I was introduced to this film with the title
Queens of Langkasuka.
Very nice movie to watch if you want to watch a fantasy film with loads of swashbuckling goodness. My favourite was Dan Chupong as the General, Lord Jarang. I'm a big fan of Tony Jaa and his stunt team (of which Dan Chupong is a member of in addition to starring in his owm films as of recent), and seeing Dan Chupong swinging a three-luk sundang with an ivory kakatua hilt definitely caught the attention of the ethnographic blade enthusiast in me.
In terms of how I felt the film was, however, I thought there was too much going on to fit into one film. The overall narrative would have benefitted by breaking it up into several films. That way, the characters would have been fleshed out more, the stakes for defending Langkasuka would have had time to sink in (not to mention that the suspense could have been built up regarding the impending raid), and there could have been a bigger exploration of what I thought was the main character, Pari, and his Luke-Skywalker-esque journey from simple small-tribe Dayak boy into Dulum(this film's equivalent to the Force)-wielding mystic.
Basically I felt that everything plot/narrative-wise moved too fast for a fantasy epic. If I watch this with the mindset of action/swashbuckler, however, I am more than thorougly amused and in that respect this film did really really well.
...but if we had this movie spread over several parts, we would have gotten to see Dan Chupong kick more butt as Lord Jarang:
