Ong Bak: Kickboxing, Buddha, and Sounds that go Jaa!!

And now, Trust12345 goes head to head with the critics and their blurbs from RottenTomatoes.com, fighting (well, mainly agreeing with) the majority of their sentiments.

Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle comes at me with a rusty-nail pecked 2 by 4:
A viscerally entertaining slice of Thai filmmaking that will leave you grinning ear to ear.

Well, that's true probably with the condition that you enjoy kickboxing films, are a teenage boy, like martial arts films in general, or have at least passing affinities with any of the above. Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior is indeed Thai (with subtitles), it is often very entertaining on a visceral level, but I did not leave the theater with quite as wide a grin. Take that Marc Savlov.

Here comes Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News. What’s he have to say?
Mr. Jaa is a gifted athlete, and there's something to be said for a fighter who dances on heads only for the honor of the Buddha.

I can't argue with that. This film has the barest of plots: a thug from Bangkok steals the head of Ong Bak, a Buddha of a small Thai village with a martial arts training monastery, and the elders and monks send their only hope, Ting (Tony Jaa), to rescue the head. Along the way, Ting encounters wave after wave of evil henchmen connected to a Mafioso-like drug lord who at first has no need for the sacred artifact that his men have stolen for him, but who guards it with pathological meanness after losing a string of bets against Ting in the ring. (Yes, that was Ting in the ring.) The simple story pits the virtues of country/pious life versus the vices of the big city and its sacrilegious crime lord; it's all basically a vehicle for newcomer Jaa.

Twenty-eight year old Tony Jaa is the next big thing for martial arts films; he is handsome, lithe, quicksilver in his action, and a more than decent actor (for what little of range he is called upon to express, other than the emotion of elbowing someone on the head after jumping high in the air, or thwapping scores of faces with every part of his feet, and from every conceivable angle and trajectory).

Now two guys are coming at me at me at once, holding chairs over their heads. James Verniere of the Boston Herald says:
If you combined the genes of [Jackie] Chan and Bruce Lee with a dash of Buster Keaton, the result might resemble Jaa

while Desson Thomas (Washington Post) puts it this way:
Young, handsome and about the most amazing pugilist/stunt performer since the days of Bruce Lee and the pre-Hollywoodized Jackie Chan, Jaa electirifies an otherwise lifeless film.

This is high praise indeed for Tony Jaa, and with his expert ability for getting out of tight spots and impossible situations with the utmost in feline alacrity and grace, I think they both have a point. The style hews much closer to the Bruce Lee/serious side of the genre than the Chan or Keaton/comical, but many bravura stunts, chase sequences, and fights do revolve around uncannily timed and executed motion. One extended escape set piece does border on the comical with Ting's cousin-gone-bad failing to repeat the stunts that Ting achieves with seeming effortlessness.

Mr. Thomas' feint praise, “Jaa electrifies an otherwise lifeless film,” kind of gets to the heart of the matter. Without Jaa's alternately serene and violent displays, and his altogether mesmerizing performance, there is very little to recommend here. And yet, I wouldn't go so far as to say the rest of the film, a debut feature from director Prachya Pinkaew, is “lifeless.” The soundtrack is an odd blend of Thai folk music, funk, rap, and electronica, and that in itself is in an intriguing bargain. The budget may account for some graininess and inconsistency with light, but the cinematography and direction of chases and fights is bold and compelling (even as the triplicate angle and repeating of extra-special stunts can grow wearying).

Given the recent wave of F/X laden, wire-fu films from Asia beginning with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on through Hero and House of Flying Daggers, Ong Bak may prove refreshing in its nuts and bolts action and straightforward plot. There is no love interest. No sidekick. No jumping on trees or water, no flying. Indeed, there is little or nothing in the way of sensationalism. Can you find nude Pamela Anderson, G.W.F. Hegel, Britney Spears, Odilon Redon, Monica Bellucci, Angelina Jolie, Imogen Cunningham, Rene Laloux, Heidi Klum, Anna Ohura or Lois Tarkanian; naked Chloe Sevigny, Christine de Pizan, Lindsay Lohan, Salma Hayek, Jean Dubuffet, Csisztu Zsuzsa, Kelli Garner, Soren Kierkegaard, Paris Hilton, Jenna Lewis, Chu Mei-Feng, Athanasius Kircher, Severina Vuckovic, Christina Aguilera, Art Tatum, Dominique Swain, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Paré, or for that matter, any hot videos or photos of Tiffany Limos, Emily Blunt, Jennifer Ellison, Margaret Cavendish, Hanne Klintoe, Mischa Barton, Kristin Kreuk, Sofia Kovalevskaya, Lolita Davidovich, Kim Clijsters, Mary Somerville, Regina Nemni, Ele Keats, Foxy Brown, Bunny Yeager, Freya Stark, or Emily Barlow? No. How about galleries of Fu Mingxia, Nawa Shibari, Hildegard von Bingen, Luba Shumeyko, Rachel Nichols, Debra Stephenson, Katharine Monaghan, Zoe Lucker, Alexis Dziena, Yulia Nova, Nadine Jansen, or free pics of Anna Kournikova, Barbara Strozzi, Maria Sharapova, Helena Paparizou, Sofia Gubaidulina or Natassia Malthe? Nary a one. The cartwheels and jumps over cars and the shoulders of enemies are as real as the deficit.

After how many zillion genre pictures, one would think that the basic hand-to-hand and weapon combats would have exhausted themselves, but there are fresh ideas in each fight (or so I am given to understand from those more in the know). I have little familiarity with this particular breed of martial art, Muay Thai, or kickboxing films in general. But on the way out of the multiplex in Delaware where I caught a matinee screening (with two other guys in the entire theater), I caught a glimpse of the arcade games in the lobby. And it dawned on me: watching Ong Bak is like watching someone get to the highest level of a Street Fighter-type video/computer game. There has been roughly zero growth of character (on screen or as an audience member), but it's pretty cool to watch, and works for a few hours as a filigree of an entertainment. This is mindless escapism as it should be. Next to this, the pernicious and stalker-friendly Hitch is a true kick in the face.