Fireball

I'm a fan of violent, action and martial arts movies, and by rights, this should have ticked all of the boxes of the genres. Basketball and a mixture of muay thai as well as any other scrapping you can think of should spell fun, violence and all-round entertainment, and this would have been the case if it wasn't for the atrocious camera work. The viewpoint swings round and round the characters mid-action, to the point of blurring anything you can see, and missing the rest. After a single "Fireball" match you feel light headed and seasick, with a deep sense of diappointment about all of the action you were not able to see.

Martial arts films from different countries each have different expectations. Most American b-movies you expect to have no story line, shoddy acting, but some brutal action, with well filmed scenes. Chinese and Japanese films are stylistic, traditional and highly impressive all-round. Thai films have been making a large impact of recent, and with obviously much lower budgets, making some great films, with truly spectacular action scenes. Fireball though fails to live up to this expectation, and just left me bored and slightly dizzy. All it needed was different camera direction, and it could have been so much better.

I'm a casual fan of martial arts movies rather than an obsessive, so I'm more into the spectacle of these films rather than accurate technique. That's why I liked Fireball so much, it just throws out the rules and entertains. Vicious, blood pumping fighting at illegal street ball tournaments is right up my alley.

The plot is simple but more engaging than most films in the genre and backs up the stunning fight footage. The editing is fast and choppy, while the camera is moves around quickly. You may miss the odd punch but the overall effect makes your head swim in a good way.

Fireball is a refreshing genre flick that fans of Muay Thai movies and Martial Arts should enjoy if they aren't too sniffy about text book moves, for everyone else who enjoys seeing tough fighters rip chunks out of each other, welcome to your new favourite film!