By Mark Pollard | Published November 26, 2008

From the producers of BANGKOK DANGEROUS (the original), TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER and BANG RAJAN comes a gritty new actioner from Thailand that attempts to bring the fierce fighting art of Muay Thai together with basketball. A recently released trailer shows the punishing results.

The film’s plot centers on an underground, no-rules basketball tournament where getting the ball through the hoop is the least of the challenges players face as they knee and elbow their way through each other.

Tai gets out of jail to find that twin brother Tan had been in a coma for a year. He discovers that his brother had entered the world of Fireball, a violent game based on basketball hosted by an underground criminal gangs, so as to raise the money for Tai’s early release. However, he was brutally beaten by another player Tun. Tai agrees to join Dens’ team so that he can track down the man who hospitalized his brother.

Tai is befriended by his teammates: Singh, a Thai boxing champion who wants to prove that he is the best; Muk, a Thai-African guy who needs money to support his family; IQ, a cheerful character who only wants to help his mother; and K, an old friend of Tai’s, who has a mysterious past. He and his teammates must risk their lives and fight their way to the final round of the deadly Fireball championships so that Tai can avenge his brother on the court.

Starring is Preeti Barameanan, front man for a Thai rock bank. Some of his athletic co-stars include a Thai boxer, a former professional basketball player, a former soccer player previously seen in DYNAMITE WARRIORS, and another basketballer currently on Thailand’s national team.

The cast reportedly spent a year training for the film, which was directed by Thanakorn Pongsuwan. His previous film is a fantasy actioner called OPAPATIKA (2007 – trailer) that Variety summed up as possessing “ingredients for a nasty version of X-MEN …. but the result is an incoherent bloodbath interspersed with Buddhist platitudes about the sacredness of human life.”

Back in September, the director spoke about his vision for the film at a press conference held during the Bangkok International Film Festival.

“When I was planning for FIREBALL, I wanted it to be a good action movie that could combine great action sequences and good storytelling,” said Pongsuwan. “So, the goal of this movie is to make a good quality, market-friendly drama-action film. FIREBALL is equally balanced between drama and action. And I want to make the drama part as touching as possible. The theme of this movie is that this world is one big test. There’s a lot of cruelty that we have to find a way through, which to me is very interesting. For this movie, movement of all the action sequences is very complicated, because they’re hand-to-hand combat, which is very different from shooting [or gunplay] scenes. We tried to capture the feeling of each scene. I want everyone to understand what the character has to go through, to feel what they felt. And also, the complicated fighting sequences make this movie very challenging.”

Pongsuwan went on to explain that FIREBALL was conceived of three years ago and has nothing to do with KUNG FU DUNK, a Chinese film starring Jay Chou that combined basketball and kung fu that was released earlier this year. Pongsuwan insisted that the concept for his film was far different and the resulting action is grittier.

FIREBALL will be released in Thailand towards the end of the year by Adamas World. International sales is being handled by Golden Network Asia.

Source: Twitch Film, Wise Kwai’s Thai Film Journal

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Muay Thai  •  upcoming