User reviews

In Cambodia, the police arrests the gangster Playboy (Savin Phillip) since they believe he is the leader of the Butterfly gang. However Playboy is only responsible for laundering the money and other crimes and accepts a plea bargain to disclose the identity of the true kingpin. The local police officers Dara (Dara Our), Tharoth (Tharoth Sam) and Sucheat (Dara Phang) and the French officer Jean-Paul (Jean-Paul Ly), who is visiting the Cambodia, are assigned to escort Playboy to the maximum security prison. Meanwhile, the mobster Madame Butterfly (Celine Tran), who is the true boss, puts a bounty on Playboy. The officers deliver Playboy and when they are leaving the prison, there is a riot and the inmates escape from their cells. Now the officers and the security guard that is guiding them have to fight to survive.

"Jailbreak" is a highly entertaining Cambodian film with non-stop action and magnificent choreography of the fights. The plot is very simple but the fights are excellent, and not only for fans of martial arts. In addition to the choreography that recalls a videogame, the film is attractive since it is witty and funny. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Note: On 04 May 2022, I saw this film again on DVD.

Title (Brazil): "Caos na Prisão" ("Chaos in the Prison")

"Jailbreak" is your run-of-the-mill martial arts movie: we get our heroes (instead of just the one, here we have a team of 5), an 'of course things are going to turn sour' set-up (Prison Break!), heaps, but heaps of bad guys bent on destroying the good ones, fighting non-stop and a plot that has been knocked-out by some random flying kick. And while it doesn't bring anything new to the table, it does its job and delivers nicely choreographed fighting scenes, with some nice touches, and some silly humor to keep things chugging along (like one of the good guys not joining a fight because he is trying to light his cigarette).

It won't make you think, but you won't, probably, be bored either.

28th STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. DAY 4, NOV 11th 2017. Swedish premiere.

A Cambodian martial arts action flick with confidence, dedication and adrenaline. Shot on low budget, the film crew had to be very inventive.

"Because of budget restrain, (actor/stuntman) Jean-Paul (Ly) had to train 75 local background artists for the fight scenes. Most of them had no prior experience in martial arts, or even sports. It took 6 weeks, 6 hours per week-end to make them ready. The stunt coordinator, Jammy Chhun, helped managing the courses with his team." From the trivia at IMDb.

With a name like "Jailbreak", action scenes are imminent in this latest offering from Cambodian-based Italian director Jimmy Henderson. While action-packed, the pacing of the movie is not rushed. It opens with mellow steps, easing fans into the storyline, giving them a breather before the action sequences finally kick in.

In the beginning, we see action star Jean-Paul Ly being introduced as Inspector Ly to the team, we see the tension building up between the new face and the rest of the team. There's especially friction between the inspector and Dara Our's and Tharoth Sam's police characters. Once the action kicks in about half an hour into the movie, this trio will be the main characters that will take fans on an exhilarating ride of endless action.

The storyline is simple enough to follow. An elite team of police is tasked with escorting Playboy (Savin Phillip), the legendary "leader" of the Butterfly Gang, to a high security prison, Prey Klaa. What was supposed to be a simple mission, however, turned deadly when the real leader of the Butterfly Gang puts a hit on Playboy, causing a riot in the prison as the hired hit-man, Bolo (Sisowath Siriwudd), carries out his lethal task.

Once the riot breaks out, this is where the three really get to shine. Ly mesmerises with his sharp movements, easily showing to the audiences the reason why he's been hired for various Hollywood productions, including "Marvel's Doctor Strange", "Lucy" and "Now You See Me 2". Dara Our too puts his Bokator skills on full display, as he kicks and punches his way out of the deadly riot. Tharoth Sam doesn't lose out to the boys, the MMA fighter is the embodiment of female empowerment as she fights her way through and even squares off against the skilled leader of the Butterfly Gang (played by Vietnamese French actress Celine Tran).

Apart from skilled fighters, which include the Bokator stunt team, pulling out all the stops for the action-packed scenes, another thing that really makes the action movie worth a watch is the cinematography. Compared to the simpler movements of other locally made movies, the camera movements in "Jailbreak" have more variety and range. The fight scenes especially benefit from the camera movements. Audiences will feel like they are part of the scenes themselves, instead of merely being a viewer from the outside looking in.

The polished look of the movie also helps audiences to be more immersed. Compared to other local productions, the movie is a rung higher in terms of audio and visual aesthetics as it has had proper sound mixing and colour grading done. It is evident in how the punching sound effects sound more realistic and not cartoonish, in how the colours in the scenes differ based on the tone of the story.

Fans of action movies will definitely not be left wanting as they exit the halls but non-action fans shouldn't sit this one out either, as the movie is still a treat thanks to its high quality aesthetics and the comedic performances, which blend into the storyline without taking away from the thrilling action sequences.

Brainless. Waisted 1 hour 30 minutes of my life. Who the hell thinks of this stuff?

Action sequences were good while acting has no point at all.

I wasn't sure what to expect since it's the first movie from Cambodia that I watched and I am quite pleased with the experience. The photography and general production are excelent and I'm not kidding. Even the main cast acted quite well and really good at martial arts performance. I believe that use of a music score could improve a lot the experience. The story works fine just it didn't focused in a clear B-class development and something more serious in action. However, totally recommended to enjoy an entertained martial arts movie.

While Tharoth Sam, and to a lesser extent, Jean-Paul Ly are clearly quality actors, the overall level of acting is atrocious. Unfortunately, this taints the whole movie with a feeling of inadequacy.

Many of the action sequences are filmed superbly, yet still lack any sort of authenticity.

Usually having 3-4 laugh-out-loud moments, as this film did, is a great sign, but ultimately it still totally failed to deliver on the comedy front.

The fact that the French-speaking lead isn't a white saviour can only be a plus.

Ultimately though, it is a forgettable film, without obvious morals - not necessarily a bad thing of course, but done wrong here - and fails to deliver on many fronts. There's no reason to watch it, avoid.

Just saw this at a film festival! With the brutality and technicality of the fights in the "The Raid" movies with some inventive camera work and AMAZING choreographies, this movie hits hard! Is this the awakening of the Cambodian movie industry? I sure hope so because this movie nailed it! It's not a perfect movie by any means, there are some weak elements to it but I have to give it a 9 here, a 8 just doesn't do it justice! Seek it out, check it out when it gets a wider release!

Four cops escort a mobster into a high-security prison and must fight for their lives when a gang leader causes a riot to silence the prisoner.

It seems that the film was used only to invest in the fight scenes, possessive applications of martial arts, it becomes tiring for anyone who is not a fan of actions in the form of balloons and fights... I love films related to prisons, prisons and rebellions, though it sounded superficial to me, the touch of humor softens and humanizes, but does not sensitize and captivate enough... But because it is a Cambodian production, alternative with all its limitations, I value it a lot... S2.

Some action scenes might be just okay, but these folks trying to make it into a something movie like Ong Bak. Bad actors and such stupid stupid script too. Very unoriginal, poor poor storyline with such unbelievable and unrealistic scenes. Sometimes I really don't know why I tortured myself watching theses 'movies'. I mean, getting beautiful locals, dressing them up in skin-tight leather pants, making them look tough? Come on!!!! Another waste of time.

This is a poor man's Raid in a way but that's not bad. If you're expecting plot twists and character development and decent acting and writing you're watching the wrong film. If you're expecting bone crunching action in the same way as Ong-Bak or Raid or similar films then you're in for a treat.

This film introduces the Cambodian martial art of bokator and it's very good in all action aspects. Surely the plot and dialogue leave a lot to be desired but the action is phenomenal for what seems to be a really low budget film. The choreography is exceptional and although the realism in terms of much people are being beaten up and stabbed and so forth and how quickly they get is not proportional I didn't find it bad.

In many ways this seems like a demo tape going to a producer saying, hey this is what we can do with pennies. Give us a bigger budget and we'll produce something even more awesome. And I sure hope so!

ps. I was impressed by Katsumi's martial arts prowess, you go girl!

Follow up the successful of The Raid in 2011 that make action lover around the world acknowledge Indonesia in 2017 Cambodia make their first break out mainstream action movie Jailbreak with their own martial arts and many new kick-ass faces especially Jean-Paul Ly and Celine Tran.With little to no characters development the movie focus purely on the bone breaking action with wide camera shot from start to finish and when you thought it all over it tease you with a sequel that I very looking forward to

In the age of rising Asian countries in the genre of martial arts action that they were previously never known to be mass-producers of but quickly became extremely successful by, we've had awesome action films such as The Raid from Indonesia, Ong Bak from Thailand, and now it's time for Cambodia to boldly step into the spotlight and break a few bones and deliver non-stop, thrilling entertainment and entertain it surely does. The premise of Jailbreak is simple, just as simple as The Raid's, maybe even more so, a Team of cops led by a French GIGN member played by the new rising action star Jean-Paul Ly as well as a handful of local Cambodian officers are tasked with protecting a high value target in a rioting Prison from an orchestrated attack by a group of female killer gang known as The Butterfly Gang led by the sword-wielding Madame Butterfly(Celine Tran). The plot never goes into convoluted territory from here on but the performances keep the tale engaging and human, these are characters we care for much in the same way we cared for the SWAT team in The Raid, because of the situation they're in, but here I can say that since there's only 4-5 of these officers, they all have lots of screen time and develop their personalities and camaraderie rather believably, Jean-Paul Ly shines as the ultimate bad ass here, who exudes charisma and intimidation either from his wickedly cool haircut or his cool and suave composure, maybe both, becoming audience's instant favorite, while his bickering rivalry with co- star Dara Our feels like something out of a classy B-movie action heroes flick, which very much so suits the tone of Jailbreak, as it is a lot lighter and humorous than the Poker-faced Raid, most of the humor works very well too, some visual gags, some of which would fit right in a Takashi Miike film or some of the gorror exploitation flicks, left the audience gasping for air in ways they didn't expect, well at least I didn't. Celine Tran does admirably with little screen time she's given and her fight with Tharoth Sam, a Cambodian MMA champion is terrific, all in all a well-rounded, colorful cast elevates the basic, yet beautifully simple premise above it's generic roots.

The other way the audience was left gasping for air was the fast, furious and brutal fight choreography by Jean-Paul and Dara Our, bringing viscerally exciting combat that is never boring, varied and beyond bad ass, there are legitimate moves and punches and kicks here as well as the incredible use of machetes that I've never seen before, and this is coming from a guy who watches martial arts films as much as the cereals he eats everyday. Shot with just a single camera and with not extra backup from other countries such as Thailand due to budget strains, this is one hell of an impressive feat, one that even The Raid would look at and be like:"GODDAMN !". DP Godefroy Ryckewaert's camera-work here is exceptional, the inspiration of DOP Matt Flannery and Director Gareth Evans from The Raid films is obvious here, as the camera literally puts you in the middle of the action and isn't afraid to move around to showcase and highlight all of the brilliant moves that the skilled cast performs, it moves in a ferociously kinetic and energetic way, adding weight and punch to every hit, making them that much more painful, it's all clear and square tho, never is it too close, neither is it too far from the action and the obvious use of the steady wheel is noticeable as the image was constantly stabilized and blur-less as it swung from one person to the next and following their coordinated movements like the best glue in store, the use of a prisoner's point of view in probably the best fight scene in the entire film(the first entire team vs a whole lot of inmates fight) was truly spectacular and unexpected to say the least, other times a prisoner got tossed over a camera, with camera then reverting from from it's toppled state and getting right back into the action, but almost always the camera was engaged in combat just as much as the actors were, it is some WICKED STUFF ! The one on one boss fights were equally as good though perhaps not as exciting as the group fights, but fans of Law Plancel and Jean-Paul's short "Dead End" need not worry as their fight lives up to the expectations.

Jailbreak is the start of a country's film industry poised to deliver swift, no nonsense entertainment, writer/director Jimmy Henderson delivers his third and best film from Cambodia yet and enters it in a steadily increasing list of underrated Asian countries producing awesome martial arts action cinema, with a simple plot, charming humor, captivating performances and thrilling action, as a Martial Arts/Action movie fan, you owe it to yourself to see this.

Very Analogous to The Raid 1 & 2. Plot is more of a premise. The movie is all about the action choreography. Non-Stop fighting. And each fight was more spectacular than the next. Truly incredible.

A brilliant martial arts movie from Cambodia.

As this film opens we see reports of the capture of 'Playboy'; he is believed to be the leader of the infamous Butterfly Gang... he claims that he isn't the leader and is more than happy to talk. He is to be held in jail while awaiting questioning. He escorted by three local police officers and by a French officer of Cambodian ancestry. They get him there but before they can leave the jail things go wrong. The Butterfly Gang has arranged for a prisoner to get out of his cell and, after overpowering his guards, free other inmates... there aim is to kill Playboy before he can talk. The four cops, and surviving guards but use all their martial arts (bokator) skills if they are to survive let alone protect their witness.

The plot of this film may be fairly thin and there are a few obvious plot holes but that hardly matters; the plot is just there to provide a reason for the action. Once the prisoners are free in the jail the action is fairly relentless... its intensity reminded me of 'The Raid'. It is impressively choreographed and fairly bone crunching. The prison setting adds a sense of claustrophobia; lots of cell lined corridors and danger at every turn. The action is intense but the mood is occasionally lightened by lightly comedic moments; these provide a good laugh without spoiling the pace of the film. The cast is solid; they clearly had martial arts skills which helped the over-the-top action feel real. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of martial arts action; with this director Jimmy Henderson and his cast have firmly place Cambodia on the martial arts film map.

These comments are based on watching the film in Khmer with English subtitles.