Well, I complain about how my film class teacher won’t let the class to go watch new movies, so he made us go watch a new movie. Unfortunately, this is one of the many weird foreign films that was shown at the 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival. This is a movie about a Thai kickboxer who fights to earn money so that he can get a sex change operation. Believe it or not, this film is based on a true story. Before I went to see the film, I thought the movie was going to suck, but it turned out alright. Below is my review for this film. Like every other schoolwork articles I posted, I also got a good mark for this review.
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Beautiful Boxer is a film shown in this year’s Vancouver film festival. It’s a movie from Thailand about kickboxing. In some ways, it’s like the Rocky films, where someone practices to ascend to the top, but Beautiful Boxer has a twist. The central character doesn’t want to gain glory by defeating opponents in the ring. He wants to ear enough money to get a sex change. Sounds ridiculous, right? This movie is actually based on a true story, so it’s not just a tall tale made by an imaginative writer.
Beautiful Boxer has pretty good fight scenes that take place throughout the film. The kickboxing in the movie does look like kickboxing. There are different offensive techniques that the viewers can make out and the fighters attempt to block and dodge blows. A hard hit to the head in the film will bring a person down, like in real world, as opposed to say… the Rocky films where people stand there and exchange punches to the head. The camera work during the fights is also good, ex. The camera slows down as a powerful hit is about to land.
There are also some technical issues with this film. Sometimes the scene cuts abruptly to another, like when the main character runs up the long stairs alone and hallucinates about a girl being there, and then suddenly, the guy is back in his room. I also didn’t like the camera work in the opening scenes, where the camera moves along a crowded corridor of shops. The images were blurred to the point that I started feel nauseous, and the movement didn’t serve a lot of purpose.
The story also gives the audience a weird feeling since not many people can actually identify with the main character and say “I want to have a sex change.” Most of the audience can’t really feel for the character since most people don’t know how guys who want to be girls actually feel. This takes away some emotional connection from the audience.
Beautiful Boxer is an okay movie, but other than the story with the twist, there is nothing new in the film.