telophase: (Mark - ossu! // art:  telophase)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2006-03-26 01:40 am
Entry tags:

Ong-Bak

Just watched Ong-Bak. Or, rather, just had Ong-Bak on in the background while I ran about and did other stuff. This means I missed a lot of plot which, as far as I could tell from the bits of plot I managed to catch, was all to the good.

Ong-Bak is a Thai kick flick, featuring the very pretty and very violent martial art known as Muy Thai, and starring the very pretty and very violent Tony Jaa. These are just about the only two reasons for watching it, because the story phones it in. No, not even phones it in, it phones a neighboring country and they have to send a kid on an elephant to go get it.

The basic idea is that Ting (Jaa) is a young man in a rural Thai village, who is a devout follower of the peaceful Buddhist religion, and as such, has been highly trained in one of the most vicious fighting systems out there. Plot happens, which results in the head of the village's small statue of Buddha (the Ong-Bak of the title) being stolen by a no-good village man who's moved to Bangkok and is working for a gangster who runs drugs and antiquities, so Ting has to go to the wilds of Bangkok and retrieve it. If he doesn't retrive it, the village will be destroyed, and this is seen at one point in the movie where the well has run dry and there's lots of dust around. This made little sense to me, because I have obviously not read enough about Buddhism. In my studies, I seem to have missed the aspect of Buddha that is a vengeful deity who will destroy an entire village because of a decapitated statue. Peace, love, non-attachment, and don't steal my head.

Once Ting gets to Bangkok, he manages to get roped into underground fighting, despite being a peaceful Buddhist who only wants the head of Buddha back. WHy he does is plot. Don't bother with it. There's a pretty impressive street chase scene when a gang chases Ting and the Doomed Comedy Sidekick (TM) that's almost worthy of Jackie Chan, wherein Tony Jaa gets to show off his leaping and sliding skills. And then more underground fighting, and eventually a showdown in a cavern where the bad guy has a gang slicing the head off of a giant statue of Buddha, for some reason.

My basic advice about the movie is to rent it for cheap, put it on, leave the Thai soundtrack on and don't worry about the subtitles, and then fast-forward through any plot. You won't miss a thing.

The three reasons to watch it are: Tony Jaa, Muy Thai, and the GIANT KILLER BUDDHA HEAD OF JUSTICE!!! at the end. Tony Jaa's abs are a special highlight. The cinematography is pretty good, too: they obviously spent the script budget on the cinematography and had to bribe the intern to write the script.



Ong Bak, starring Tony Jaa's abs.

Image hosting by Photobucket


Tony Jaa, cute in that vaguely doofy sort of way.

Image hosting by Photobucket


Jaa spends a good deal of the movie not actually touching the ground. This also illustrates a theory I have that goes much like this: Bangkok residents are so jaded that nothing, but nothing will faze them in the least. And, as you can tell from this shot, it starts young. Note how none of the kids are paying the slightest attention to the man leaping over them, pursued by a street gang only about fifty feet away.

Image hosting by Photobucket


And again: note that there's only one guy even bothering to look at Tony Jaa leaping and doing the splits over this rack of unidentifiable sharo metal implements. He's probably thinking "I've seen better."

Image hosting by Photobucket


And when carrying a large loop of barbed wire attached to a stick, as you do, people probably jump through it all the time. At least accoring to that guy on the left.

Image hosting by Photobucket


This picture by itself doesn't really have a purpose except to draw your attention to the featurless garage door on the left, because....

Image hosting by Photobucket


...a message appears a split second later, before Jaa's even finished his leap, reading "Hi Speilberg. Let do it together."

Image hosting by Photobucket


And again with the jaded Bangkok residents. This guy's just had a guy leap over his car and is about to be mobbed by a street gang. Note how he's still casually got his elbow up.

Image hosting by Photobucket



And then Jaa and the gang round a street corner ... and the same car shows up again. Marauding street gangs must be considered just a minor nuisance, like squirrels.

Image hosting by Photobucket



Now we hit some of the underground fights, where they got a bunch of drunk GIs to act as extras. The big fuzzy guy never had his nationality stated, but since they were hitting the "America shows respect to Thai martial arts" theme really hard at the end of the scene, I think he's supposed to be American. In which case, he inexplicably has an Aussie accent.

Image hosting by Photobucket


This is really what you rented the movie for:

Image hosting by Photobucket



And this:

Image hosting by Photobucket


For those who don't know, Muy Thai (also known as Thai kickboxing), is pretty vicious and features lots of knee and elbo strikes as well as kicks. I think the idea is to hit your opponent with whatever body part is handy. Case in point: Tony Jaa can defeat all opponents with his patented Crotch-FuTM!

Image hosting by Photobucket



But despite suffocating his opponent with his crotch, he's still a good Buddhist boy who respects his opponent:

Image hosting by Photobucket



There is a big car-chase-fu scene starring these three-wheeled taxicabs, which will never not be funny:

Image hosting by Photobucket



You'll note they explode as easily as American cars do.

Image hosting by Photobucket


And another shot of Tony Jaa's abs, sicne they're one of the best parts of the movie.

Image hosting by Photobucket



The movie also has a cameo by some Burmese abs.

Image hosting by Photobucket


In addition to Crotch-FuTM, Jaa is a master of Elbow-Fu:

Image hosting by Photobucket


And more Elbow-Fu.

Image hosting by Photobucket


And a third variety of Elbow-Fu. Jaa is nothing if not creative.

Image hosting by Photobucket


And then he add a little bit of variety by going in for some Knee-FuTM

Image hosting by Photobucket


When all seems darkest, never fear. The Lord Buddha is there smiling benevolently upon you, ready to crush all opponents with his mighty rolling head.

Image hosting by Photobucket


Image hosting by Photobucket


And in the end, Tony Jaa gets to wear a bad bald cap shave his head and ride an elephant. The village need no longer cower in fear that a giant rolling head of the vengeful yet merciful Buddha will appear out of nowhere and strike them down, for they have the head of their Ong-Bak statue back.

Image hosting by Photobucket

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
(will be screened if not validated)
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
No Subject Icon Selected
More info about formatting