Ong Bak is the 2003 film directed by Prachya Pinkaew, choreographed by Panna Rittikrai, starring the great Tony Jaa as Ting, and Thai comedian Petchtai Wongkamlao and George (Humlae).
The thing with Tony Jaa is he doesn't have the screen presence on Bruce Lee, or the charisma of Jackie Chan, but what he can do is perform fight scenes better than anyone before him. It takes Jaa atleast twice as long as his predecessors to make a movie because of the one fact that makes him better then those before him - he doesn't use wire's! There is no jumping over house's 'Crouching Tiger' style, no mid air fights with opponents freezing still in mid air for 30 seconds, just Tony Jaa doing incredible feats of agility and skill. If anyone doesn't believe he's not using wires I suggest you look up 'Tony Jaa high kick' on you tube and watch in amazement.
The main story of the film is that a small poor Thai village the head of a ancient buddah statue named Ong Bak has been stolen. The statue is worshipped by the village's people so Ting decides he will find Ong Bak at any cost. This leads him to the big city were he meets his cousin Humlae (Wongkamlao) who has renamed himself George (for reasons I'll let you find out) who takes a interest in Ting's quest after seeing the amount of money the village have given him. The main story isn't exactly the most compelling in the world and if your looking for a strong plot I suggest looking elsewhere, but most people who buy this film will be getting it to watch Jaa's jump and fight which he happily does constantly.
Their journey leads into many fights and chases, with the scene where they are pursued down a busy Thai street really showcasing what Jaa can do. The fight scene's are breath taking and only rivalled by Jaa's other major film 'Warrior King' ('Tom-Yum-Goong' in some countries).
Audio
The sound isn't fantastic, with the sound effects in some of the fight scenes slightly out of sync. Depending on which version your store has you may end up with rock music in a lot of the scenes, or like me with hip-hop. The English dub sounds more like a mixture of local accents from around England than your usual American voice dub, at times sounding more like a British soap opera than martial arts film.
The Subtitles
I imagine because of the many different releases and different audio that has been used for this film a lot of dialogue may have been lost in translation (I've seen 3 different dvd version's with slightly different subtitles).
Picture Quality
The picture quality varies from scene to scene, with it being top notch in most of the fight scenes, but in other darker scenes it does suffer a bit.
Overall I really enjoyed this film and would recommend it to martial arts and action movie fans everywhere. I would be 5 starts if it wasn't for the loose story.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Martial Arts - Director: Prachya Pinkaew - Original Language: English\Vietnamese\Thai\Mandarin - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Tony Jaa, Bongkoj Khongmalai, Petchtai Wongkamlao
Production Year: 2006 - Martial Arts - Director: Ronny Yu - Original Language: Mandarin - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Nathan Jones, Jet Li
Martial Arts - Director: Prachya Pinkaew - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Nathan Jones, Bongkoj Khongmalai, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Tony Jaa
Production Year: 1981 - Martial Arts - Director: Kenji Misumi, Robert Houston - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Ohki, Akiji Kobayashi, Shin Kishida, Masahiro Tomikawa, Tomisaburo Wakayama
Experience the most breathtaking action spectacle of the year with martial arts ... more
phenomenon, Tony Jaa.Abandoned on the steps of a rural village temple shortly after his birth, Ting (Tony Jaa) grows up to become a master of Muay Thai (Thai Boxing) and a ...
Advantages: Amazing fight scenes and stunts, no wires so everything you see is for real. Disadvantages: The plots aren't amazing but still watchable, not for people who don't like foreign films.
![Ong-Bak [DVD] [2003]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/116858704.jpg "Ong-Bak [DVD] [2003]")
![Ong-Bak [Vanilla Version]-DVD](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/97327433.jpg "Ong-Bak [Vanilla Version]-DVD")
Aug 16th, 2008
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