Uploaded November 2013 | Updated September 2026, 11 hours ago
In the famously lawless Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos, and Northern Thailand, Thai Army Lieutenant, retired boxer, and fight promoter Jawee Sukantha raises a band of orphaned boys as professional fighters. These kids often come from the so called "Hilltribe" villages, the final, dirt poor remnants of cultures displaced in antiquity by the arrival of the Thai. Exploiting historic animosity between rivals Burma and Siam, Jawee stokes nationalistic pride in Thai culture by invoking the rite of "Kaad Chiek" boxing, in which a fighter's hands are protected by a simple bit of torn cloth. The men who answer the call to these dangerous fights lose sight of their lives beyond the ring and, pushed from the spotlight by younger generations find a bleak future fighting on the Thai-Burma border.
In the famously lawless Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos, and Northern Thailand, Thai Army Lieutenant, retired boxer, and fight promoter Jawee Sukantha raises a band of orphaned boys as professional fighters. These kids often come from the so called "Hilltribe" villages, the final, dirt poor remnants of cultures displaced in antiquity by the arrival of the Thai. Exploiting historic animosity between rivals Burma and Siam, Jawee stokes nationalistic pride in Thai culture by invoking the rite of "Kaad Chiek" boxing, in which a fighter's hands are protected by a simple bit of torn cloth. The men who answer the call to these dangerous fights lose sight of their lives beyond the ring and, pushed from the spotlight by younger generations find a bleak future fighting on the Thai-Burma border.
