Sema: The Warrior of Ayodhaya (2003) User Reviews

Not worth even a rental

[eugeneyip · 2/10 · 22 January 2005]

Ten minutes into this crap you can guess the next 90. And by God, what a long 90 minutes it is. Two redeeming factors (and hence my two points for it) are the funny side kick comic relief and the beautiful lead actress.

Otherwise if you really want to watch a movie which follows a typical formulaic plot, lousy uninteresting fight scenes, goes into battle scenes without a care of who's fighting who and to top it off, an incredibly stupid forced ending (with the prerequisite good vs evil climax) then go ahead. Otherwise stay away, far away. Just wish I could have my two hours of my life back.

PS. Oh, and I almost forgot the cartoonish CGI snake which I'm not sure why the hell was it even in the movie.

Swordsplay epic from Thailand

[incubrus · 2/10 · 8 June 2004]

I watched Suriyothai and Bang Rajan before and now I'm looking forward to see this film. Suriyothai was good while Bang Rajan was below average, so let see how was Khunsuk, shall we?

Khunsuk or Sema The Warrior of Ayudthaya is an epic film with a lot of sword fighting. But the problem was the sword was too big for them and to make things worst, they fights with 2 huge swords. The action lacks of impact and tension. The swords were too heavy and they hardly move.

As for the story, well...it something that we already heard before. A low class soldier falls in love with a higher class girl who suppose to marry an ambitious sergeant. The sergeant p*** off and want to destroy him and his family.

This movie is so bad, even Bang Rajan is much better that this. The direction was awful. Seriously, it was painful to watch.

Avoid! 2/10

a more favorable review of Khunsuk

[jedak88 · 8/10 · 25 October 2005]

I must first apologize to my colleague from Malaysia who wrote a rather different review of Khunsuk: Sema warrior of Ayutthaya.

I found the movie rather fun and enjoyable although somewhat long at points.

For those not familiar with Thai history, this movie takes place at the time Prince (later King Naruesan) was fighting with the Burmese (circa 1580s or so). Previously, the Burmese managed to subjugate the Thai kingdom (and city-state of) Ayutthaya (spelling of it varies) and held it as a vassal. Prince/King Naruesan is trying to fight off the Burmese for Ayutthaya to regain it's independence. Thai means 'free', hence one of the themes for the movie. It's the story of Sema, a village blacksmith who falls for a pretty or beautiful noble lady and his struggle for her against his rival, a highly skilled swordsman and minor officer, Sin.

First off, the opening scene was unexpected. There was a dramatic chase and night battle that sparked my interest. I expected a straight up comedy or drama not a little mystery involved. It was a nice touch. Also, the lead characters are quite likable or dislikable according to their roles. The lead actors and actresses are quite attractive and sweet.

The plot is not complicated and could be judged standard and rote but the photography is very lush and green, the battles are relatively quick and large in scale with a fair amount of bloodshed. There are some cases of Thai skills (either Krabi Krabong, Ling Lom, Pahuytuh, or Muay Boran/Muay Thai skills, take your pick): quick snippets of the mae sun sawk (double clubs attached to the back of arms - similar to the 'tonfas'), hak (sword fighting and double sword fighting). The sword skills are not quite up to the usual martial arts level but still passable.

The CGI effects are a bit weak: the green cobra was done rather somewhat amateurishly. I am not sure if the music was purely Thai because it had haunting flutes similar to Andean or Native American flutes and other western instruments like the cello and some others.

Overall, I rather quite enjoyed the movie.