No Surrender Cinema: Power Kids
In case you haven’t heard, December’s edition of No Surrender Cinema is a deep dive into my vast assortment of Dollar Tree DVD purchases. Since I’ve amassed an abundance of titles over the past month, I felt that you, my devoted fans and faithful readers, could help motivate me to make my way through some of these movies. I posted four movies that I purchased recently that I had never seen before, and tallied up all of the votes to see which of those titles I had to tackle. The results (and this month’s column) are in, so sit back and strap in for the ultimate battle between guerrillas and grade school children. It’s time to talk about Power Kids!
The front of the Power Kids DVD calls it “Die Hard with kick ass kids”, but in all honesty this is nothing like every action fan’s favorite Christmas movie. It’s got terrorist villains and people crawling through vents, and that’s pretty much where the similarities to Bruce Willis’ tour de force ends.That’s not a knock on Power Kids, either. With a run time of just over an hour, there wouldn’t be any time for one of our characters to walk barefoot on a mink rug. These kids are too busy causing mischief at their dojo, racing remote controlled cars, or trying to procure a heart so their dying friend can get a transplant.
Wait. What?
You heard me. The producers (who were responsible for the modern martial arts classic Ong Bak, among other entries in the genre) took the basic premise of John Q, added a group of Bad News Bears-esque hellions, and threw in a terrorist group straight out of the Generic Action Villains playbook. It’s an odd blend, which we see firsthand as we move from a cold opening that looks like a cut scene in a Call of Duty game segue into silly, 80’s sitcom style opening credits for the kids, replete with wacky freeze frame shots! Once we’re into the movie proper, Power Kids spends the early runtime following the kids along on their daily routine. They practice Muay Thai at their uncle’s dojo, and annoy him endlessly. They brawl with a stumbling American drunk in a fight that’s played for laughs as much as it’s done to show the skills of each kid. Most importantly, the first few minutes of the film establish that Woon, the youngest of the five kids, is slowly dying. Although he distracts himself from his predicament by longing for a remote controlled car, Woon’s heart is failing him, and he’s in dire need of a new one. Since we’re in the holiday spirit (and the DVD cover brought about the Die Hard comparison), I’ll make another Christmas connection; Woon is the Tiny Tim of Power Kids. He’s the heart of the story, literally. The other four (older brother Wuth, troublemaker Pong, Jib, and Cat) take great care in making sure that Woon is always comfortable and having a good time. Wuth and friends love little Woon so much that they even resort to a bit of hustling to get him the RC car he’s been wanting. The spirit of giving (and petty theft) is in alive and well in Power Kids!
While we’re on the subject of alive and well, there’s a child in a hospital who barely registers as either of those things. We learn that once this child passes away, his heart is a match for Woon, so it’s just a matter of playing the waiting game. To lift Woon’s spirits, everyone heads to a racetrack where Woon will be able to race his new car. Of course, the kids are challenged by a group of bullies, and when Woon’s precious new car is damaged in a race that’s filmed like a scene from The Fast and the Furious, he runs out to retrieve it, inadvertently damaging the bully leader’s car. Of course, Wuth and the others are quick to come to Woon’s aid, but flight overrules fight and they opt to get Woon out of there. Due to all the excitement and overexertion, Woon collapses of a heart attack, and winds up hospitalized. The four older kids all feel guilty and heartbroken, but we then get quite possibly the worst case of bedside manner ever put on film. Power Kids cuts over to the dying child (the one whose heart Woon needs) passing away as his parents look on with sorrow. The film then takes us back to Woon’s hospital, where his doctor walks in and exclaims to Uncle and the kids, “I have good news!”. I know that Woon is the sympathetic character of the story, but holy hell, Power Kids! Couldn’t we get a minute to recover from the sad scene you just made us sit through before you send in Dr. Remorseless to deliver an update?
While we’re on the subject of deliveries, it looks like Woon’s new heart won’t be making it to him anytime soon. The other hospital just so happens to be where an ambassador from the United States is having a procedure done, and it soon finds itself under siege by the rebels from the opening moments of the movie. The leader, Pada (played by Vietnamese martial arts movie star Johnny Nguyen) is cold and calculating, while his second in command, Bulu, seems to have a sliver of compassion for others. When the kids and their uncle see the takeover being broadcast all over the local news, they realize that time is of the essence. With Woon clinging to life and a massive amount of guilt weighing them down, the kids head over to the other hospital and sneak in to retrieve the heart, terrorist takeover be damned!
This is the point where Power Kids delivers on everything the DVD cover promised us. There’s a little bit of levity thrown in, mainly from the circumstances Pong faces (dangling from a rope outside the building and hiding out in the hospital morgue). Other than that, these kids have a clear mission, and they’ll do whatever it takes to save their friend. The Power Kids are not handled with kids gloves by the guerrillas either; they get beaten up, and shot at with bullets that actually hit their target! When a bullet grazes Wuth, he’s patched up by Bulu of all people, as she begins to see the error in her ways. The kids also gain an ally in a doctor who is actually an undercover agent, and despite the injuries and added assistance, they remain determined to do what they came to do. Their skills are magnificently showcased in the final act, as they treat the walls like trampolines, springing off of them with flying knee strikes, spin kicks, and elbows. The choreography in Power Kids is nothing short of outstanding, and the fight sequences featuring the kids could hold their own against many of the biggest action stars. When the kids finally find the heart and look for a way out, only Pada stands in their way, and the hallways fight sequence between Nguyen and the four child actors is glorious in its insanity. It also made me wonder if Power Kids inspired the claustrophobic hallway fight scene in the Netflix Daredevil series, because there are definite similarities. For a film that has been a simplistic by the numbers action movie for an hour of its 77 minute runtime, the final few minutes see a few twists thrown in, including one that elevates Pada from a basic villain archetype into a much more sinister bastard.
Power Kids was definitely worth the dollar I spent on it, and my enjoyment of the film makes it worth even more. Had I bought this on the day of its release for $15, I wouldn’t have felt like it was money wasted. It’s mindless entertainment to the max, but since when do we need to take our action so seriously? Seeing four kids fighting a terrorist organization over a heart (and really, that conflict only escalates when Pada grows upset that the news coverage has shifted from his takeover to the kids’ mission) is the type of storyline that only serves to make the movie more memorable than the fight scenes do. The third act is by far the best part of the movie, since it’s when all hell breaks loose in the hospital, and we get the kids setting soldiers on fire before drilling them with flying knee strikes, a sniper team taking out guerrilla henchmen before a public execution can take place, and Pada doing the unthinkable before the four kids converge to vanquish him. If you can get through the Little Rascals level antics in the early portion of Power Kids, then I promise you, you won’t regret it.
If you’ve got a Dollar Tree store near you, I highly recommend hitting it up to see what type of movie selection they have. I’ve found an abundance of action movies that will ideally become the subject of future No Surrender Cinema’s, and this film here is proof positive that there is gold to be found. I highly recommend seeking out Power Kids for yourself, but for the sake of convenience, you can find it in full on YouTube under its alternate title, Force of Five. Thanks to all who voted on this film to be this month’s subject, because you’re all responsible for this film becoming a new favorite of mine. I hope everyone reading has the happiest of holidays, and I’ll see you next month to kick off 2020 with another action packed edition of No Surrender Cinema!
