Jailbreak (2017) Reviews

• Non-Stop Action with Magnificent Choreography

  claudio_carvalho2018-05-15

  In Cambodia, the police arrests the gangster Playboy (Savin Phillip) since they believe he is the leader of the Butterfly gang. However Playboy is only responsible for laundering the money and other crimes and accepts a plea bargain to disclose the identity of the true kingpin. The local police officers Dara (Dara Our), Tharoth (Tharoth Sam) and Sucheat (Dara Phang) and the French officer Jean-Paul (Jean-Paul Ly), who is visiting the Cambodia, are assigned to escort Playboy to the maximum security prison. Meanwhile, the mobster Madame Butterfly (Celine Tran), who is the true boss, puts a bounty on Playboy. The officers deliver Playboy and when they are leaving the prison, there is a riot and the inmates escape from their cells. Now the officers and the security guard that is guiding them have to fight to survive. "Jailbreak" is a highly entertaining Cambodian film with non-stop action and magnificent choreography of the fights. The plot is very simple but the fights are excellent, and not only for fans of martial arts. In addition to the choreography that recalls a videogame, the film is attractive since it is witty and funny. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): Not Available

• Top notch martial arts movie from Cambodia!

  evildog20002017-07-21

  Just saw this at a film festival! With the brutality and technicality of the fights in the "The Raid" movies with some inventive camera work and AMAZING choreographies, this movie hits hard! Is this the awakening of the Cambodian movie industry? I sure hope so because this movie nailed it! It's not a perfect movie by any means, there are some weak elements to it but I have to give it a 9 here, a 8 just doesn't do it justice! Seek it out, check it out when it gets a wider release!

• Lotsss of actionssss!

  tomholland20162017-10-26

  With a name like "Jailbreak", action scenes are imminent in this latest offering from Cambodian-based Italian director Jimmy Henderson. While action-packed, the pacing of the movie is not rushed. It opens with mellow steps, easing fans into the storyline, giving them a breather before the action sequences finally kick in. In the beginning, we see action star Jean-Paul Ly being introduced as Inspector Ly to the team, we see the tension building up between the new face and the rest of the team. There's especially friction between the inspector and Dara Our's and Tharoth Sam's police characters. Once the action kicks in about half an hour into the movie, this trio will be the main characters that will take fans on an exhilarating ride of endless action. The storyline is simple enough to follow. An elite team of police is tasked with escorting Playboy (Savin Phillip), the legendary "leader" of the Butterfly Gang, to a high security prison, Prey Klaa. What was supposed to be a simple mission, however, turned deadly when the real leader of the Butterfly Gang puts a hit on Playboy, causing a riot in the prison as the hired hit-man, Bolo (Sisowath Siriwudd), carries out his lethal task. Once the riot breaks out, this is where the three really get to shine. Ly mesmerises with his sharp movements, easily showing to the audiences the reason why he's been hired for various Hollywood productions, including "Marvel's Doctor Strange", "Lucy" and "Now You See Me 2". Dara Our too puts his Bokator skills on full display, as he kicks and punches his way out of the deadly riot. Tharoth Sam doesn't lose out to the boys, the MMA fighter is the embodiment of female empowerment as she fights her way through and even squares off against the skilled leader of the Butterfly Gang (played by Vietnamese French actress Celine Tran). Apart from skilled fighters, which include the Bokator stunt team, pulling out all the stops for the action-packed scenes, another thing that really makes the action movie worth a watch is the cinematography. Compared to the simpler movements of other locally made movies, the camera movements in "Jailbreak" have more variety and range. The fight scenes especially benefit from the camera movements. Audiences will feel like they are part of the scenes themselves, instead of merely being a viewer from the outside looking in. The polished look of the movie also helps audiences to be more immersed. Compared to other local productions, the movie is a rung higher in terms of audio and visual aesthetics as it has had proper sound mixing and colour grading done. It is evident in how the punching sound effects sound more realistic and not cartoonish, in how the colours in the scenes differ based on the tone of the story. Fans of action movies will definitely not be left wanting as they exit the halls but non-action fans shouldn't sit this one out either, as the movie is still a treat thanks to its high quality aesthetics and the comedic performances, which blend into the storyline without taking away from the thrilling action sequences.

• I like it, but mostly dislike it. Watchable.

  niborino-525482018-09-01

  Minor spoilers below. While this movie has good fight scenes that you can follow easily it falls short still. Like they go up against a whole room of dangerous prisoners that don't care if they die or not but the main leads still decide to do ground takedowns in the midst of a riot. It makes no sense to me why they'd do that. I've seen this movie compared to the Raid in quality but it's far from it. Or in all honesty, it's a dumbed down version in my opinion. Here's my main issues with it: The main cast looks way too young. This might just be a preference for me but they look like they came straight out of high school. The main lead apparently has a super power that makes him op whenever it's going bad for him. Commonly seen in other movies but here it's just out of the blue and without explanation. And I still have no idea why he sometimes can't understand his colleagues but later on he has no problem whatsoever with understanding anyone. Towards the end it's clarified that he came from France to participate in the mission. Quite sure it was briefly mentioned earlier at the start but still. There is also a woman on the team but she sadly ends up filling some common tropes. At first I figured she'd be on equal terms with the men(not sure if I should've believed that at all now, thinking due to cultural differences and stuff) but to the point, don't go in thinking this gal will get a fair treatment. She starts out by being able to kick ass, but later on she needs to be rescued/protected. She's also about to be raped(supposedly) but is rescued by the male lead. A bit later into the film the main lead who got just got stabbed in the arm suddenly decides to shut her out of a fight with a "boss" just so he can almost get his ass kicked while she can't do anything to help because she is closed behind a locked gate that the main lead himself closed. I can't understand why he didn't let her join instead, 2 vs 1 would've been better since they aren't exactly safe in a prison full of dangerous criminals. And the boss prisoner is well, a boss, he had the skill to take the two of them on I believe. Not your average grunt prisoner. And this woman that is on the team suddenly gets to fight the big bad villain in a sword fight. And kicks her ass. That brings me into my final point, they keep leaving each other in the midst of a fight or when a fight is about to begin. Someone just darts off and leaves the others hanging. Not a lot of trust in this group so to speak. And nobody even mentions that afterwards either. That was probably most of it. I'd say it's worth watching if you are looking for a movie with good fight scenes but it is plagued by some poor choreography decisions. According to me, I'm not a choreographer myself but common sense tells me that you don't go to the ground when surrounded by people and more. But on a whole I did enjoy the fight scenes. I don't want to be too harsh against the people who made the film but I feel that I need to be honest with how I feel about the movie.

• Cambodia's answer to Indonesia's The Raid, is bold, ambitious and just as successful

  andrewmakatsaria2017-10-08

  In the age of rising Asian countries in the genre of martial arts action that they were previously never known to be mass-producers of but quickly became extremely successful by, we've had awesome action films such as The Raid from Indonesia, Ong Bak from Thailand, and now it's time for Cambodia to boldly step into the spotlight and break a few bones and deliver non-stop, thrilling entertainment and entertain it surely does. The premise of Jailbreak is simple, just as simple as The Raid's, maybe even more so, a Team of cops led by a French GIGN member played by the new rising action star Jean-Paul Ly as well as a handful of local Cambodian officers are tasked with protecting a high value target in a rioting Prison from an orchestrated attack by a group of female killer gang known as The Butterfly Gang led by the sword-wielding Madame Butterfly(Celine Tran). The plot never goes into convoluted territory from here on but the performances keep the tale engaging and human, these are characters we care for much in the same way we cared for the SWAT team in The Raid, because of the situation they're in, but here I can say that since there's only 4-5 of these officers, they all have lots of screen time and develop their personalities and camaraderie rather believably, Jean-Paul Ly shines as the ultimate bad ass here, who exudes charisma and intimidation either from his wickedly cool haircut or his cool and suave composure, maybe both, becoming audience's instant favorite, while his bickering rivalry with co- star Dara Our feels like something out of a classy B-movie action heroes flick, which very much so suits the tone of Jailbreak, as it is a lot lighter and humorous than the Poker-faced Raid, most of the humor works very well too, some visual gags, some of which would fit right in a Takashi Miike film or some of the gorror exploitation flicks, left the audience gasping for air in ways they didn't expect, well at least I didn't. Celine Tran does admirably with little screen time she's given and her fight with Tharoth Sam, a Cambodian MMA champion is terrific, all in all a well-rounded, colorful cast elevates the basic, yet beautifully simple premise above it's generic roots. The other way the audience was left gasping for air was the fast, furious and brutal fight choreography by Jean-Paul and Dara Our, bringing viscerally exciting combat that is never boring, varied and beyond bad ass, there are legitimate moves and punches and kicks here as well as the incredible use of machetes that I've never seen before, and this is coming from a guy who watches martial arts films as much as the cereals he eats everyday. Shot with just a single camera and with not extra backup from other countries such as Thailand due to budget strains, this is one hell of an impressive feat, one that even The Raid would look at and be like:"GODDAMN !". DP Godefroy Ryckewaert's camera-work here is exceptional, the inspiration of DOP Matt Flannery and Director Gareth Evans from The Raid films is obvious here, as the camera literally puts you in the middle of the action and isn't afraid to move around to showcase and highlight all of the brilliant moves that the skilled cast performs, it moves in a ferociously kinetic and energetic way, adding weight and punch to every hit, making them that much more painful, it's all clear and square tho, never is it too close, neither is it too far from the action and the obvious use of the steady wheel is noticeable as the image was constantly stabilized and blur-less as it swung from one person to the next and following their coordinated movements like the best glue in store, the use of a prisoner's point of view in probably the best fight scene in the entire film(the first entire team vs a whole lot of inmates fight) was truly spectacular and unexpected to say the least, other times a prisoner got tossed over a camera, with camera then reverting from from it's toppled state and getting right back into the action, but almost always the camera was engaged in combat just as much as the actors were, it is some WICKED STUFF ! The one on one boss fights were equally as good though perhaps not as exciting as the group fights, but fans of Law Plancel and Jean-Paul's short "Dead End" need not worry as their fight lives up to the expectations. Jailbreak is the start of a country's film industry poised to deliver swift, no nonsense entertainment, writer/director Jimmy Henderson delivers his third and best film from Cambodia yet and enters it in a steadily increasing list of underrated Asian countries producing awesome martial arts action cinema, with a simple plot, charming humor, captivating performances and thrilling action, as a Martial Arts/Action movie fan, you owe it to yourself to see this.