ONG BAK
By Andrew Carey
Movies these days seem to attract labels such as “heartwarming” or “poignant” far too often for my liking. That’s why I got so pumped up after seeing a trailer for Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior that I almost kicked through a sliding glass door. The wait for its release was long and arduous, but absolutely 100% worth it. Maybe even 123%. Ong-Bak is one of the few movies I’ve seen that had the entire audience behaving like drunken football fans. We hooted, we hollered, we shouted “Ohhhhhhh” and threw up our hands as if in victory.
In other words, Ong-Bak is frickin’ fantastic.
The story begins with our hero, Ting (Tony Jaa), demonstrating his skill and agility by winning a contest in his remote Thai village. Ting wins a coveted position in the village’s upcoming festival, which is suddenly put in jeopardy when a drug dealer steals the head from the village’s prized Ong-Bak (Buddha) statue. Ting sets off to Bangkok to recover the stolen head, without which the village is doomed to be infertile. Along the way, he meets a con man from his village, his street urchin partner, a crazed Burmese kick boxer and a gang lord who speaks through a mechanical voice box.
Few of these characters are really developed, and the story isn’t exactly Citizen Kane, but who really cares? Ong-Bak is all about action, which it delivers in great droves. Ting is told by his master early on that he must never use the art of Muay Thai that he has been taught, and Ting manages to hold on to this promise for about ten minutes. Then, for lack of a better term, the ass-whippings begin. Jaa and the other performers may not have much in the way of acting ability, but they more than make up for it by delivering some astounding stunts. Several sequences had me cringing, then cheering, then simply staring in awe. The fact that the whole film was performed without wires or CGI makes the action even more amazing.
Ong-Bak isn’t without its flaws, though most of them are easily excused. Lame acting? Somewhat hackneyed plot? One-dimensional characters? It’s a martial arts movie, what do you expect? Less excusable, however, is the poor lighting in several fight scenes, making it difficult to see some of the flying fists and feet. On the whole, though, it’s not too bad.
So, should you see Ong-Bak? Well, if you enjoy seeing a lone hero beating the stuffing out of dozens of bad guys in a truly awe-inspiring way, then the answer is a resounding yes! If not, then you can go watch Hitch or some other piece of crap. Here’s hoping that Ong-Bak will start a new trend in moviemaking.