B Plus Movies

I trained for about a year and a half at an amazing martial arts school in Atlanta, once upon a time. The school, named the Francis Fong Academy, taught at least six or seven styles from Filipino stick fighting to  Brazilian jujitsu to Wing Chun Kung Fu. The classes were intense at times, always enjoyable and challenging, but there was one class, one art taught at the school that, while I admired it, I would look at and say “those guys are crazy.” Specifically, it was Muay Thai kickboxing.

If you’ve never seen it performed, I recommend checking out Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.

Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior is a primarily a vehicle to display the considerable talents of Tony Jaa, an up and coming martial arts star. This man does things with his body that most people only think possible in video games. In the tradition of one of his inspirations, Jackie Chan, he did all his own stunts in Ong-Bak,  including doing running jumps through hoops about the diameter of a hubcap and leaping over people using other people as launchpads.

But enough with the fanboy talk. Let’s talk about the movie.

Ong-Bak starts with Tony’s character living in a remote village and respected as the town’s golden boy, the protector of it’s golden Buddha statue, the title referenced Ong-Bak. The statue gets stolen by art smugglers and Tony has to go into the city to get it back. He hooks up with a cousin living in the city, a small time hustler who seems to be trying to forget his country past. The cousin helps Tony reluctantly, mostly because he thinks he can use Tony’s skills to make a lot of money in boxing matches, and after a few sidetracks, they eventually find out that their statue’s theives are headed up by a Bond worthy villian (complete with wheel chair and implanted voicebox) and his drug injecting psycho second in command badass. The two will face them (well mostly Tony) to return the village treasure and prove that good guys still win.

Ong-Bak has a lot of the hallmarks of a freshman movie. It goes down well trod roads in terms of plot and the characters are not exactly vast conudrums of personality.  The action is beautiful to watch but in some scenes appears forced and practically screams “hey, watch this… it’s going to be cool,” which would be really obnoxious if wasn’t actually so bloody cool.

I’ve seen precisely two Thai made movies, this and Monday’s murky gunplay drama Bangkok Dangerous. Based on those two extremes, I’m gladlly looking forward to exposing my eyeballs to more Thai work because of the potential and gutsy film making that they represent. Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior is not as challenging as some other films, but it is fun and visually interesting, a popcorn flick with a side of drunken noodles. Take a look at monday’s review to see what I thought of Bangkok Dangerous, but as for Ong-Bak, I give it a very enthusiastic B.

But I wouldn’t say that to Tony Jaa’s face. That guy could beat the crap out of me.

And now announcing, the very first B+ Poll:
I recently saw Watchmen in the theater, and now having had a week or so to brew the details in my head, I think it might be worth reviewing here. My reservation is that it’s a big budget movie that everyone has heard about, so not exactly the sort of thing I usually review here. Would you like to see me break character for Friday’s review and pass on my opinion of the movie or would you like another movie reviewed from the bargain bin?

Please leave comments below.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS