By | Published February 6, 2009

FIREBALL (2009)

Wise Kwai’s Thai Film Journal has posted a detailed review of Thai basketbrawler FIREBALL, an action movie released in Thailand on January 29th that attempts to combine brutal ONG-BAK-style screen fighting with the sport of basketball. The reviewer found the idea compelling but not the execution.

It’s a brilliant concept, ripe for the gritty, no-holds-barred, no-wires, no-CGI kind of martial-arts action film that fans have been clamoring for more of since the original ONG-BAK in 2003.

Unfortunately, FIREBALL isn’t it.

It breaks the rules of good filmmaking.

Every single action scene is marred by that bane of martial-arts films — shakey cam and zoom-lens cropping. The camera is constantly shifting around, so much that it’s stomach-churning. And the framing is so tight it’s difficult to get a sense of the action, of who’s being hit and who’s doing the hitting. It’s too bad. Because otherwise, FIREBALL could have been great.

To read the rest of the review head over to Wise Kwai Thai Journal.

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  • BruisedLo

    first time i saw the trailer, i didn’t like it, and i knew it wasn’t going to work. whose stupid idea was it to combine muay thai and basketball? now shaolin with soccer is a different thing so it works. kendo and baseball? kung fu and dancing? capoeira and breakdancing?…

  • Lionclaw

    lol at the comment above. “kendo and baseball.” i didnt like the trailer much either but the idea seemed cool.

  • GwaiLoMoFo

    Not suprised, the trailer looked TERRIBLE!

  • http://www.masteringwushu.com xibanyae

    shakey cam and zoom-lens cropping really is the worst thing u can have for martial-arts films!