Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior

Ong Bak: The Muay Thai Warrior (2003) Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
 
The village of Ong Bak is looking at their festival, held once every twenty four years, to be held in a week.  There is a contest to see who will be the village champion, which is basically a game of King of the Mountain, using a tree as the mountain.  These boys play rough.  One wins, and is acclaimed the hero.  This is Ting (Tony Jaa).
 
There is the prerequisite villain; in this case a sleazy kid trying to buy an antique medallion for a fraction of the worth.  When he is turned down by Ting's father, he waits around, and steals the head of the statue of Ong Bak.
 
Now it is the duty of the hero of the tree climbing contest to retrieve the sacred head of Buddha before the festival or the village is doomed!
 
In the big city of Bangkok there is a former villager, Hum Lae, (Petchtai Wongkamlao) now called George, who has lost his way to the fast life of the city.  You just know he will be redeemed in the course of the movie.  But in the meantime, he steals the money the village donated to help Ting along, losing it all in a gambling parlor, the boss of which, Saming (Chatthapong Pantanaunkul) happens to be the same person who wanted the medallion stolen from Ong-Bak village.  It is always helpful to have a memorable villain, and this wheelchair bound underworld boss smoking through his stomata is definitely that.
 
In order to win back the money that he stole, and enlist George's help, Ting must fight in Saming's bar, defeating the martial artists that pummel each other for the crowd's entertainment.  And in an unforgivable insult, Ting wins, causing Saming to lose money, and face, to one of his rivals.  There is only one course of action available to our smoky stomataed villain; have a herd of henchmen find Ting and George in the streets of Bangkok and beat them up.
Yes, I know it is a hackneyed plot; it has been done with variations since Bruce Lee in The Big Boss.  But that is not really a bad thing.  It is familiar, like the plot to a favorite faery tale.  It is comfortable.
 
But what really grabs you here are the visual impact, and the visuals of the impacts; the fight scenes are phenomenal.  They are fond of the "show the same kick from three angles so you can really FEEL how bad that man's face was kicked in" technique, once again made famous by Bruce Lee.  But there is a high energy enthusiasm that borders on Wuxia (the Wire Fu of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).  And you realize that this is some of the best high flying insane leaping through barbed wire bales and doing the splits to slide under a moving truck you have ever seen.  Now here is the important part.
It is all real.  Tony Jaa did all his own stunts, and there is no wire work, or CGI.  I am in love.
 
I mean, Tony is cute.  And he is not a bad actor (not great, but not bad).  But when he starts moving, suddenly he is beautiful, with the same lethal loveliness of a jaguar, and a sensuality all his own.  And his martial art is Muay Boran, the ancient precursor of Muay Thai.  The vicious energy of this close in fighting style is significantly different from the more fluid Kung Fu, featuring a great deal of elbow and knee strikes, and the shinbone as a lethal weapon.  It is a great showcase for the style, and interesting for that reason alone.
 
And there is a touch of humor in the show, as shown by the Tuk Tuk chase.  A Tuk Tuk is a motorcycle tricycle taxi.  That is the vehicle of choice for the high speed chase.
 
Ong Bak is one of the best martial arts movies of this millennium.
 
This review, like Tony Jaa, is Lean-N-Mean, weighing in at 666 words exactly.

This is part of my Everbody Was Kung Fu Fighting! Write Off.