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When critics evaluate movies, some of the things
typically looked at are the direction, the acting, how well the story is put together, and
thematic resonance. Sometimes though, none of that matters, and Ong-Bak: The Thai
Warrior is just such a case. Anyone looking for story or character should check out
now. Ong-Bak‘s appeal is intended for a very specific demographic and all
others need not apply. This movie is martial arts porn and the only reason to see it is
for the action. In that arena, on a scale from 1 to 10, it’s a 20.
Ong-Bak does have the bare bones of a plot. In a poor village
stricken by drought, the head of the revered Buddha statue is stolen. Ting (Panom Yeerum,
English name: Tony Jaa), an expert in the martial art of Muay Thai, volunteers to track it
down in Bangkok. A lost country boy in the big city, Ting needs the help of mediocre con
artist Hum Lae (Petchtai Wongkamlao) to find the villains. This is where the only
characterization to speak of comes in as the story asks if Hum Lae will abandon his urban
vices for the rural virtues embodied by Ting. It’s not difficult to guess the answer
to that one.
Jaa is a real find. If martial arts could be rendered as a mathematical
equation, Tony Jaa equals Jet Li squared. Before Ong-Bak, Jaa’s biggest break
was being a stuntman for Robin Shou in the horrid Mortal
Kombat: Annihilation. The athletic skills he demonstrates here without wires or
CGI instantly catapults him to the top tier of cinematic martial artists. Jaa and
writer-director Prachya Pinkaew are both obviously huge fans of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
The underestimated-rural-rube-in-the-big-city premise stems directly from Bruce Lee’s
Return
of the Dragon. As much as demonstrating Jaa’s physical combat prowess, Ong-Bak
shows off his acrobatic skills as he effortlessly hurdles cars, bounces off walls, and
performs aerial somersaults that many Olympians would find difficult. Also taking a tip
from Chan, Ong-Bak “revisits” martial arts moves or spectacular stunts by
immediately replaying it from different angles. In a Chan movie, this happens at most once
or twice. In Ong-Bak, Pinkaew goes to this technique thirty or more times. That
would be gross overkill if at least half of them didn’t deserve a replay and the
other half would get a split decision on the matter.
Every once in a while a movie comes along that ups the action stakes of
acceptable quality in a given field. Jackie Chan’s Project
A and Police
Story movies did that for fight scenes, John Woo’s The
Killer did that for gun battles, did that for gun battles, and Swordsman 2 did that for
wuxia films. Without them Charlie’s
Angels, The Matrix,
and Hero wouldn’t exist.
After audiences experienced the Hong Kong product, Arnold Schwarzenegger-style brawling
would no longer cut it. Ong-Bak could one day prove as influential to a new
generation of martial arts films. The fight scenes are that spectacular.
And they are frequent. At some point Pinkaew must have said to hell
with the story because around the midway point, the movie simply stops trying with the
narrative and becomes one action scene piled on top of another the rest of the way. (A
weak taxi cab chase should have been left on the cutting room floor though.) Aside from
the climatic scenes that involve a saw and some vicious finishing moves, the movie is
brutal without going into Takashi Miike (Ichi The Killer) sadism, not that Ong-Bak is at all
appropriate for young children. It is way over the top, and every human being in the film
can absorb punishment that should kill them ten times over. Pinkaew provides wicked,
simplistic villains who are just asking for such punishment, and Ting more than meets it
out.
- George
Wu
