Ong-Bak PWNS all other fight movies ever made

I can hear some of you right now.   “HERETIC!  Jackie Chan is a GOD!” I do not disagree.  Jackie Chan represents the archetype of a true live-action hero, but the man is getting older (hey, we all are.  It beats the alternative) and in some of his more recent films his “no strings attached” martial arts wizardry has been replaced by big budget special effects.  Oh sure, he still kicks ass, but a lot of the stunt work isn’t done the old fashioned way anymore.  And I can’t fault him for that.  Jackie is worth major box office dollars, and no American movie maker is going to risk letting their big star get hurt.  Bottom line, I don’t think you are going to see any more “no-edit” wideshots of Jackie jumping a motorcycle off of a ramp and catching onto a cargo net in mid-air.

Enter Tony Jaa.  This guy is not new, but he is new to me.  I found “Ong-Bak” through a Netflix recommendation and watched it last night.  After being completely blown away I decided to try to find out some more information about the “new guy”.  The first film I can find that he is in dates back to 1993, and “Ong-Bak” is four years old.  He has made some more movies recently and “Ong-Bak 2” is in post-production according to imdb.com.  Check out Tony’s bio (his real name is Panom) at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1388074/bio.

What makes Tony unique and fascinating to watch is his Muay Thai fighting style.  It is nothing like anything I have ever seen on film before.  It blends graceful, almost ballet-like, aerial movements, with some of the most bone-shatteringly brutal strikes you can imagine.  There is a heavy emphasis on knee and elbow strikes, and when you are watching this stuff it is hard to imagine how some of it was filmed without putting some of the stunt men in the hospital.  One major difference that I noted between the fights in this film and a lot of the work I’ve seen Jackie Chan do is that the fights seem more realistic.  In a Chan flick you might watch him pummel a dude for two minutes with countless lightning quick jabs and kicks that look really flashy, but don’t seem to do a lot of damage.  There are many times in “Ong-Bak” where Jaa delivers a punishing kick or brutal elbow smash that crumples an opponent instantly, and you BELIEVE THAT SHIT.  I can’t count how many times while watching this movie that I said to myself “Gaht DAMN!  That fool just got his shit RUINED!”. 

On top of the great fight sequences (which really ramp up at about 30 minutes into the film and then do not quit until the credits), there are a couple of great chase sequences as well.  In one, Tony is being chased by a gang through a crowded city and demonstrates some incredible acrobatics as he climbs over, slides under, and jumps through a dizzying array of obstacles.  There is even one part where he walks over a bunch of the thugs, stepping on their shoulders.  In Hollywood, that would be a special effect shot, but you can watch YouTube videos of Jaa performing that same feat before live audiences.

I could go on trying to explain Jaa’s athletic prowess and general bad-assery, but there is little point to it.  You will just have to watch him to understand it.  He has the kind of speed and agility that convinces you that somehow, some kind of trickery must be involved, but no, he really IS that fast.

The movie itself is actually pretty good as a movie also.  By which I mean the acting is decent, the story is acceptable and the non-action parts are entertaining in their own right.  I don’t think Jaa has a lot of lines in the movie, but that wouldn’t fit his character anyway.  In the film he plays the part of Ting, a young man from a rural Thai village who goes off to the big city to recover the stone head of a sacred idol, the Ong-Bak.  He is a simple guy who just wants to get his village’s sacred totem back, but as usual in this type of film, the bad guys don’t want to give it to him and he has to fight (unwillingly) to get it back.  Along the way he hooks up with a couple of sidekicks that provide most of the movie's humor, and that to fairly good effect.  The main bad guy in the film is in a wheelchair and uses one of those electronic voiceboxes to talk.  Imagine Ned from Southpark speaking Thai and you would have a good idea of what that is like.

Make no mistake though, “Ong-Bak” is meant as a showcase for Tony Jaa’s many talents, and it does a great job of that.  I’ve scoured Netflix and added the other films he is in to my queue and I’m hunting down a copy of “Ong-Bak” to add to my DVD collection.  This is a film that I could watch over and over again, and I bet every time I would see something new.

So, maybe you have already heard of this movie and you are thinking “Jesus, Crane, you are WAY behind the times” and that may well be, but I love a good action movie and if this one managed to slip under my radar I’m willing to bet that a few other people have missed it as well.  If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to find a copy of it and remedy that situation immediately.  Hollywood is NEVER going to make a movie like this, so if you want to see genuine talent and not some CGI bullshit (which can be entertaining, but lacks the visceral “punch” of live action) then you are going to have to put up with reading some subtitles.  It is completely worth it.