“Ziam” Netflix Poster
Director: Kulp Kaljareuk
Cast: Prin Suparat, Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich, Vayla Wanvayla, Johnny Anfone
Running Time: 95 min.
By Paul Bramhall
While 2003’s Ong Bak launched a Muay Thai movie boom out of Thailand that lasted for much of the 2000’s, towards the end of the decade filmmakers had turned to increasingly creative ways to portray the powerful martial art onscreen. Fireball gave us Muay Thai blended with basketball, Raging Phoenix introduced Muay Thai mixed with dancing, and Power Kids offered up pintsize Muay Thai with a bunch of kids delivering the expected elbows and knees. In what was clearly a missed opportunity, somehow no one ever thought to mix Muay Thai with zombies. That is, until now, as in 2025 director Kulp Kaljareuk released his sophomore solo feature length outing with Ziam.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the bar for Thai zombie movies that take place in such settings is admittedly a low one thanks to the likes of the 2019 atrocity The Driver, however Kaljareuk comes with the benefit of Netflix backing his latest. With a decent budget to work with we’re introduced to a world that’s on the brink of collapse, with climate change induced disasters leading to mass food shortages. Thankfully Thailand has become one of the few safe havens left in the world, with a rich businessman having created a sustainable food source to keep the population from starving. Transported by truck drivers tasked with navigating the dusty yellow hued wastelands to make their deliveries, the concept has echoes of the Korean series Black Knight (also produced by Netflix), which similarly focused on truck drivers making essential deliveries in a post-apocalyptic landscape.
The driver who becomes the focus of Kaljareuk’s latest is played by Prin Suparat (Necromancer) who, in a handy piece of foreshadowing, has a line thrown in his direction by his co-driver about how he wouldn’t want to go back to “a life of underground boxing.” No sooner has the line been spoken, than their truck finds itself ambushed by a group of marauding bandits, offering up a pre-title card sequence that gives the audience a chance to see what Suparat is capable of. Unfortunately the answer is an unimpressive one. Offering up a masterclass in what a fight scene can look like if it’s shot by someone unfamiliar with shooting action, we get camera cuts before hits are made to disguise a lack of impact, at one point a kick is filmed from the waist up so we don’t actually see it, and the sound design feels slightly off.
Normally at this point it would be a good enough reason to clock out, but I mean, the concept of Muay Thai versus zombies is one that’s tantalizing enough to hope that things will improve. Of course every zombie outbreak needs an origin story, and in Ziam those origins feel muddled at best. The rich businessman, played by Johnny Anfone (The Legend of Suriyothai) has apparently discovered that the liver of monkfish has revitalising properties, so wishes to use it to treat his comatose wife who’s been relying on regular blood transfusions to stay alive. Although it’s never directly implied, the assumption is the rest of the fish is served up as a delicacy for the rich, with his righthand man offering it up as sashimi for a gathering of officials from the totalitarian government. Taking the first bite so as to put everyone else at ease, it isn’t long before it turns out consuming the fish turns people into flesh hungry zombies. Chaos ensues.
Where did the monkfish suddenly come from? Why does eating it make someone turn into a zombie? Was I unknowingly taking micro-naps and missed an important plot detail? I don’t have the answers. In any case, thanks to plot contrivances it turns out our trusty truck driver Suparat’s girlfriend is the doctor responsible for looking after Anfone’s comatose wife. Played by Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich (Ghost Lab), she soon finds herself trapped on the 10th floor of the hospital as zombies run rampant, and it’s up to Suparat to come along and Raid things up to reach the top floor and rescue her. Naturally, he ends up with an annoying kid in tow, who’s characterised to the extent of being asthmatic and finding wheelchair bound zombies to be a point of amusement (whether he’d still find someone in a wheelchair funny prior to their undead state is left to audience interpretation).
Once Ziam establishes it’s one-location setting of the hospital it almost feels like the post-apocalyptic setup was a ruse, since it has little to no bearing on the rest of the plot, essentially becoming the tale of a guy who knows some Muay Thai moves kicking zombies in the head to reach the love of his life. While the setup is one that feels ripe for some hard-hitting entertainment, unfortunately most of the action feels like a damp squib. Perhaps a hangover from the 2000’s era of Thai action, a time when wince inducing elbows and high impact falls became trademarks of the countries action output, the inevitable comparisons that those who were around to enjoy said era will make aren’t going to be kind ones.
Suparat obviously knows how to throw a kick, the issue is that he doesn’t really do a whole lot else, and the imagined brutality you’d have to unleash against a member of the undead with only your fists and feet never really materialises. Despite there being hordes of the undead on every floor, Suparat’s assault on them only ever sees one zombie dawdling towards him at a time, some of which seem to be taken out by simply pushing them out of the way. The absence of any danger feels palpable, as it soon becomes clear Suparat is definitely not the next incarnation of Tony Jaa. He’s not even the next incarnation of Mike B. At least those guys could emote a little, even if it was for the sole purpose of expressing rage, but here Suparat clocks in a bland performance that’s unlikely to get anyone’s adrenaline levels pumping.
Proceedings completely derail in the final third, with the pièce de résistance saved for when a fire activates the hospital sprinklers, the result of which sees the contact with water turn the zombies into zombie monkfish hybrids. Yes, zombie monkfish hybrids. While you may be imagining a toothy undead take on a mermaid, the reality is most of them just have a cheap prosthetic over the bottom half of their face (although admittedly, it looks like part of the budget was at least spent on showing one of them transform using passable CGI, its mouth splitting open either side to reveal razor sharp teeth). Much like the post-apocalyptic setting though, the switch up from standard zombie to fishy zombie makes precisely zero difference to the plot, with the reveal being strictly aesthetic.
By the time everyone ends up trying to get to the chopper on the roof, as a director Kaljareuk makes a complete dog’s breakfast of the setup. A supposedly heartbreaking scene ends up coming across as incomprehensible, and is surely a contender for the award of ‘Most Unnecessary Self-Sacrifice in a Movie’ this side of the 21st century. Proceedings are only made more insulting by tagging on what I want to call a post-credits sequence, but it appears so quickly (probably based off an assumption by Netflix that viewers would turn it off as soon as the credits start rolling) I don’t think it can really qualify. Revealing that the most unnecessary self-sacrifice in a movie may have actually been survived, it’s a clumsy hint that there could be further instalments of the fish-induced undead, one that’s unlikely to generate much enthusiasm from those who made it to the end.
Like so much made-for-Netflix content, Ziam ultimately comes across as an inoffensive time passer, destined to start slipping from the memory once a few hours have passed (I’m writing this review a couple of days later, and trust me, it’s been a struggle). The problem is, the concept of pitting Muay Thai against hordes of the undead was never supposed to fit into the category of being an inoffensive time passer, which makes it feel even more of a wasted opportunity. Perhaps a zombie elephant could have livened things up, but until we get one of those, do yourself a favor and dig out that old DVD of Kung Fu Zombie. You’ll thank me later.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 4/10
The wife and I watched this the other night. You could tell it was checking off the tropes. Was definitely wanting a little Muay Thai action. It had potential, and maybe if a sequel does come along, they’ll take note of how to spice things up on both the horror and MA levels. I could do without so many lingering, slo-mo character shots looking all melancholic and sexy in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, too. I was almost expecting them to bust out a Bollywood dance number or a K-Pop ballad. Still, I thought it had its moments. A couple of tense scenes like the nursery. And the zombies looked good.
A sequel definitely needs to up the stakes, but I think the main problem is that Prin Suparat failed to convince as a Muay Thai zombie killer. Swap him out for someone like D.Y. Sao and I’d be up for a return visit.
From what I know about Prin Suparat. He is black belt in Judo. He participated 4 months practice in Muay Thai for this movie . In my opinion, he did great job since he was an actor and not some professional muay Thai boxer.
In that case, he should have used more Judo in the movie! After Gangnam Zombie cheated us out of Taekwondo vs zombies, it’s unfortunate that we get cheated out of Muay Thai vs zombies.