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Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, Directed by Prachya Pinkaew, 2003
I had to watch some real ass kicking after the dissapointment of Arahan and I knew Tony Jaa would supply, though not so much the second time around as the first.
Some crazy old guy with an electronic voice box has a fetish for collecting the heads of statues from villages. Ting's (Tony Jaa) village falls prey to this odd collector and Ting heads into the city to return the head before the village falls into incredibly bad luck and everyone gets the clap or something.
But you don't need to know that, just know that the rules of gravity do not apply to Tony Jaa. The man is a machine. I know someone who was training in Muay Thai, so I'm familiar with the style, but it never ceases to be a source of awe. To my knowledge there was not a single wire setup in this entire movie. If Tony Jaa dashes down the street on people's shoulders, he's really doing it. None of it looks fake and the timing is perfect. On top of that, several of the films key fights take place in doors and the obvious lack of proper and consistent lighting setups gives the film another ace up its sleeve when it comes to continuing reality.
Though towards the end chest padding becomes more noticeable as it seems like Jaa is kicking people wearing kevlar vests, but who cares? I'll take someone really getting kicked in a padded chest over someone faking a kick to the chest any day of the week. The double edits (highlighting impressive moves twice in a row) can be kind of annoying some times, but any annoyance instantly vanishes because then you realize he just jumped 8 feet in the air.
Oh snap!
3.5 out of 5
The One Sentence Review - It's not my favorite martial arts movie, that title goes to Jet Li's Fist of Legend, but if you like your action raw Ong-Bak will more than deliver.
Oh and Edit: If Tony Jaa is going to be the villain in the new Die Hard, as is currently rumored, that is going to be one crazy ass flying knee to the head.
I had to watch some real ass kicking after the dissapointment of Arahan and I knew Tony Jaa would supply, though not so much the second time around as the first.
Some crazy old guy with an electronic voice box has a fetish for collecting the heads of statues from villages. Ting's (Tony Jaa) village falls prey to this odd collector and Ting heads into the city to return the head before the village falls into incredibly bad luck and everyone gets the clap or something.
But you don't need to know that, just know that the rules of gravity do not apply to Tony Jaa. The man is a machine. I know someone who was training in Muay Thai, so I'm familiar with the style, but it never ceases to be a source of awe. To my knowledge there was not a single wire setup in this entire movie. If Tony Jaa dashes down the street on people's shoulders, he's really doing it. None of it looks fake and the timing is perfect. On top of that, several of the films key fights take place in doors and the obvious lack of proper and consistent lighting setups gives the film another ace up its sleeve when it comes to continuing reality.
Though towards the end chest padding becomes more noticeable as it seems like Jaa is kicking people wearing kevlar vests, but who cares? I'll take someone really getting kicked in a padded chest over someone faking a kick to the chest any day of the week. The double edits (highlighting impressive moves twice in a row) can be kind of annoying some times, but any annoyance instantly vanishes because then you realize he just jumped 8 feet in the air.
Oh snap!
3.5 out of 5
The One Sentence Review - It's not my favorite martial arts movie, that title goes to Jet Li's Fist of Legend, but if you like your action raw Ong-Bak will more than deliver.
Oh and Edit: If Tony Jaa is going to be the villain in the new Die Hard, as is currently rumored, that is going to be one crazy ass flying knee to the head.