Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior

Thai martial arts star Tony Jaa is being touted as the heir-apparent to Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li--and in Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, he certainly displays refined, enthrallingly focused, breathtakingly acrobatic grace (even when he's simply practicing his Muay Thai kung-fu style in precision exercises). Playing a young rural villager venturing to the big city to retrieve a stolen Buddha, he's soon fighting gangsters, climbing walls, sliding under cars, and literally jumping through barbwire hoops. But by the third or fourth series of stunts and fierce showdowns, the lack of creativity begins to drag the picture down: as imaginative, awe-inspiring, and often brutal as Jaa's punches, kicks, swirls, and tricks may be, several are recycled in scene after scene, and even the stunts grow tiresome when shown repeatedly from every available camera angle at every conceivable camera speed. Ong-Bak has a raw, dirty, gritty visual style that mixes well with the no-holds-barred smack-downs and do-it-yourself stunts, but this film would just be an assembly-line B-movie import without Jaa's unique, sinuous brand of chop-socky. Optional. [Note: DVD extras include a French rap music video with star Tony Jaa and a "making-of" on the video (11 min.), three selected B-roll scenes of stunt footage (7 min.), a live Jaa performance before an audience (3 min.), a demonstration of “The 8 Movements of Muay Thai” (2 min.), a one-minute promo video featuring the RZA (of Wu-Tang Clan fame), and trailers. Bottom line: a relatively small if interesting extras package for an eye-opening if somewhat repetitive film.] (R. Blackwelder)[Blu-ray Review—Feb. 16, 2010—Magnolia, 105 min., in Cantonese w/English subtitles, R, $24.99—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 2005's Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior features a nice transfer and a 5.1 DTS-HD soundtrack. Blu-ray extras are identical to those on the standard DVD release, including a French rap music video with star Tony Jaa and a “making-of” on the video (11 min.), three selected b-roll scenes of stunt footage (7 min.), a live Jaa performance before an audience (3 min.), a demonstration of “The 8 Movements of Muay Thai” (2 min.), a brief promo featuring the RZA (of Wu-Tang Clan fame), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid Blu-ray debut—timed to coincide with the DVD/Blu-ray release of the sequel—for this popular action flick.]