The initial movie, inspired by real-life events in Thai society depicting conflicts among teenage vocational students prevalent in the 1990s, captivated audiences in 2021 as the top-grossing Thai film of the year. As anticipated, a sequel was promptly developed and subsequently made available on Netflix.
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The story continues from the next part, bringing a clash between the Kanokarcheewa (KANOK) and the Buranabondh (BU) students. As the movie begins, the former are planning their revenge, and enter the area of their opponents. The fight ensues immediately, but Tummeng, a Kanok member, is caught by a paranoid guy outside of the gangs, Yat, who even goes as far as to torture him and cut off his hand. Bang, the leader of Kanok, and the rest of his crew, consider that the BUs are responsible and decide to take revenge in even worse ways. Meanwhile, it turns out that Yat is a local drug dealer who happens to be Bang’s childhood friend, even retaining a friendly relationship with his sister Bung, who runs a hairdresser in the slums while dealing drugs on the side. At the same time, he harbors feelings of hate for the technical students who fought with each other and caused his grandfather to be caught in the crossfire causing him to remain paralyzed to this day. On the BU side, Rok, the rich boy of the group, has to face intense family issues, while his own interaction with Yat brings him to a breaking point.
The movie starts in the most impressive way, through a fashion that looks like an ultraviolent music video, with the music and the rapid cuts setting the pace and the maiming scene the tone. The youth gangs setting, which includes a number of pretty boys (they do set their hair straight quite frequently) also induces the narrative with a pop setting that adds to the eye-candy, crowd-pleaser premises of the movie, something that actually carries from beginning to end.
Evidently, in terms of visuals and overall impression, courtesy of the combination of Kritsadapol Samanukul’s cinematography, Dog Back Dee’s editing, the music, the coloring and the action choreographies, “4 Kings 2” is on a truly high level, offering in that fashion, entertainment aplenty. However, when someone moves a bit deeper, the multitude of plot holes throughout the story are revealed, as much as a general lack of logic regarding the action of the many protagonists, and their actual characters. Yat, in particular, suffers intensely from bad writing, with Naktong seeming as if he did not know what to do with the character, trying to portray him as both a sociopathic villain and a kind-hearted victim of his circumstances. Ukrit Willibrord Dongabriel saves the part with an impressive performance, but the fact remains.
This lack of a definite path becomes even more obvious when the movie moves away from the action and the gangs and goes into melodramatic territory, particularly in the last part, where the quality deteriorates significantly. Evidently, in an effort to make his immature delinquents more likable, and to add another crowd-pleasing element in the narrative, Naktong chose to add tearjerker elements, most of which, though, do not work at all. Boong’s ‘arc’ is somewhat better, courtesy of Intira Jaroenpura‘s acting and the chemistry she shares with Somphol Rungphanit‘s Bang, but that is about the only appeal of this aspect of the movie.
Overall, “4 Kings 2” is an utterly mainstream production that does impress with its technical aspects, but would definitely benefit from a more intense focus on the gang fighting that would also bring its duration down from the excessive 133 minutes.
