Emerges from the dank, Hollywoodized Asian jungle to be easily the equal of Braveheart, Troy, and King Arthur, but with a rough-hewn recklessness that carries the sulfurated scent of physical danger.
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08/24/04
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Bang Rajan (2004)
69
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:20
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.1/10
Theatrical Release:Aug 6, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: Oliver Stone presents a beautiful and violent Thai film; the true story of a rural 18th century Siamese village that managed to battle an army of 100,000 invading Burmese soldiers to a standstill... [More]
Starring: Winnai Kraibutr, Jaran Ngamdee, Bin Banleurit, Teerayuth Pratyabamrung
Director: Thanit Jitnukul
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Reviews for Bang Rajan
Top CriticThe thuddingly blunt epic is obvious and intermittently clumsy... yet winning in its own charmingly naive right.
09/16/04
The buffalo are big, the battles brutal and bloody in this gritty Thai epic - but unfortunately the characters are too blank to be interesting.
02/26/05
A powerful and beautiful war movie with an amazing score - but very violent battle scenes. Still, it connects on an emotional level.
09/24/02
The dramatic ploy is so disjointing, it's not often clear if Jitnukul's narrative is in the past or present.
08/26/04
Top CriticJitnukul serves up heaping plates of history and entertainment with this tremendously exciting epic set on the eve of Bangkok's destruction by Burmese forces.
09/10/04
At two hours, it tests the stamina of even the most ardent action movie fan.
09/11/04
The filmmaking is top-notch, born more of a western storytelling sensibility than the meditative or exclusively action-oriented aesthetics of China and Hong Kong.
08/12/04
The noncombative scenes can be melodramatic and broadly acted, but that doesn't rob the movie of a certain inherent power.
09/03/04
Top CriticWooden, one-dimensional epic from Thailand.
04/29/02
The acting is facial-expressions- visible-from- 100-feet overdone and the choppy editing makes for awkward storytelling. However, the battle scenes, which make up at least half the movie, are killer.
10/21/04
Even without deep knowledge of Thai politics and history, fans of war pictures will be impressed by Jitnukul's achievement in creating a detailed and graphic, if overheated, account of this ultimate underdog story.
09/03/04
Top CriticJitnukul can direct action, and every slice of the blade, thwack of the arrow and the glistening of sweat on near-naked bodies makes Bang Rajan a mostly pleasurable diversion.
09/24/04
Top CriticPlucked from its cultural context, Bang Rajan is being offered to American audiences as another example of Asian extreme action movies, and gore hounds will find it gratifyingly full of spurting blood and flying limbs.
09/09/04
Top CriticThough the effort doesn't entirely pan out, it succeeds more often than not, raising hopes for even better Thai films to come.
09/04/02
Features scrumptious-looking jungle battles, with a cast of thousands -- not to mention elephants and water buffalo.
09/10/04
Top CriticIt becomes, after a while, little more than a mind-numbing bloodbath.
09/03/04
Top CriticYes, Bang Rajan introduces Westerners to a slice of history worth noting, but its stirring lesson is told in a way that's too long, too brutal, and too clunky to recommend enthusiastically.
08/27/04
Top CriticJitnukul’s film canonizes sacrificial plight and serves as a stirring act of national self-definition.
08/24/04
It's far too bloody for the art house crowd and too leisurely paced and obscure for more general audiences.
09/29/04
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