VENGEANCE OF AN ASSASSIN is the swansong of action choreographer Panna Rittikrai, a guy who kept the action genre alive in Thailand for three decades until his untimely death last year. This is the guy who brought Tony Jaa to the world in ONG BAK and WARRIOR KING, along with making fine films like BORN TO FIGHT along the way. His recent Thai martial arts movies have been disappointments, and VENGEANCE OF AN ASSASSIN the last of those.

It's a frustrating film to watch, because the storyline is all over the place and the script is very poor. This comes from a viewer who has no problems with the story of WARRIOR KING. Key sequences are rushed over or missed entirely so that the viewer always feels wrong-footed and not entirely sure of what's happening, particularly at the outset. Around the halfway mark it becomes a straight action film with no story but you're still left with questions at the end.

Still, the action is what we're here for, not the daft story or the non-existent acting, and I'm pleased to report that the action is good. VENGEANCE OF AN ASSASSIN is filled with the kind of old-school stunts that we know and love from Thai cinema, alongside tracking-shot shoot-outs and quite brilliant martial arts scenes. These fights are more brutal than ever before, with Thailand seeming to take inspiration from the hits of their neighbouring country, Indonesia (THE RAID films). A garage fight that takes place midway through and sees hero Dan Chupong letting rip with a sledgehammer on his victims is the highlight for me. Yes, the CGI train stunt is appallingly poor, but like WARRIOR KING 2 I enjoyed this film nonetheless; I've lowered my expectations for Thai cinema, so this kind of nonsense doesn't bother me at all.