Just perfect...

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

How can I start?, well let me say: First I hate the voice of the main female character, horrible. Second, the fights look more than a Brazilian capoeira, not even closer to a real fight. Third, the plot is ridiculous. Fourth, please tell me how a woman with no more than 80 pounds, can resist brutal fight against strong men. Fifth and above all, please explain how can she catch with her tiny arms, two persons?I can continue all night, but as a summary, I wanted to like the movie, I personally love Asian films, Ong Bak trilogy, The Raid, the Protector, etc., but this movie is garbage, a complete waste of time.I didn't see Chocolate, but with this movie, and because of her awful voice (like a whistle), I will pass it.

OK i have to admit i am generous when i give an 8, because i was to other movies as well a couple years ago. I know when i watch a martial arts movie to not look too much at the story, more on the fights. But since i started to go back on martial arts around 2 years ago and started my collection(which is now over 300 movies) i find the same problem going on with every THAI martial arts movie. To the Tony Jaa's to the unknown's. The fights are always very impressive, but the story is always CRAP !!! This movie is no exception. Some could say the initial synopsis is not that bad, gang abducting womens and heroes going after them. But where TAKEN(with Liam Neeson) succeeded in that department, this movie does not, going from one weird thing to the other and so on. The heroine training is pretty good and the initial plot seem pretty find, its later it become like "whatever". At least the fight are VERY impressive and well choreographed so you never get bored and always stay in the movie. But i would wish sometimes the Thais would learned that a good yet simple plot of a movie is the best way to showcase awesome martial arts. You don't need fancy stuff, you don't need weird stuff, you don't need stuff the audience would be like "huh....ok" . With Thais movie, its always the same thing, either a relic has been stolen and the hero goes after it, or its supernatural stuff. I don't know, maybe they should check the simple, yet effective formula of the US movies of the 90s. Hero got his ass kick, go back and train to a master, come back and kick the ass of the bad guy. I don't know... sometimes in martial arts the simpler plots work best, if you have good fighting to display and i can assure you this movie has.... Please people from thailand... leave the supernatural out of the martial arts movie... we don't wanna a cross over between star wars and bloodsport... we want just good ol martial arts.

This is the second film of the supremely talented JeeJa Yanin, who starred in Chocolate a couple years back. Chocolate was like a trumpet blast followed by the announcement: "We now present to you the next great martial arts star, JeeJa Yanin!" Raging Phoenix is a perfect follow-up. Yanin plays a punk band drummer who is kidnapped by a ring of white slavers. A group of young men who have had women in their life harmed by these people save Yanin and train her in the martial art of Thai drunken boxing. Like most martial arts movies, the plot is pretty negligible. It's actually kind of weird, because it begins as the same kind of gritty realism of Chocolate but eventually veers into a more fantastical landscape where the villains are abducting women to extract their tears, which they make into a perfume that drives men crazy. Or some such nonsense. Who cares? The bottom line is that Yanin kicks every ass that anyone chooses to hand to her. And she's super freakin' cute while doing it. I'd probably rank it below Chocolate, but I'd say it's about at the same level. If you liked that film, this is a no-brainer.

Deu (JeeJa Yanin) is a young adolescent going through an existential crisis after being thrown out of a punk rock band. Trying to cope with her negative emotions she gets stoned. A mysterious and very dangerous underground organisation decides to use this occasion to kidnap our heroine for secretive and vile purposes. Fortunately a mix-up between her kidnappers and a last minute rescue by a savvy group of drunken martial arts masters saves her troubled backside. A couple of drunken break dancing fights later she decides to join the group and learn their fighting techniques...In general the whole plot is quite ridiculous, but than again you get the sense that it was always supposed to be tongue-and-cheek - believe me when I say that treating this plot seriously is nigh impossible. The real problem however delves from the overlong build-up of the plot together with slow-mo dramatic sequences that reek of corny Brazilian soaps. Even the excellent cinematography can't help with hiding this pathetic excuse for storytelling. I normally don't mind sub-par acting or bad plots in a martial arts movie, as long as the fight sequences are done nicely. But this movie delves too much into the dramatic elements, which derails the otherwise fun parts of the movie (waiting times in between are too long).What's worse it seems that all the best ideas for fight sequences were used up in the first 30 minutes, while the remainder of this overlong martial arts flick reeks of repetitiveness. For some reason the whole motley crew sobers up in the second half of the movie (for no apparent reason) and gone are the innovative drunken break-dance fight sequences, which made the movie a real spectacle for the first half an hour.Rashane Limtrakul seems to have wanted too much in his debut, but didn't have the proper base material or experience to make this movie work. A lot of editing and cutting-down of the script properly would have done a world of good for the movie... In the end this is by far the worse Baa-Ram-Ewe I have had the pleasure to watch.