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Hurts Like Hell, Netflix's recently released docu-drama, is a deep dive into the corrupt world of Muay Thai. Muay Thai is a kick-boxing sport revered as the national sport of Thailand. Divided into four episodes, each approximately fifty minutes long, Hurts Like Hell is a brand new experiment in story-telling.
Combining elements of a documentary with drama and interviews, the series brings to the audience a harrowing picture of the criminal activities that go on in the dark underbelly of Muay Thai.
Hurts Like Hell is a new method of narrativising events
Directed by Kittichai Wanprasert from a script written by Siwat Decharat, Hurts Like Hell paints a picture of the diverse lives that shape the Muay Thai world. It gives a glimpse into the underlying corruption the sport is fraught with, making it a business rather than athleticism and sportsmanship.
The format of the series combines documentary-style narratives of real people who have been and continue to be a part of Muay Thai, with intriguing TV drama elements involving real actors. Bringing to fans the reality of Muay Thai straight from insiders like boxers, gamblers, commentators, critics, promoters, club owners, coaches, and ring doctors, Hurts Like Hell is a detailed story featuring multiple perspectives. As the episodes go by, the veil is slowly lifted to reveal the dark, controversial secrets of the ring and beyond.
Netflix series investigates the money-business behind Thailand's national sport
What happens when gambling becomes involved with sports? Corruption seeps in. Hurts Like Hell unveils how match fixing, drugging, bribery, and crooked refereeing have made their way into Muay Thai with gambling. This not only tampers with the spirit of sportsmanship, but has greater consequences, like addiction, death, and murder.
The four episodes dramatize two events while narrowing in on the many interconnected lives that are involved in a particular match taking place. Be it bribing the referee, or the boxer, or drugging one's opponent in one match, every match is fixed in some way or the other. The order for the same comes from someone sitting way up in the gambling hierarchy, someone who has bet a huge amount of money and is now intending to get the match fixed.
The first episode opens with a gambling incident where Phat, who is a seasoned gambler, decides to go up against the "gambling guru." The consequences of this do not turn out to be in his favor. Placing a tremendous bet on a fighter after bribing him to lose the match, Phat bets against Kom, unaware that he had made arrangements and fixed the match too. Every second of the match counts and threatens to turn the tables. But when Kom unexpectedly loses, and Phat demands payment, an altercation takes place between them. It ends with Phat paying for it with his life.
Propelled by poverty
Why does the sport still sustain, despite the kind of danger that it is riddled with? The answer is also brought to us by the docu-drama. The answer is poverty. The next two episodes show a glimpse of the utter poverty and destitution that some live in which forces children into the arena of boxing.
This is because to partake in the sport requires no other capital than one's body and, in return, one is rewarded with money. The episode reveals how the social situation of some in Thailand creates space for not only this sport to flourish, but also turn it into a means of business. This helps to lure in wanting young children with the greed of money.
As the interviewees shared their experiences of poverty, which forced them to take up boxing, the docu-drama turned its focus to the story of a young boy, Wichian. He trains and takes part in matches to bring home money that would save him and his mother from the hands of his abusive father.
But trauma soon strikes him hard when the opponent he goes up against ends up losing his life. While some called it predestined, for 12-year-old Wichian, it was traumatic to know that he had potentially caused a death.
The incidents narrated and shown are adapted from real-life incidents, video clips, and recordings. Towards the end of the last episode, Hurts Like Hell shows a montage of these clips from which the events have been taken up and dramatized for entertainment purposes.
Set in the seedy underworld of the once-revered sport of Muay Thai, where pain is not only physical, but ends up having a long-lasting psychological effect, Hurts Like Hell is definitely an eye-opener. It takes viewers to the heart of corruption, invoking our empathy by calling our attention to the kind of horrors that humankind indulges in. Catch the docu-drama now streaming on Netflix.
