This review will be spoiler-free!
How to Watch:Tubi.tv(free membership, periodic advertisements)
Runtime: 1hour 45 minutes
Language: Thai with English subtitles automatically
Director: Prachya Pinkaew
Writers: Panna Rittikrai (story), Prachya Pinkaew (story), Suphachai Sittiaumponpan (screenplay)
Rating: R(US)
Release Date: 02/11/2005
Style: Action, Martial Arts, Muay Thai
For more details on the movie, you can visit it’s IMDB page.
When The World Was Formally Introduced To Muay Thai And Tony Jaa!
There are times when I have to remind myself that 2005 was fourteen years ago. It doesn’t seem that long ago that Muay Thai and Tony Jaa made a huge splash in the martial arts movie world. While the martial art of Muay Thai was not necessarily a secret, it was not widely known among the general populace. This movie did for Muay Thai, and Tony Jaa, what Enter The Dragon did for Kung Fu and Bruce Lee. Heck, I distinctly remember the claims that Tony Jaa was the “Next Bruce Lee”, a claim made many times before for other martial artists getting their first big USA release.
Regardless of all of the hype thrown around about Muay Thai and Tony Jaa, the movie performed pretty well at the box office earning over $1.3 million on its opening weekend. This is kind of impressive considering that neither the star or the subject matter were well known at the time.
However, this was one of those movies that I had never seen in more than bits and pieces until recently. I was never trying to avoid seeing it, but I just never sat down to specifically watch it. So now that I have, what did I think of it?
Movie Review: 3/10
The Good
Right off the bat, you can tell that the movie is older, and was shot within a modest budget. However, that doesn’t keep the viewer from enjoying what is presented here. The story we are told directly supports the adventure the creative team takes you on for the movie. It does go into some background on Thai religious beliefs and sacred artifacts, giving you enough to understand the motivations of both the protagonists and the antagonists. The scenes are shot well and wide. There are no noticeable continuity errors in editing that take you out of the movie. There are scenes in the countryside and in the city which offer a nice visual change-up and a fish-out-of-water angle for the story.
The Bad
While I said the story directly supports the adventure that the movie takes you on, I do not mean that it is a great story on its own. It is obvious that the story was written to do just enough to get you from one action sequence to the next, with bits of necessary dialogue to tell you why the characters are doing what they are doing. Tony Jaa pops with visual charisma, but his character is written thinly. His character’s name is Ting, however, it could have been anything else and it still would not have mattered. This is the same for the primary villain and most of the side characters. In fact, only George(Petchtai Wongkamlao) has much of what can be considered a character arc and is remotely memorable. Additionally, there are a couple of noticeable stunt-double-switcheroos for some of Tony Jaa’s adversaries at times.
While none of this makes the movie unwatchable, I can’t ignore that the overall motivations of most of the characters are not explained as well as they could be and there are virtually no character arcs to speak of.
Martial Arts Review: 9/10
The Good
While there may not have been a lot of story to “chew” on, there is significantly more to enjoy on the martial arts side of the review. Tony Jaa absolutely pops on screen during his fight scenes. The fight scenes have a pretty good pace throughout and look great. The director did a great job with keeping the camera shot wide as well as keeping the camera cuts appropriately long and unbroken when possible. When editing cuts did happen, I never lost continuity of where things are and who is doing what. Additionally, during chase scenes, there was some good use of Parkour-like action. The various antagonists that Tony Jaa’s character had to fight also exhibited a high degree of capability with their choreography as well.
The Bad
While it was nice to see some Parkour-like action in the chase scenes, some of the set-ups that would allow Tony Jaa to exhibit his abilities looked highly contrived at times. Not deal-breakers for sure, but they felt unnatural which took me out of the movie briefly. There were a couple of obvious stunt-double substitutions. Thankfully there was not much to gripe about in this part of the review.
Overall Rating And Review: 6/10
Taking everything I have said here into account, I do think this is a good martial arts movie to watch. While the story is nothing new, and fairly shallow, that should not keep you from enjoying Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. It is a blast watching Tony Jaa mow through some of the early challengers he encounters, and it doesn’t get stale near the end either! If you want to watch a simple Muay Thai-infused action movie, and don’t really care about a story, then you’ll probably enjoy Ong-Bak: The Muay Thai Warrior
Have you seen the movie? What did you think?
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Have you ever seen the Thai movie Born to Fight? Not the movie from the 2000s but the original from like the 80s. It starred Panna Rittikrai, one of Tony’s masters, and Panna did a lot of similar stunts that Tony does in Ong Bak. There’s also a scene where Panna uses multiple styles similar to Ong Bak 2. It’s a unique double feature.