The King Maker is an interesting project. In short, it's a film loosely based on Thailand's cultural history but it doesn't take that part very seriously. Instead we've got what wants to be a semi-serious action film falling into some fairly standard action movie clichés (ninjas anyone?) but at the same time showing an eye for detail in the costumes, sets and ideas behind the premise.

The story is set in 1547 and revolves around a Portuguese mercenary named Fernando De Gama (Gary Stretch) who heads to Thailand to avenge the death of his father and to hopefully find some local riches to pillage in the process. While en route, the ship he's on sinks thanks to a nasty storm and he's the only one who makes it to a remote beach. When he wakes up, he's captured by some Arabian soldiers who sell the poor guy into slavery. Thankfully, his luck changes when it turns out that he's been purchased by the kind and smoking hot Maria (Cindy Burbridge), a Portuguese citizen living in Siam with her father. Once she guys him, she sets him free. Of course, Maria and Fernando soon fall madly in love with one another and while her father isn't wild about this, the two are inseparable.

Not soon afterwards, the King of Siam (Nirut Sirichanya) declares war and all of the able-bodied men from the colony where Fernando and Maria have been living are called into duty. Fernando's experience as a mercenary pays off and the King takes notice of this, promoting him quickly through the ranks until he winds up as one of his personal guards. What the king doesn't realize is that his Queen (Yossawadee Hassadeevich) is not to be trusted. She tries to kill him in hopes of getting her new boyfriend into power. Her attempts fail and so she hires a thug named Phillippe (John Rhys-Davies) who, as luck would have it, was the man who killed Fernando's father and sent him on this nutty quest in the first place. Fernando and his Thai friend, Tong (Dom Hetrakul), also a guard, uncover Phillippe's plot but by that point the Queen has poisoned her husband leaving Fernando and Tong looking like the murderers.

The King Maker is hurt by one factor that is hard to over look, and that's the acting. Many of the performers enlisted for this picture are Thai and opting to have them deliver their lines in English makes things, well, awkward. Similar to the effect that hurt Takashi Miike's Imprint, the dialogue just doesn't sound natural and it's obvious that many of the Thai performers are struggling with their delivery. This doesn't disrupt the action scenes much as they're not very dialogue intensive but there are enough scenes where there are long stretches of conversation that it's impossible to miss this.

That being said, if you are able to get past this you'll find a decent action film. Historical accuracy is thrown out the window in favor of dramatic set pieces and things that just look cool but the battle sequences in this film are great. They're bloody, they're intense, they're violent, they're well choreographed and they're exciting. They aren't quite substantial enough to make us forget about the line delivery problems but they are very well done. When people get hit, they get hurt. When swords hit flesh, people get cut. The camera doesn't shy away from this and the results make for some riveting and impressive action scenes. Adding to this is some beautiful cinematography and some absolutely gorgeous location shooting. The story gets rather silly towards the end but this one is worth a look for the curious.

Video:

Sony presents The King Maker in a solid 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that presents the movie in what would appear to be its original theatrical aspect ratio. The film was shot on HD video and so the transfer to DVD looks quite good. Color reproduction is solid and although there are some mild compression artifacts present in a few of the darker scenes, at least the black levels stay consistently deep without getting too murky. A couple of scenes look a tad on the soft side and there is some mild edge enhancement in addition to some mild aliasing present on the picture but it isn't over powering and unless you're really looking for them these flaws won't likely distract most viewers. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and both foreground and background detail levels are reasonably good.