District B13

[steve_cole1]

Has anyone seen the trailer for this film it looks like the french version of a tony jaa film the martial arts look great the stunts look great i think it is worth checking out. www.districtb13.com

[Gaijin84]

Here is the review from the New York Times... sounds quite good

A Supercop Vaults, Leaps and Somersaults Into the Fray in 'District B13'
By NATHAN LEE

At the whirling-dervish center of the French action film "District B13" is a fighting discipline known as parkour. I'm pretty sure that's French for "somersaulting over balconies while drop-kicking the gangsters who kidnapped your sister and turned her into a junkie." However it translates, parkour isn't par-for-the-course movie mayhem, but a gorgeously choreographed gymnastics of pain that elevates "District B13" over the impossible missions and last stands of the season.

Cyril Raffaelli stars, deliciously shirtless, as Leïto, a righteous denizen of the grungy Parisian suburb District B13. By 2010 crime, misery and hairstyles have grown so extreme that the authorities have shuttered the schools, withdrawn the police and sealed off the district with a fortified wall. Lording over it all is the sneering, cocaine-addled crime boss Taha (Bibi Naceri), who doesn't take kindly to Leïto's flushing a million Euros worth of his dope down the drain.

Complications ensue when a massive government bomb finds its way into the slum. Enter Damien (David Belle), a supercop with shaved armpits sent to retrieve the activated weapon. Teaming up with Leïto, he vaults into the fray, only to discover that his noble mission may be a nefarious bourgeois plot to eradicate the lower classes. Spectacular set pieces and reductive politics follow.

With backing from the film's producer and co-writer, Luc Besson, the director, Pierre Morel, mounts a breakneck B movie inspired by Hong Kong action extravaganzas, the gritty genre classics of John Carpenter and the Thai neo-kung fu parable "Ong Bak." He hasn't reinvented this particular wheel, but he gets it spinning with delirious savoir-faire.

District B13

[MrBooth]

Very fond of this film myself

With a director/cinematographer/editor who was less in love with himself (and therefore let the stars do their stuff without cutting shots every microsecond), it could have been a classic.

[Brian Thibodeau]

If you don't want to wait for the U.S. DVD, there's an excellent, VERY-reasonably-priced DVD of this film from Thailand that's been available for probably over a year now, under one of it's other titles: THE 13TH DISTRICT (not a lot of people seem to find it because the film's actual title was BANLIEUE 13:

http://www.ethaicd.com/show.php?pid=19488

I'd also add that the film owes as much to John Carpenter and Kurt Russell as it does to Tony Jaa.

[steve_cole1]

great cheers wont have to wait to go to the cinema