Final Rating: 2/5
In God Skin, which screened at Fantasia Festival, a Thai delivery boy becomes a cybernetically enhanced underground boxer to earn money for his mother’s hospital bills. Tackling themes of illegal gambling, artificial intelligence, and the gig economy, director Paween Purijitpanya takes on a bit more than he can chew in a martial arts movie. Despite this, a few great fight scenes stand out, and fun plot twists keep the story entertaining.
At the start of God Skin, gig worker Marwin (Sutthirak Subvijitra) meets his old friend Itt (Itkron Pungkiatrussamee), whose found success as an underground fight promoter. Itt thinks Marwin could do well as a fighter, an offer Marwin is forced to consider when his mother is hospitalized with kidney failure. To compete with other boxers, Itt takes Marwin to a shady doctor to be injected with nanobots, giving him enhanced strength and the ability to see his and other fighters’ “health points.”
The nanobots also allow Marwin to use audience-submitted, video-game style fighting enhancements called “items.” While these enhancements help the fighters stand out from each other, they don’t always make for the smoothest action filmmaking.
Instead of letting the action speak for itself over a series of longer shots, fights with items end up broken up to accommodate short VFX shots that aren’t as good. The results of fights come down to who has the better item more often than who is the better fighter. Items are a contrivance at odds with the film’s strengths, because when God Skin lets its cast fight, the results are fantastic.
The main characters in God Skin are mostly archetypal. Marwin is a stoic hero who cares about the people around him, a generally good guy. Itt is a morally ambiguous weasel, but cares about Marwin at least to the extent of understanding that his fighter needs to stay alive.
The supporting cast ranges from forgettable to annoying, the worst offender being Tanawat Cheawaram as a wealthy benefactor called Guan Yu. Guan Yu is a fighting game nerd who takes new fighters under his wing. His function in the story is mostly just to give Marwin items, but he’s grating every time he’s on screen.
Seemingly everything reminds him of a fighting game or anime: “You’re just like the anime hero that I worship!” “I used stealth mode like in Metal Gear!” “I beat Dural on Arcade Mode.” As a comic relief character, Guan Yu is ineffective, more likely to alienate audience members unfamiliar with his references.
God Skin misses more than it hits, but the hits it pulls off are greatly entertaining.
Disclaimer: The version screened for this review was a work in progress with unfinished score and VFX.
God Skin screened at the 2026 Fantasia Festival. Thank you to the festival for the screener.
