MOVIE REVIEW
So I’m sitting in a screening room at noon of a recent weekday, watching Tony Jaa kick huge quantities of ass in “Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning” and thinking, This is too much fun to be considered work.
No, “Ong Bak 2” isn’t a great movie and, no, Tony Jaa isn’t a great actor. But so what? If you love the pure kinetics of a well-shot martial-arts film and feel as though the form hasn’t been the same since Jackie Chan and Jet Li went Hollywood, Tony Jaa is the most exciting figure to come along in years.
In his previous two films, “Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior” and “The Protector,” Jaa demonstrated an explosive physical style that seemed to be equal parts kung fu, gymnastics and Mighty Mouse. He unhesitatingly unleashed attacks on mountainous opponents – or mountains of opponents – blending speed, agility and aggressive fearlessness to mow them down by the dozen.
“Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior” was a 2003 film in which Jaa played a contemporary provincial forced to fight his way through the Bangkok underworld, to recover the stolen head of a sacred statue. His character had been taught martial arts by monks, though he’d been admonished never to use them in combat – until he was forced to defend himself.
In “The Protector” (2005), Jaa was in similar recovery mode – this time traveling to Australia to recover an elephant and its baby that had been stolen by poachers. “The Protector” featured one of the most amazing sequences I’ve seen in recent years, as Jaa fought his way through a seemingly endless series of opponents while working his way up several stories of a broad staircase in a multi-tiered building full of restaurants and lounges – all in a single, extended shot.
“Ong-Bak 2” marks Jaa’s directorial debut; he also choreographed the action. The film isn’t exactly a prequel; indeed, aside from the title – and a glimpse of the statue from the first film, it bears no relation to the original.
The film moves the action back to 15th-century Thailand, where Jaa plays Tien, the son of a murdered nobleman. Taken in a by a tribe of bandits as a boy, he is trained in all weapons and disciplines, becoming so skilled that he takes over as head of the tribe. Then he sets out to exact revenge for the death of his parents at the hands of the usurping despot.
Plotwise, the film moves forward by leaps and jerks, occasionally flashing back to remind us of Tien’s origins and motivation. Its finale seems like a dead end, one that deflates the action, rather than building to a catharsis.
Until then, Jaa pulls the audience into a world in which battle is a given and a constant. Jaa himself is a whirlwind, amazing to watch because he knows how to frame the action so you see it clearly – rather than slicing and dicing it to give the impression that more is happening than really is. He doesn’t need tricks; Jaa is a physical wonder who, like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee before him, does his own stunts and fights his own battles. While the punches may be pulled, they still seem to connect with bruising impact.
There’s also an amazing sequence in which Jaa scrambles across the top of a herd of rampaging elephants with a cat-footed grace and balance that’s remarkable. Not that the sequence has anything to do with the plot itself (it’s later passed off as a kind of initiation that Tien passes at the bandits’ bidding) – but it’s certainly exciting to watch. Later, Jaa uses an elephant as a prop in a battle against several warriors – as a shield, a foil and even a weapon, as he darts over, under, around and on top of it while fighting off his enemies.
The script problems aside, “Ong-Bak 2” marks a stellar directing debut. Can Jaa act? Who cares? I’m happy just to watch him fight his way across Thailand, if that’s what he wants to do.
