Whilst everyone know of Muay Thai, kickboxing to you and me, and its popularity is attested to in gyms and dojo's all over the Western world, Thailand itself has been surprisingly slow in utilising this martial art in the way Hong Kong, China and Japan have in their cinematic offerings. Until, of course, now. In the same vein each fledgling art needs a talented superstar to kick it off properly, and in this Thailand has the feintly incredible Tony Jaa, who makes up for his lack of pretty-pretty with astonishing athleticism and skill.
As Ong-bak looks to be the first in a possible flood of Thai martial arts movies I'm prepared to go a little easy on it, but in general it's a highly competent film which explores Thailand's country roots, its new-found urban landscape and the often uneasy symbiosis between the old and the new. Jaa plays Ting, a Muay Thai master of a small impoverished village, who is sent by the elders to recover a stolen Buddha's head. He follows the thieves to Bangkok and joins forces with a petty con-man to defeat theim and return the statue to its rightful place. Unsurprisingly the con-man uses the naive Ting's fighting ability along the way, but in the end they unite against the gang to bring down their operation.
Normally all you want from this kind of flick is some excellent fight scenes and a thread of a plot, and Ong-bak manages to deliver both in greater-than-normal quantities. Jaa's ability allowed the film to be shot without any CG or wires, something even most chop-socky Hong Kong films can't manage, and while Muay Thai is not the most subtle of martial arts there is something more real and oddly cathartic about his elbow-and-knee style of fighting. A series of ass-kickings he hands various fighters in a bar, and of course the final mighty showdown, highlight this down and dirty skill to the utmost. |
