JAA RULES
The explosive, world-class action of ‘Ong-Bak' brings us a new star from Thailand

~ By ANDY KLEIN ~
10th february 2005
lacitybeat.com

~ Thump or be thumped: Ting (Tony Jaa) mixes it up in Ong-Bak ~

s the Thai film indus-try has picked up steam in recent years, an increasing number of titles have made their way to the U.S. Except for the work of the Pang Brothers ( Bangkok Dangerous , The Eye ), most of these have been either small gay-themed movies ( Iron Ladies ) or big period spectacles ( Suriyothai , Bang Rajan ), none of which were likely to cross over to mass audiences. But now there's Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior , which is not merely the most exciting feature yet to emerge from that country, but is also the most exciting martial-arts film to arrive from Asia in the last decade, since the Hong Kong industry started its mid-'90s slide.

Like many great action films, Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior has a formulaic plot, populated with familiar character types. The movie opens in the small, dusty village of Nong Pradu, with a contest in which all the town's young men essentially run up a tree, trying to nab a prize. The winner, not surprisingly, is our hero, Ting (Tony Jaa), an earnest young student of Muy Thai, or Nine Body Weapons, the indigenous style of martial arts. He has promised his master never to use his skills to hurt anyone, but, of course, we know that's not going to last very long.

One night, a former villager named Don (Wannakit Siriput), long corrupted by life in the big city, returns home long enough to steal Ong-Bak – the head of the town's statue of Buddha – on behalf of a gang boss, who exports national treasures for profit. Ting is delegated to go to the city and retrieve Ong-Bak, which the town considers the source of its good fortune.

Ting gets in touch with Hum Lae (Petchthai Wongkamlao), the son of the village leader, who moved to the city to get an education but instead has dyed his hair blond, taken the name George, and become a gambler and scam artist. George is your basic lovable scoundrel, but the humorless Ting is not charmed, particularly when George tries to make money off Ting's fighting ability. (George is very similar to the Tom Arnold character in the 2003 Jet Li vehicle Cradle 2 the Grave .)

That's the setup; the details of where the story goes from there aren't really important. What is important are the ever-escalating action scenes that make up slightly under half the film's running time. The variety of action styles serves as a perfect calling card for both Jaa and director-cowriter-coproducer Prachya Pinkaew. In the first extended fight/chase sequence, Jaa leaps over cars, runs on the shoulders of his pursuers, and flings himself through a coil of what appears to be barbed wire … all without the use of harnesses, wires, or ropes. From that scene on, there is no doubt that Jaa is a born star.

The 28-year-old Jaa started training in martial arts when he was eight, in hopes of working in movies. His three big influences were Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Phanna Rithikrai, a veteran actor/director/stunt choreographer who became his master. “After I finished my freshman year in high school, I wanted to go live with him, but he said I should finish high school first,” Jaa said during an interview a few months ago, while in town to promote Ong-Bak . “So during my summer breaks, I would go to the sets of the movies to practice and to learn from him. After high school, I went to a physical education university to learn all kinds of martial arts and sports.”

As well as doing stunts, he worked on movies in all sorts of capacities, while dreaming of being an actor. “I worked as a stunt man on Thai movies and on Mortal Combat 2 , a Hollywood film that was shot in Thailand. As a stunt man, you're like a shadow for the actors.”

It would be hard to believe the filmmakers' claims about not using wires, had Jaa and his stunt crew not given us a live demonstration of his moves. “Absolutely no wires,” Pinkaew told me, “except in the tuk-tuk chase [ tuk-tuks are small three-wheeled taxis], where we used them on the tuk-tuks , not on the stuntmen. And Tony did all his own stunts.”

While working on music videos, Pinkaew had long dreamed of making an action film, inspired by Hong Kong movies, as well as by James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. He had some specific scenes in mind (including the tuk-tuk chase) but changed his conception of the project after meeting Jaa and Rithikrai.

“After seeing Tony's kung-fu moves, I incorporated them into it, but I really wanted to make a specifically Thai-style action movie, using Muy Thai,” said Pinkaew. “Tony was working as a stunt man, and, like most Thai stuntmen, he knew kung fu more than he knew Muy Thai, so we had to train him in Muy Thai and try to make him forget the kung-fu moves as much as possible.”

While Ong-Bak includes a number of fighting styles, there was a sense of national pride in emphasizing Muy Thai. “Muy Thai fighting is totally different from Chinese martial arts or any other kind of martial arts,” Pinkaew says. “Muy Thai fighting involves the nine parts of the body: the fists, the feet, the elbows, the knees, and the head.”

Jaa adds, “We want to be meticulous about making Muy Thai films, because there are so many kung-fu movies out there and so few Muy Thai films, so we put a lot of time and effort into making it look right.”

While the first chase and the tuk-tuk sequence show a clear Jackie Chan influence, a major distinguishing feature of the film's other fight sequences – which might turn off some viewers – is their sheer brutality. Only in the final battle in 1994's Drunken Master 2 has Chan come close to the level of visible pain that Jaa's character endures. “The goal,” Pinkaew said, “was to be both as real as possible and as close to authentic Muy Thai as possible … . Ong-Bak took three times as long to shoot as most Thai movies because of the action scenes.” The tuk-tuk scene alone took a month to complete.

Most of the rest of the cast came from the Thai TV industry. “Wongkamlao is a major comedy star,” Pinkaew said. While this is clearly Jaa's vehicle from almost every angle, Wongkamlao's George is the other crucial element in the film's dynamic. In some sense, he's the protagonist: Ting, with his serious manner and monomaniacal devotion to recovering the statue's head, is a character we look at rather than identify with, while George is a bundle of more recognizable human traits, both positive and negative. He is also the one who is most profoundly changed by events.

For its American release – subtitled, not dubbed, thank God – Magnolia Films has trimmed the film, mostly in subtle ways. (Without doing an A-B comparison with the original unsubbed Thai DVD, the only omissions I noticed were in a subplot that could have been dispensed with altogether, about Don's junkie girlfriend.) The original Thai score was excellent, but, for whatever reasons, it's been replaced by a new score, though much more tastefully than we've become accustomed to in, say, Miramax's disrespectful releases of Hong Kong movies. That is, the only rap song is during the closing credits; and we don't have to listen to “Kung Fu Fighting” even once.

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. Directed by Prachya Pinkaew. Written by Suphachai Sithiamphan; story by Prachya Pinkaew and Phanna Rithikrai. Martial arts and stunt choreography by Phanna Rithikrai and Tony Jaa. With Tony Jaa, Petchthai Wongkamlao, Pumwaree Yodkamol, Rungrawee Borrijindakul, Chetwut Wacharakun, Wannakit Siriput, and Sukhaaw Phongwilal. Starts Fri. at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood, Loews Cineplex Beverly Center, and Loews Cineplex Universal Studios.

02-10-05

 

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