Prachya, Jija and Mum join Koreans for 100-million-baht Kick

Ong-Bak and Chocolate helmer Prachya Pinkaew is now at work on a Thai-Korean co-production called The Kick, and according to an article in The Nation on Sunday, it'll be the first Korean martial-arts film.

"We don't have martial-arts films. Most of our action films revolve around gangsters or fights. And there's never been a movie about taekwando before," producer Kang Sung-kyu is quoted as saying.

The movie is budgeted at around 100 million baht, which is more than twice as much as what's usually spent on most Thai studio flicks.

It's a co-production by Sahamongkol Film International and CJ Venture Investment, an arm of the South Korean giant CJ Entertainment.

Raging Phoenix and Chocolate star Jija Yanin has a supporting role in the film. It's worth noting that Jija's first martial-arts training was in taekwondo, and only picked up Muay Thai for the movies. Here, she plays a Muay Thai boxer named Wah Wah, who along with Tony Jaa's comic sidekick Mum Jokmok, trains at taekwondo gym in Bangkok that's owned by a Korean family.

They join the Korean stars, Cho Jae-hyun and Ye Ji-won who portray a couple who've settled down in Thailand to run a Korean restaurant and taekwando school. They have three teenage kids who also get in on the action.

The plot involves Korean gangsters who steal some ancient daggers, and so the plucky family and their Thai friends have to try and stop them.

Veteran Thai producer Sa-nga Chatchairungruang, who had a hand in Fireball and the now-classic Film Bangkok productions like Tears of the Black Tiger, Bangkok Dangerous and Bang Rajan, is co-producing.

"It's an action comedy and appropriate for all ages. It has the ambience of a Jackie Chan movie," Prachya is quoted as saying by The Nation, which could make The Kick similar to Jump, the live stage show that's been a smash-hit in South Korea and worldwide.

Details about The Kick were first broke last month by Twitch, which revealed the news in its coverage of the American Film Market.

Twitch now has their hands on a Korean behind-the-scenes video on the production of The Kick. Go on over there to watch it.

The movie is due out sometime next year.