Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior movie with Tony Jaa: Charismatic athlete in subpar action flick.- Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) movie review: Notwithstanding its athletic and charismatic lead, martial arts fighter Tony Jaa, Prachya Pinkaew’s juvenile, cliché-ridden, and unabashedly reactionary actioner should please only die-hard fans of the genre.
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior movie review: Puerile + reactionary martial arts actioner will please only fans of the genre
Fans of the martial arts genre will likely enjoy Prachya Pinkaew’s Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior – a.k.a. Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior – the story of a young country bumpkin lost in the city jungle while hunting for ruthless art smugglers. But no matter which of the three titles is used to sell it, Pinkaew’s simplistic, reactionary movie will in all likelihood fail to win many converts to the genre.
Here’s a very brief synopsis: A naive but fearlessly determined hick (Tony Jaa) searches for the nefarious villains who have stolen the head of his Thai village’s titular Buddha statue. When not in hot pursuit of the statue-decapitating thieves – or in hot escape from them – our hero spends his time honing his fighting skills at some Bangkok dive or other.
Hoary clichés
The chief problem with Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior lies in Pinkaew and Panna Rittikrai’s screenplay, which consists of a pile of hoary clichés – e.g., country people = kindness, courage, honest labor, love, tree-climbing; city people = dishonesty, cowardice, easy money, sex, club-fighting. And all this in a movie that aims to be as slick as your average big-city-made music video and as violent as your average free-for-all urban brawl.
Compounding matters, Pinkaew’s movie drags quite a bit (a mortal sin for a mindless action flick), its humor is puerile (unless you find it hilarious watching people being hit in the head, stomach, crotch, and other body parts), and most of the performers just go along for the ride.
If that weren’t all, Ong-Bak could also be accused of espousing racism: Most of the fight-club fighters our pure-as-holy-water Southeast Asian hero tears to pieces are sleazy, cheating Caucasians.
Star in the making Tony Jaa?
On the positive side, co-screenwriter Panna Rittikrai’s stunt/martial arts choreography is admittedly impressive, while leading man Tony Jaa is not only an outstanding athlete-cum-fighter – he is supposed to have performed his own stunts without the help of wires or digital enhancements – but he is also what is often referred to as “star material.”
Could Jaa become another Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan? Or perhaps another Jean-Claude Van Damme?
Well, for that to happen he needs a (at least halfway) decent vehicle that will allow him to display both his astonishing athletic skills and his not inconsiderable charisma. And, of course, an effective PR apparatus to promote him.
For now, all one can say with some assurance is that Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior is not the international-star-making vehicle Tony Jaa needs.
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003)
Director: Prachya Pinkaew.
Screenplay: Suphachai Sittiaumponpan.
From a screen story by Prachya Pinkaew & Panna Rittikrai.Cast: Tony Jaa. Petchtai Wongkamlao. Pumwaree Yodkamol. Suchao Pongwilai. Chumphorn Thepphithak. Cheathavuth Watcharakhun. David Ismalone. Hans Eric. Paul Gaius. Nick Kara.
“Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) Movie Review” endnotes
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior movie (2003) reviewed at the AFI FEST (website).
Tony Jaa Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior movie image: Magnolia Pictures.
“Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior: Juvenile + Reactionary Actioner” last updated in September 2021.
1 comment
Well you can’t win em all. Tony Jaa is an amazing fighter and athlete. I’ve seen a few behind the scenes clips of him performing his own stunts and it’s quite amazing. I think he would’ve made it in Hollywood a long time ago if he had a better grasp of English.
It just seems like he needs better scripts with a bit more diverse story lines. It seems like he’s always searching for something.