Women of Action: Sara Malakul Lane – Kickboxer: Vengeance
Kickboxer: Vengeance is a movie filled to the brim with testosterone. Within the first few minutes of its start there are dudes beating the crap out of each other. Tong Po only has to enter a room to have women disrobe and follow him to the bed and Gina Carano is some sort of underground fight promoter. But the absolute standout from Kickboxer: Vengeance for me is a young lady by the name of Sara Malakul Lane.
The English/Thai actress, who has already made 9 movies since the release of Kickboxer: Vengeance, plays Liu, a detective on the Thai Royal Police force who empathizes with Kurt Sloane after he witnesses the death of his brother Eric. Let’s just say that if Liu didn’t think Kurt was cute then he’d most likely be sweating it out in a Thai prison getting butt tickled by a few guys named Babak.
Thanks sweetheart.
When Alain Moussi’s version of Kurt decides that killing Tong Po in a fight is easier than just shooting him with a gun from a distance, he starts training with former Kurt Sloane in the form of Jean Claude Van Damme. The training sequences resemble some of the stuff that was done in the 80’s version of the show but most of the movie breezes by without Liu even making an appearance. In a movie with so much masculinity, I could have used a scene or two where Kurt and Liu do a little sharing and caring. It’s one of the things that is sorely lacking in a movie with so many entertaining fight scenes. All I wanted was more of this…
Sweet Lord in Heaven….
Kickboxer: Vengeance fits about half a dozen MMA fighters into the movie but it failed to give me one scene where Detective Liu went undercover while wearing a bikini. What I consider the third act of the film does start off with quite the bang, though, and we finally get to see Liu use some of her power in the way of Law Enforcement to get Kurt locked away in jail. It lasts all of two seconds and the only thing that really comes from it is an AHA moment with a Michel Qissi cameo in the jailhouse.
Sara’s role is all but finished after her pre-fight “pep talk” and that leaves us with about 25 minutes for the final fight to play out between Kurt and Tong Po. Everything was good and all but I couldn’t stop thinking about this picture that I found when Googling images of Sara:
