their entertainment. She then gives them the Black Widow treatment, having sex with them, before a couple of post-coital shots. She barely has to get out of bed, literally. In some way this makes sense, since she’s blind – I guess it’s nice to see the disabled being given equal opportunities in the assassin field. But she’s not exactly happy with her lot; her cleaner and handler Masahiko Yoshizawa (Murai) is concerned about her spiralling into alcoholism.
To be honest, I enjoyed this a good bit more than the rating above would indicate – probably another star or so. But I have a particular tolerance for cinema with rough edges, which I know not everyone will share. This is such an entity. I can’t really recommend it, since most people won’t be able to get past the micro-budget anesthetics, which the film rarely bothers even to try and hide. But I could appreciate the obvious passion that went into this. Put it this way, if I had twenty quid with which to make a movie, it could end up looking something like this. Probably not with such a kick-ass poster though.
Somebody
Made on a shoestring in Ireland, the nicest thing you can say is probably, this doesn’t look as cheap as it was. If only you could say the same for the script, which seems to be trying to be Guy Ritchie, only to end up nearer to Guy Fieri. It’s not a terrible idea, if rather stretching belief. Katelin Ballantine (Doherty) is a film producer, trying to raise funds for her latest movie. To that end, she is hanging out, unwillingly, with sleazeball businessman, Felim Shaw. What she doesn’t know, is he is deep in debt to local mob-boss Edmund Murren (Fleming). He kidnaps them both, forces Katelin to kill her potential investor, then threatens her family to make her continue in her new career as his assassin, alongside former friend and now Murren associate, Henry Furey (Kealy).
There’s a lot to admire about this South Korean film, though a couple of fumbles stop it from achieving the heights it threatens to do. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a knock-off of Kill Bill going by the title. But it’s as much a pun on the name of the heroine, Gil Bok-soon (Jeon). She has been an assassin since she was 17, and has worked her way up to be the top employee of the MK. ENT corporation, run by Cha Min-kyu (Sol). They are one of a number of competing companies offering killers for hire, but to ensure standards, certain common rules have been agreed, e.g. no kids, and are adhered to by all. Well… Kinda…
Tubi TV has become a goldmine of obscure, weird and,
Daphne Wool (Varela) has finally had enough of her abusive husband, so has killed him, chopping up the corpse and keeping it in a storage locker. Which actually is a good thing, because it turns out he was wanted by the Mob, and there was a price on his head. For their “help” in carrying out the hit, Daphne and pal Tony Steele (Cappello) are rewarded, but things go further. Daphne becomes a full-time assassin for the gangsters, learning to kill with everything from a paper-clip up, while Tony acts as her facilitator. However, they quickly become a liability to the organization, and are given a “poison pill” contract, being sent to kill weapons inventor Vincent McCabe.
This seemed considerably better in the trailer, which makes it look like quite an action-packed extravaganza. The reality is much less interesting, with a murky and confusing plot, and what action there is, is often filmed in a murky and confusing way. It begins with an agent, code name Banshee (King), quitting the government agency for which she works. The handoff of an asset went wrong: one of the colleagues involved was her father, who vanished entirely. The other was Caleb (Banderas), who went off the grid thereafter. Five years later, Banshee is a private assassin, but her latest job is interrupted by Greene (Flanagan), who wants her to give up Caleb’s location.