I stumbled upon the 1996 Thai action movie "Mue prab puen hode" (aka "Hard Gun") here in 2021. I saw that the movie had Tony Jaa on the cover, and since this was a movie I hadn't already seen and it having Tony Jaa in it, of course I had to sit down and watch it.
Well, first of all, this movie felt like it was from 1976 and not 1996. Wow, the picture and sound quality of this movie was just atrocious. And it felt like they had even gone back to put a new audio track on to it, because the voices were all over the place. Especially all the bad guys, they had voices that were just cartoonish and bad, making it a very laughable experience to sit through this movie.
Aside from poor picture and audio, then the acting in "Hard Gun" was just downright abysmal. It felt like I was watching something a group of buddies made up in their backyard while barbecuing and having one beer too many.
The storyline told in "Hard Gun", as written by Nueng Nuengnued, was just rubbish. Sure, there was a red thread to the storyline, but everything felt just random and incoherent actually, which made for a less than adequate and even less wholesome movie.
As for Tony Jaa being on the movie's cover, well sure. Of course he was there to sell the movie. But the fact of the matter was that he was a mere support cast in the movie, playing a very minor role. And he didn't have all that much screen time actually. But anything to sell a movie, huh?
If you enjoy Thai action movies, and if you enjoy Tony Jaa movies, then do yourself a favor and stay clear of "Hard Gun". This gun fired only blanks.
My rating of "Hard Gun" from director Prapon Petchinn lands on a mere three out of ten stars.
