I watched BKO: Bangkok Knockout a few Fridays back and just didn’t get around to writing it up for a Friday Fisticuffs, but I enjoyed the movie so much that I did want to tell you guys about it and maybe get the word out. I came across the movie on Netflix Instant and yes, it is subtitled, but I didn’t really have much trouble following the story even while looking away for almost everything but the fight scenes.

I’ve said several times that, when it comes to action flicks, I’m mostly in it for the fight scenes. The plots are usually overwrought and don’t fit with the tone of what you’re watching considering the superhuman acts performed by the men and women in these things. In the case of BKO, we start off with a pair of fight clubs auditioning for a Hollywood producer. It’s kind of like something out of America’s Best Dance Crew, but with actual kicking and punching. The winning team–actually called Fight Club–goes out, parties and wake up in a house they don’t recognize. That’s when things get nuts as they eventually find themselves in an industrial complex of some kind and are informed that they will be competing in a series of fights. Turns out a bunch of rich folks are paying for this event and are placing bets as to whether the Fight Club kids will defeat the video game boss-like people sent to attack them.

Or something. Again, who cares, right? Not me. There’s a few more twists and turns, but I either missed some or don’t want to ruin the details (that about covers any and all oversights on my part, right?). The set up is familiar and kind of ridiculous, but I’ve got to say, the results are pretty amazing. The movie is basically a video game. There’s even a huge, masked slasher-esque bad guy who keeps showing up and kicking ass. It’s fun watching traditional martial artists essentially fighting Jason Voorhees. There’s also some pretty incredible fight scenes set in a fenced-in room, under a moving semi-truck and the like.

As with many of the Thai action flicks that I love so much, the key to this one is how real everything seems. Well, maybe not the set-up itself, but the fights. Dudes get MESSED UP in this movie. There’s also a nice little treat at the end where we actually see the surviving members of the Fight Club getting patched up in the hospital. If memory serves, you don’t really see these kinds of things a lot, but I liked it here because it brings the whole thing back around to reality. You wouldn’t be able to do what these guys did without needing to at least hit the sack for a while.