Ong Bak, Movie Review

by Dave Roberts

At eighteen years old, I was obsessed with two things, becoming a heavy metal god (pending) and watching kung fu movies (in progress). One day a colleague, while discussing the most fucked up and impressive action movies from Asia, demanded that I went to the nearest shop with a World Cinema section and bought Ong Bak, a Thai movie that on paper sounds run-of-the- mill but blew my mind. Once I learned the mill that it was run of had no CGI, no wire work and some of the most amazing stunts captured on film I agreed, though reluctantly. As I suck at taking movie recommendations as much as I suck at heavy metal godliness this was out of character. Here’s my review.

Ong Bak is a film that could easily have been called ‘Look what Tony Jaa can do’ as the plot is so painfully typical and dated that it could put you off if you weren’t a fan already. A Muay Thai genius called Ting (Jaa) lives in a small village that are preparing for the festival, where they celebrate their personal Buddha , the titular Ong Bak. Someone steals the Buddhas face right of its stone cold neck and Ting volunteers to retrieve it but at no all costs to avoid fighting, because it’s dangerous. We see a brief scene of Ting train Muay Thai by himself, which is tantalising as hell. The level of control he has over his body is inspiring and humiliating as I force cold pizza into my mouth and nearly drink out’ve a not quite empty can of coke my girlfriend was using as an ash tray.

After accidentally wandering into the ring at a fight club Tony Jaa shows with a single kick, that we are in for an absolute beast of a martial arts movie. From this point on the whole film becomes about crowbarring in stupid situations to showcase the ludicrous talents of Jaa, and it’s breathtaking. Jaa has the sweetest most unassuming face, and the most appallingly (in the good sense) aggressive and yet stylised fighting that will cause you to wince and maybe do some push-ups.

One of the reasons I travelled to Asia to study martial arts in the first place was Ong-Bak with its stylised but intense use of Muay Thai and Muay Boran, which I did study briefly, and gained more respect for Tony Jaa in the process, because it is as hard as balls. On re-watching it this week I realised the no-longer eighteen years old part of my brain found the plot tedious and not engaging. I was tempted to skip scenes of dialogue for more fighting as it’s truly terrible, but as a portfolio for Tony Jaa this was an incredible way to be introduced to him and it holds up quite well for something with a budget lower than my bank balance.