Ong-Bak

Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior is an absolutely awesome Thai action movie which launched the career of Thai action star Tony Jaa and started a trend of Thai martial arts movies, giving us films like The Protector and Bangkok Knockout. Ong-Bak remains the absolute best of the bunch; it’s seriously a really fun, exciting movie, and gets my full approval (whatever that’s worth), sporting great action and amazing stunts. It’s a great movie that spawned two sequels of vastly varying quality. I’ll be covering all three of them, starting with the first, and best.

After artefact smugglers steal the head of an ancient Buddha statue, the titular Ong-Bak, from a poor rural village in Thailand, young Muay Thai fighter Ting (Tony Jaa) volunteers to head to Bangkok to retrieve it. Ting, unsure of where to begin his search and naïve to the harshness of city life, meets up with his cousin Hum Lae, who has become a hustler and con artist with his partner Muay. While initially attempting to con his ‘country bumpkin’ cousin, Humlae agrees to help him find the head after seeing how amazing a fighter he is (and planning to exploit him in underground fights).

Despite the simplicity of the main premise (it’s seriously ‘go find the head’) a lot of stuff goes on, with sub-plots involving gambling, underground fight clubs and drug abuse. While most characters are the same from the beginning to the end (Ting’s ‘development’ just involves punching more guys), Hum Lae actually does get character development and something of an arc, which actually works pretty well (especially considering he’s mostly the comic relief). It’s all flavouring for the action scenes, with the plot more of an action delivery system.

Like the best action movies, each scene is a showcase for the skills and athleticism of its star, and Tony Jaa does not disappoint. While the man is incapable of emoting or conveying any sort of drama and lacks a knack for comedy, he does know how to deliver a flying knee to the head. He’s athletic, showing off impressive flips and kicks like nothing else. It’s a showcase for Muay Thai, Thailand kickboxing that utilises knees and elbows for violent effect, and the film shows it off in big brutal style (getting an elbow to the head seems like the most painful thing ever).

The film begins in energetic style with a competition where a few dozen men attempt to climb a massive tree and retrieve a flag from the top while fighting each other, and it only gets better from there. The film has it all from energetic chase scenes, brutal fist fights and even a rickshaw taxi chase. The variety is the real joy, with every action scene being different and inventive. The absolute best part of the film has to be a foot chase where Ting jumps, flips and weaves through various obstacles at high speed (often captured in several different camera angles). It’s some seriously impressive stuff (like him sliding while doing the splits underneath a car).

 

Ong-Bak is, all up, really great. It has an awesome energy, great stunts (all done for real!) and exciting fights, and is easily one of the best action flicks of its time. It’s essentially what opened the gates for Malaysian action films, paving the way for others like it, though Ong-Bak remains the best for my money.

If you can, find the original Thai Uncut version since its easily the best version of the movie. The International Cut removes subplots, shortens fight scenes, cuts the more violent parts and, the absolute worst offense, changes all the music which completely ruins the action scenes. The Australian Eastern Eye special edition has both versions. 

Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning is a strange movie for a number of reasons. For one thing, Tony Jaa himself steps behind the camera. Even stranger is what Ong Bak 2 is – it’s a prequel, but set several hundred years before its predecessor and not dealing even remotely with any of the characters, places or things from the first film. It’s a much different film from its predecessor, for good and bad, but, while fun, ultimately the film isn’t anywhere near as good as the first, though it is still an entertaining action film.

Set in feudal 15^th century Siam, the story concerns itself with Tien (Tony Jaa), a young boy who, after his noble parents are killed by the power-hungry Lord Rajasena, becomes a street urchin. He’s quickly welcomed into the Garuda Wing Cliff, a mercenary group of assassins run by the respected and renowned Chernang who adopts him and puts him through various tests and trials to toughen him up and turn him into a master fighter, with the prodigious Tien becoming one of the greatest fighters of them all. His training complete, Tien turns his attentions towards revenge on Lord Rajasena, who has grown even more powerful. 

The majority of the film is about Tien learning to fight and becoming a mercenary before it suddenly rushes to its massive climax. As a result there isn’t much to the story beyond the early scenes – Lord Rajasena isn’t much of a presence at all beyond that, and the quest for revenge only figures into a few minutes of the film. The film also ends on an abrupt cliff-hanger sequel hook after a particularly big, bloody and exciting finale where Tien fights and kills a small army of opponents.

There is a lot more blood and gore here, and a bigger emphasis on weapons. Most action scenes involve various types of blades, with heads severed, throats slit and bellies split. Tien uses an insane number of different weapons here, to the point where his training with the mercenaries seems to involve every single type of weapon and martial art ever. It’s a more serious film, and doesn’t have the more light-hearted fun of the first film, but I can’t fault the action. While it doesn’t have the stunts and chase scenes of the first film, the various sword fights and battles are really quite awesome. The variety in weapons and styles is also awesome, showing off stuff we don’t tend to see in most other action films. The switch to a historical setting gives way to more historical-looking sets and costumes, which are all quite nice actually. Traditional clothes and jewellery are impressive, with the film having a unique feel.

All in all, Ong-Bak 2 is an entertaining movie, but it just isn’t as good or as entertaining as its predecessor. The action is great fun and the overall look and production design is all quite great, but the story is almost non-existent, the writing is horrible, the serious tone takes the fun out of most of it and it just lacks the qualities that made the first film so fantastic. Ong-Bak 2 is a very different beast though, and while some of those differences don’t pan out, some do make it stand out somewhat. The ending itself is disappointing as an abrupt sequel-baiting cliff-hanger, which also leads into the final Ong-Bak film.

Ong Bak 3 is about Tony Jaa becoming Jesus Christ. I’m not joking. The finale in the trilogy, of which two titles are prequels, Ong Bak 3 is where things fall apart. While the first is fantastic and the second is fun, the third is disappointingly dull and uninteresting. It’s also gets very weird, with writer/director/star Tony Jaa making a film where he dies, is resurrected, becomes enlightened and becomes a messiah by saving the world – though he spends most of the film either incapacitated or meditating.

Taking place immediately at the end of Ong-Bak 2, Tien (Tony Jaa) is captured by the villainous Lord Rajasena and is tortured, crippled and beaten to death. Villagers retrieve his body and take it back to the village. Once there they wrap him in twine and construct a Buddha statue for him (which ends up being the statue from the first film, finally actually tying this two-part ‘prequel’ to the first film). A few days later, he emerges from his wrappings alive but crippled. With the teachings of a Buddhist monk and the love and help of a dancing girl, Tien rehabilitates and becomes enlightened. He also wears white robes and grows a beard and spends his time meditating and philosophising.

The Crow Ghost (a villainous, supernatural character who only appeared in the last five minutes of Ong-Bak 2) kills and usurps Lord Rajasena and takes control, enslaving the villagers and killing those who oppose him. Tien, now enlightened, has to save the day and finally put an end to the Crow Ghost’s evil.

Ong Bak 3 is easily the weakest of the three and is the only one I’d consider bad. It’s slow, there’s less action and the action itself is less interesting than in the preceding two films. It has a bigger focus on philosophy and Buddhism (there’s a twenty minute chunk of the film devoted to it, involving Tien’s resurrection, rehabilitation and enlightenment), which really doesn’t fit with the punching and kicking when it eventually happens. It’s just not as interesting or entertaining and, if you want to get right down to it, becomes downright boring at times.

The sudden switch to full-on supernatural is jarring, considering there really wasn’t much of it in its immediate predecessor. There’s just so much focus on it this time through. Besides the Buddhist philosophy, there’re also curses, black magic and spirituality focusing heavily in the plot. The Crow Ghost is downright supernatural, able to conjure curses, use black magic and he even causes a solar eclipse. By the end Tien is supernatural as well, calling down a lighting strike at will. It’s a disappointing end to the series, and a really weird one. It really is about Tony Jaa becoming a Jesus Christ figure, which is about as weird a direction as you could take an action film.

And that’s the Ong-Bak trilogy. It’s a weird set of films put up against each other, especially since 2 and 3 go so off the rails and get strange. The first film is seriously amazing though, and well worth watching – it still stands up today and I wholeheartedly recommend it. The second film is fun but not on the same level on the first, though it’s more violent and the set and costume designs are quite interesting – it’s a fun watch. The third is the weakest and is just a bad movie – It’s only worth watching if you wanted closure on the second film.