The Righteous Fists (2022)

First off, I love action movies, dramas...anything that has fighting in it I'm there. So when I came across this I knew I was going to watch it.

I've become addicted to Korean action dramas and have watched other Korean genre dramas.

I have tried to expand my addiction to Japanese and Chinese dramas but no offense, they don't hold up the same.

Watching this drama had me cringing and eye rolling throughout every episode.

The mom in the beginning loses her husband and two kids. Luckily one survives but this led the mom to go a bit crazy. She's bada** to the core with her martial art skills but throughout the series her missing children slowly show up and the reunion was so dead!

Speaking of dead, their funerals aren't as emotional as the Korean drama funerals. Loved ones died and they were like 'we'll miss you...who's up for lunch.

Now the fighting scenes. More eye rolls though this.

I like a build up that leads to fighting but it seemed like the writers didn't know how to build up the fighting scenes so they just let them say a few words then 'FIGHT'. I was thinking half the time why are they fighting?
The constant palms to the chest, back, and head, and spurting out fake blood in EVERY SINGLE fight got old pretty quick. I'm not medical expert but....if you're spitting out blood....that means you have internal injuries right? Nope! These people were able to get back up and fight some more. They finally got the color of the blood right in the 29th episode though.

Throughout this whole series there was only one plot...Every bad guy wanted to take over Tong Street. What was so special about this street? They never stated why it was so special.
Whenever one bad guy gets defeated and another comes along and puts fear in people a speech has to be made about how the nice people of Tong Street will prevail. This speech is given throughout the series. After the 4th 'we can do it speech' it gets old quick.

The portrayal of American soldiers back in the 30's made America look horrible. It may be dead on but I'm not familiar with the Thailand/Chinese culture of the 1930's.

Another take away was that all of the bad guys died quickly with a lot of episodes left. Then close to the end more side characters started dying quicker than quick sand so the cast became smaller and smaller. I mean who else could be left to die? Both the bad guys and good guys died pretty early.

If this didn't have any fighting in it I would've passed. The romance part killed the majority of it for me. This is one drama that I will not watch again.

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Looking for a drama that is so bad it's good? Look no further!

This is a first for me. I'm actually going to compliment a drama that Chin Pang is the lead in. But, of course it's not because of the reasons I imagine most people would expect in a positive review.

Have you seen "The Room" or "Samurai Cop"? I'm sure you have. These 2 movies are the ones I instantly think of when asked "can a movie be so bad that it is actually good?" I would definitely put "The Righteous fists" in the same category.

Let me start off with the first theme of this drama, which is the dream of starting a new life through emigration. In the opening scene, you see the three families of the main characters on a boat, out at sea, heading to Thailand (I don't recall them saying they were going to Bangkok, but I guess that's where they were heading). Each family knows traditional Chinese martial arts and believes Thailand is a land of hope and opportunity: they were basically chasing the American dream.

The irony of course is, Thailand really isn't for them. I would even go so far as to say, it's the worst possible place they could have picked on the world map to call home.

The fighting is non-stop. The fathers of the main characters fight on the boat because pirates were trying to kidnap the women and children. There's more fighting when they are in Chinatown because there is a seedy underworld in the heart of Chinatown. The fathers end up fighting and killing each other because I guess one of them betrayed them. Their children are separated because the house they were trapped in gets burned to the ground. I imagine you would agree with me when I say no-one wants to live in a place where there is constant violence and a high risk of tragedies. I guess, when deciding to emigrate, they never sought the advice of a realtor because a decent one might have told them: the three most important things to consider when buying a home is "location, location, location".

The police are corrupt, the triads run Chinatown, there are foreign soldiers, from I guess America, who enjoy sexually assaulting girls, drugs are everywhere and killing people, and the stash house can be found quite easily by the heroes, which I find particularly annoying because surely stock management would have improved after the first raid. I hope you can see where I'm going with this - the plot is so bad, it's actually very funny to watch.

Talk is also cheap in this fictional world. No-one talks away their problems; when two characters have an argument, it takes less than three sentences before they both realise the only way to resolve their differences is to duke it out. One truth every character seems to accept at face value is "let your fists do the talking", hence the title of the series "The Righteous fists". Might means right. Simple. But if that is the case, then I don't really see how this would make Thailand a place of hope and opportunity for good, law-abiding citizens. The main characters definitely come across as such. Sure, they like fighting but I never got the impression they emigrated to Thailand because they wanted to fight all the time.

One thing that I find immensely funny is when characters take a particularly hard beating, they cough up a mouthful of blood, which stains their teeth, then they get right back up and keep fighting! Internal bleeding is as serious as it gets and I highly doubt anyone would be able to get up after being injured that badly. Speaking of getting hurt badly, Chin Pang's character gets stabbed in the back, literally and figuratively, and he still manages to win his fight against someone who isn't hurt at all! His character then takes a machete in the stomach, in maybe the next scene, and he is still not killed off! Again, it's crazy how plot armour works in Chin Pang's favour.

That's why I'm giving this series an overall rating of 5/10 despite the bad, no awful, script. I'm entertained and ultimately, I guess that is the best measure of a good TV drama or movie. Nevertheless, trash TV like this should not be encouraged.

I'll end this review by saying it's good to see Philip Ng in this because he is a legit action movie star. He is the guy who played Bruce Lee in the 2006 movie "Birth of the Dragon", and in this drama, he beats up so many people, it's like he's Neo in the Matrix. It's just a shame Chin Pang upstages him in the fight scenes they are both in: afterall, Chin Pang's character can literally punch people through walls! Crazy stuff but I expected nothing less from the joke that is Chin Pang's acting career.

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