Review: The Iron Ladies

The closing credits for Yongyoot Thongkongtoon’s The Iron Ladies could be read as director’s apologia for the film’s very existence. Footage of the actual Iron Ladies, a gay and trans volleyball team that took Thailand by storm in the late ’90s, proves that they’re every bit the bitch queens depicted in the film. Iron Ladies will do killer business among queer audiences, a depressing fact given the film’s offensiveness.

The film is well-meaning, yes, but it’s horribly dated, as it suggests that the cast and crew stumbled upon homosexuality during a Flip Wilson retrospective. Pick any underdog sports film from the past two decades (The Mighty Ducks, Hoosiers) and re-imagine their cast of archetypes as nelly drag queens and you have Iron Ladies in a pink nutshell.

The characters here break their nails while hitting volleyballs, giggle hysterically in the presence of sausage, and discover that they amount to very little without a quart of foundation on their faces. As for the team’s presumably lesbian coach (Shiriohana Hongsopon) offers a defense of homosexuality that’s as stilted as the film’s cowardly desexualizations (no queen here gets as much as one on-screen kiss, even Kokkorn Benjathikoon’s gorgeous Pia).

Thongkongtoon and co-screenwriters Visuthichai Boonyakarinjana and Jira Maligool may want to advance Thai thinking about sexuality, but all they accomplish is reinforce stereotypes. At least there’s relief in the Ladies being less hated than they are innocently teased, and with good reason. When they hit the courts, their idea of strategy is shocking their opponents into submission. Which is a good way of describing the film’s effect on audiences.