Coming on like Die Hard in the countryside, Panna Rittikrai's film is a bizarre, amateurish mess, notable only for truly extraordinary stunt work. The story, such as it is, has a disillusioned cop (Dan Chupong) taking on a gang of comically evil drug dealers in a sleepy Thai village. Luckily for him, the townsfolk are playing host to some kind of national sports symposium, so there's a taekwondo expert or a pole vaulter around every street corner. Useful, that.

Like the superior martial arts thriller Ong Bak (another Thai export), Born To Fight displays an invigorating dedication to good old-fashioned stunt work. There are no wires here, and the CGI is reserved for the inevitable nuclear missile. Instead, what we get is an hour of lithe, character-free hardbodies - many of them genuine athletes - bouncing off cars, riding burning motorbikes and generally kicking the stuffing out of each other. All of which is great fun, naturally, but there's no escaping the hamfisted structure that surrounds it.

"HILARIOUS TUB-THUMPING PATRIOTISM"

The film's tone flaps around like hooked fish, jacknifing from jokey knockabout scraps to brutally cold-blooded violence, most of it directed against the helpless villagers in a genuinely unpleasant massacre scene. There are moments of hilarious tub-thumping patriotism - our heroes are inspired by the Thai national anthem, a moment that turns the film briefly into a kung fu Casablanca - and lengthy interludes of tooth-rotting schmaltz. Finally, Born To Fight feels more like a stunt showreel than a finished film, and its most entertaining sequence is the action-packed blooper reel that plays over the closing credits.