Ong Bak 3

Not that it really matters much, but this American movie poster for Ong Bak 3 is kind of misleading.  For starters, the star of the series is out of costume --- the long hair and rags he sports in the film are nowhere to be seen.  And maybe it is the fact that I grew up with The Karate Kid, but that poster pose made me hope that I would be seeing some super-secret (albeit incredibly unlikely) crane kick action in this movie.  The posters for the film's Thailand release give a more accurate picture as to what this third installment is about:

Photoshop and (presumably) electric guitar solos

For those of you who have not been keeping up with your Thai cinema of late, I'll catch you up on the series.  In Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, a peaceful badass from a podunk town must go to the big city and beat the hell out of a bunch of dudes.  Ong Bak 2: The Beginning bears no relation to the first film and takes place 500 years earlier.  In that film, Tien's family was killed off to allow a mean guy to assume power; Tien, meanwhile, escaped and was adopted by a clan of assassins, who trained him to be the best of the best.  At the end of the movie, Tien succeeded in killing the men who killed his family, but was captured by the bad guy who was responsible for his family's death and profited by it.  And now you're caught up.  Oh, wait...a weird crow-guy with supernatural abilities showed up in the final act to kick Tien's ass, for reasons I haven't been able to figure out.

Ong Bak 3 picks up right where Ong Bak 2 left off.  Tien (Tony Jaa) has been captured by Lord Rajasena's men and they have some fun with him.  Sure, Tien gives almost as good as he gets, but it's hard to win a fight when your arms are tied and the enemy isn't taking any chances.

More intimidating than handcuffs

Rajasena gives the order for Tien to be painfully crippled before being put to death, and Tien's knees, elbows, feet and hands get crushed.  I'm not actually sure if Tien is supposed to have died during these tortures or not, but his broken body is still apparently important.  Some of Tien's buddies show up to try and rescue Tien (a little late to that party), and it looks like they will succeed until Bhuti Sangkha (Dan Chupong), the crow-dude, flies in and murders them all.  He's not on Ranajsena's side, though; apparently, he just likes showing off and killing people.

But he looks so nice!

Anyway, Tien's body is eventually taken to a village, where he is either miraculously resurrected or miraculously healed.  At first, he just mopes around because his joints don't bend in the right directions any more, but with the help of a montage, he returns to his classic form.  Now he just needs to take his revenge on Lord Rajasena.  Too bad Bhuti already killed Rajasena and assumed his powerful position.  Don't worry, though; there is still a big fight at the end, even if the whole revenge angle was more or less negated.

Ong Bak 3 looks an awful lot like Ong Bak 2, and there's a reason for that.  Apparently, the two movies were intended to be one long epic, but budgetary and scheduling limitations forced the story to be split into two parts.  In other words, unused footage from Ong Bak 2 wound up in Ong Bak 3.  If that sounds a little lame to you, I agree.  Thanks to the story limitations, Tony Jaa is kept from fighting for most of the first hour of this 90-minute movie; the first extended action sequence actually features Dan Chupong instead of Jaa.  Chupong is pretty awesome, but that's still pretty lame.  For reasons that I simply don't understand, Ong Bak 3 shifts the focus away from fighting and toward Tien's journey to recovery and mental peace.  Big mistake.

Tony Jaa is not a very good actor.  He's a bad-ass martial artist, but his emotional range goes from "blank stare" to "gritted teeth."  Here, he is forced to act tortured for about forty minutes and try to embody the physicality of someone recovering from horrific wounds.

Jaa manages to impersonate a drunken monkey instead.  I enjoyed Dan Chupong, even though I'm still not sure why he had supernatural powers, or why nobody else seemed confused by that.  Chupong has the potential to be as big of an action star as Jaa, in my mind, assuming he can find a script that calls for beating up dozens upon dozens of henchmen.  The rest of the cast was largely inconsequential.  Tien's love interest from the previous film returns with a larger part and the evil Rajasena came back for a bit, but neither actor was particularly impressive.  Petchtai Wongkamlao returns again, in what I believe is his third character in the three movies.  After being obnoxious in the first film and only making a brief appearance in Part 2, Wongkamlao returns as an apparently mentally handicapped (or possibly very drunk) person; he's not terribly funny here, but it's definitely his best work in the series.

Comic relief sometimes means "stupid wigs"

Ong Bak 3 was co-directed by Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai, just as the last film was.  This time, though, both men found themselves directing something they do not have much experience with: actors.  Ong Bak 3 is not a long movie, but the vast majority of it focuses on Tien's physical and emotional recovery, while Rajasena suffered from bizarre hallucinations.  There are some basic moral themes at work here (don't be mad all the time, don't betray people, etc.) that take on a religious tone at times.  That's fine, I suppose, but these directors specialize in action choreography, and this film does not have enough of that.

Of course, there are some pretty good fight scenes in Ong Bak 3, and that is what American audiences are probably looking for in this sequel.  How good are they?  That's a tough question.  Production-wise, they look very nice.  The sets are epic and gorgeous, and some of the set pieces are fantastic, especially since Jaa doesn't use wires or CGI (most of the time) in his fight scenes.

So...real big elephant, real small action star

I was disappointed by how choreographed most of the fight scenes felt.  The second film's action scenes were great --- they were gory and weird and fantastic.  While the plot gives an explanation for the choreography (it has to do with traditional Siamese dancing), it doesn't come close to matching the fury that made the second film's fights so cool. 

As Danny Kaye would say, "They're doing choreography"

There is also significantly less gore in this sequel, which made me a little sad.  When you combine the downturn in action with a confusing story that relied on action stars to convey emotions, you wind up with an underwhelming product.  I was looking forward to Ong Bak 3, but it doesn't quite cut it.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning

When dueling, picking where to fight is essential.

All right, it's sequel time!  Ong Bak 2: The Beginning is the unhyphenated follow-up to Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, and the star from the first film, Tony Jaa, is returning to star and co-direct this sequel.  If you haven't seen the first Ong Bak, here's what you need to know: nothing.  At all.  I'm serious, this sequel has absolutely nothing, even thematically, to connect it to the first movie.  Well, maybe it's a prequel, right?  It does take place over 500 years ago.  Nope, it's not.  I didn't even hear the words "Ong Bak" mentioned once in the whole movie.  That's not a bad thing, since the original movie was only worth watching for the action scenes, but it's still kind of odd.  I'm sure the Thai filmmakers just used the title to capitalize on the American DVD success of the first film, but I still think it's strange to have absolutely no mention of the title in the movie.

The year was 1974.  The Ramones were playing their first shows, Charles Bronson played a surprisingly violent watermelon farmer in Mr. Majestyk, and Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home run record.  Wait...that doesn't seem right...oh, it's 1974 on the Buddhist calendar, which is 1421 on the Gregorian calendar.  That changes things a bit.  Tien is the tween son of a respected provincial Lord in Siam (sadly, not Yul Brynner).

"Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho"

When his family and their soldiers are ambushed by a power-hungry ruler of a neighboring city-state, Tien only narrowly escapes with his life.  His family is not so lucky.  Not that I would exactly call Tien "lucky;" he is almost immediately captured by slave traders.  When he proves to be too ornery to trade, he is thrown into a watery pit to fight a crocodile to the death. 

Sorry, Tien, Goku won't save you from this one.

Well, maybe he is lucky --- Chernang (Sorapong Chatree), leader of the Garuda Wing Cliff gang of assassins/bandits, randomly shows up and beats up the slave traders.  Chernang doesn't save Tien from the croc, though; he tosses the kid a knife and tells him, "Your life depends on you."  Tien kills the crocodile, earns the respect of Chernang, and is raised by him to become the greatest warrior in the world and the future leader of the Garuda Wing Cliff clan.  Fast-forward about a decade, and Tien (Tony Jaa) is ready to use his fighting ability to avenge his family.  And kill dozens of bad guys, naturally.

If you have seen the low-budget Tony Jaa stunt spectacular that is Ong-Bak, you will immediately be shocked by how much better Ong Bak 2 is.  To quote my lovely wife, this sequel/prequel/not-really-a-quel-at-all "looks like an actual movie and not a snuff film."  You would think setting the film in the ancient past would have introduced production problems (costumes, buildings, and weapons all need to be made), but this movie looks surprisingly good.  There is a whole lot more violence and gore this time around, and the fighting scenes (which are why you want to watch Tony Jaa) are pretty impressive.  Thankfully, Jaa's co-stars actually look like they're fighting back in this one, so it is far more entertaining than the original.

I wouldn't say that Tony Jaa's acting has improved, though.  The kid that played Tien in the first half of the film did a pretty decent job showing emotions, but Jaa is limited to a frowny face.  There really aren't any standout performances in this cast, but I thought Sorapong Chatree did a pretty solid job as the leader of the bandits/assassins/fighting enthusiasts.  I did notice Petchtai Wongkamlao's (Jaa's co-star in the first movie) cameo early in the film, and I have to admit he is much better suited for small bits of physical comedy than his Rob Schneider-esque sidekick performance in the original.  The head slave trader was played by a pretty menacing giant, but I can't figure out what the actor's name is.  We'll just call him Andre.

I'm not sure just how good the direction was in this movie.  Yes, the acting was better (or maybe just more appropriate) than in the first film, but was it actually good?  Not really.  But this was never going to be a film that focused on the acting.  This is a movie for an action director or two.  Tony Jaa and Panna Rittkrai (who was the stunt coordinator in Ong-Bak) co-directed Ong Bak 2, which probably explains the heavy shift in focus to fight scenes.  And those scenes are pretty impressive.  The great thing about this movie is that it does not suffer from lackey-lag.  In every other Jaa movie I have seen, there is a point toward the end of the film where Jaa decides to beat up about fifty bad guys at once; these bad guys usually get kicked once, fall down and stay down.  This time, though, Jaa has weapons and is killing/incapacitating all his enemies, so it actually makes sense for the bad guys to not get up and attack him some more.  The camera work is solid in these action scenes, too --- you would think that it would be tough to capture the physicality of these fight sequences, but all the important (or at least, the most affecting) details shine through.

What about the story?  It's okay.  This is a revenge tale, and I'm usually a big fan of those; revenge leads to violence, and violence in Asian movies usually leads to martial arts, which are awesome.  That said, this story is a little odd.  Okay, fine...I get the reasoning behind why Tien's family was killed.  That makes sense.  The whole bit where the bandits train Tien also makes sense.  I even understand why Tien is in an extended dance sequence as he tries to kill his father's usurper.  But then things start to get weird.  For starters, a random supernaturally-powered bird character appears out of the effing blue and is apparently more than a match for Tien.  That was a random thing to throw into the movie's final act.  At least they made up for that weirdness by having them fight...on an elephant?!?  Okay, fine.  Crow dude fights on pachyderms, got it.  It seems a little unlikely to me, but crow dudes are far more likely than SPOILER: Tien being raised by the assassins that killed his entire family.  And they didn't know!  What, they picked up an orphan that can kill crocodiles, and his family never came up in conversation?  That's just stupid.  I'm also not a huge fan of the cliffhanger ending.  Yes, it sets up the third movie pretty well, but it's not like the story is compelling enough to have you anxiously waiting to see what happens to Tien.  I'm just going to assume that he kills many, many bad guys in the next installment.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning isn't going to wow you with a compelling story or graceful wire-fu action.  This is a big-budget action choreographer's wet dream, with huge sets and a cast with hundreds of extras.  If you can get past how much Tony Jaa looks like Mowgli, this is a very entertaining action movie, brimming with all sorts of mixed martial arts fights.  The story left me pretty indifferent, so the cliffhanger ending just made me roll my eyes, but the fighting more than made up for it.  This is certainly worth a watch, but it isn't quite as legendary as the promotional posters might lead you to believe.

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior

With the popular rising of MMA fighting in the US, it's not too surprising that we have found an actor that specializes in some of the more exotic MMA styles.  Tony Jaa's breakout role was this, Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (sometimes subtitled "The Muay Thai Warrior"), and it is all about showing off what Tony Jaa can do.

The plot isn't terribly deep.  Ting (Jaa) lives in the backwards boonies of Thailand, in a poor, tiny village.  When the village Buddha statue (called Ong-Bak, for reasons never explained to Westerners) has its head stolen by some outsiders, Ting volunteers to retrieve it.  Ting is has had extensive martial arts training, but he has chosen not to use it for his own gain.  That's right...this is yet another martial arts movie where the resident bad-ass is reluctant to fight (for the first half hour).  Ting heads to the big city to find Ong-Bak's head, but he doesn't know the first thing about city life; he does know who stole the head and he has the address for a former villager, Humlae, that came to the city and never returned home.  Ting finds Humlae, who now goes by the name of George (Petchtai Wongkamlao), has dyed his hair blonde, and is a small-time grifter.  After some gambling hijinks from George, Ting ends up in an underground fight, where he knocks out the current champion with only one hit --- a knee to the face.  This angers a local crime lord, who was betting on the champion.  The rest of the film has Ting being somewhat reluctant to fight until he and George can no longer outrun George's creditors/George's grift victims/the crime lord's thugs.

There's not much plot, but that's okay.  This is a movie clearly centered around the action sequences, and there are a lot of them.  Ting has four or five official boxing matches, and they're all decently cool.  Each opponent, of course, has a unique style of fighting that Ting has to overcome, so nothing gets repetitive.  I was less impressed with the rest of the movie's action.  There was an extended chase sequence that, while impressive, was waaay too long and had no real payoff.  That segued into an auto rickshaw chase, which was the dumbest thing I've seen in a foreign movie in years.  These things top out at around 30mph --- that's not an exciting life-or-death race to watch.  Even with the lame chase scenes, Tony Jaa is very impressive.  There was no wire fighting or special effects used in this movie, so that's really Jaa doing all those things.  Of course, a little bit of special effects wouldn't have hurt; in his fights, the opponents often look like they are waiting to get hit, instead of looking like they are fighting.  The good news is that, if you see something cool in the movie once, you will see it again.  The bad news is that the reason you see it again is because they do a slow-motion replay, not because they packed the movie with action awesomeness.  Here's a taste, but beware that this clip features terrible dubbing (go with the subtitles, trust me) and a little bit of naughty language:

With good (if flawed) action and not much plot, attention naturally turns to the acting and directing.  Tony Jaa isn't much of an actor, but he stayed within the range of his talents here.  What does that mean?  Well, let's just say that looking confused or angry is about as good as I think his acting will get.  Petchtai Wongkamlao, who is apparently a big deal in Thailand, was very annoying as George.  Wongkamlao was there as comic relief, kind of like Rob Schneider in Knock Off, and was every bit as obnoxious as that sounds.  I get it, they needed a normal person to try the same stunts that Jaa was doing and show how insanely difficult they are, but Wongkamlao was hammier than Miss Piggy.  The rest of the actors ranged from annoying (George's grifitng partner) to just odd (the Asian afro ninja), but most fit the movie fine.  Prachya Pinkaew directed the film and clearly knows how to film action scenes.  The movie looks very cheap, though; I don't know if their film stock was inexpensive, or if they used a low-rent digital camera or what, but this looks like a movie that was made for the direct-to-DVD market of the late 90s.  While Pinkaew was able to capture a lot of Jaa looking awesome, the grainy quality of the footage is distracting.  As the director, he could have helped make those action scenes better by having the anonymous thugs do less standing around, waiting to be hit, and more pseudo-fighting.  But he didn't.

For what it is, Ong-Bak is a decent movie.  It knows that you don't care about the plot, so neither does it.  There are a lot of cool moves, and they are played back in slow-motion so you don't have to fuss with your remote.  How convenient.  This is just a B-movie, though.  Jaa is clearly an action star, even in his first role, and that elevates this movie above the rest of the cheaply-made martial arts films coming out of Asia today, and it is beyond refreshing to see a post-Crouching Tiger martial arts movie that is free of wire-fu.  While this isn't a great movie by any means, the quality of Jaa's moves is enough to make it worth viewing.

Hilariously, when this movie was released in Europe, they replaced the original Thai score with some French hip-hop sounds.  This music video is a bonus feature on the DVD, and it is AWESOME.