Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior was a genuine cross-cultural sensation,
grossing a cumulative $10.5 million overseas and pulling in another $4.5
million via a solid spring 2005 release in the
States
including the Best Asian Film Award at the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival 2003
in
movie was a hit with both audiences and critics all over the world, attracting
legions of fans and making star Tony Jaa an overnight sensation.
for Jaa and director Prachya Pinkaew, and after an opening that doesn’t skimp
on serene evocation, it’s a relentlessly paced, 82-minute dash that will
solidify the personable Jaa’s place within the stable of far Eastern action-hero
elite, especially with Jet Li’s alleged impending retirement from such genre
fare and Jackie Chan — who cameos here in a wordless, non-action scene that
serves to pass the baton from one generation of martial arts screen star to the
next — turning 52 earlier this year.
down when a notorious Asian gang steals his family’s prized elephants. As a
somewhat hokey prologue informs us, Thai kings have for centuries rode
elephants into battle, and — their revered status still culturally affirmed —
they remain protected by a proud legion of ancestral warriors who practice Muay
Thai martial arts. The pachyderms of Kham’s father (Sotorn Rungruaeng),
including Por Yai (an elephant named Sambat), were to be offered as a token of
devotion to His Majesty the King of Thailand, but they are stolen, and Kham’s
father murdered in the mayhem. Kham takes off in pursuit, and moments later
we’re in a muddy river, enjoying the exact sort of cathartic speedboat chase
that this summer’s somber Miami Vice
really should have had.
Kham heads down under to unravel a conspiracy that leads him to gangster
restaurateur Madame Rose (Jin Xing) and her thuggish henchman Johnny (Johnny Tri
Nguyen). After promptly stepping into a stolen cab upon his arrival, Kham
learns that there are others, too, who do not wish the truth to get out, and with
the help of a disgraced, Thai-born police detective, he must battle almost
impossible odds if he is to reclaim his beloved animal.
Protector helps establish a new tradition of Thai action cinema. While
infused with beats of humor both definitely intentional (particularly in some
of the witty martial arts choreography by Jaa and Panna Rittikrai) and less
suavely so (some of the accented televised news reportage within the movie is
derisible, and makes no sense within the context of the movie’s Australian
setting), the movie is, appropriately, so fleet of foot as to not unfashionably
wear the burdens of its improbabilities. The Wu-Tang Clan’s the RZA contributes
some original music, as does composer Howard Drossin, but the film is also
marked by the weird and incongruous insertion of R&B and soul music in a
few other passages — one supposes additions particular to the movie’s Stateside
release.
Protector isn’t striving for acute realism, and it gets back to its bone-breaking
symposium fairly quickly. Muay Thai is a blend of pressure-point, hand-to-hand
martial arts and constant motion — the same principle upon which the emergent
discipline of parkour is based — and Jaa, while not as shaggily identifiable as
the aforementioned Chan, is a solid screen presence, and certainly nearly as
skilled.
and imagination that went into making the film, and rivals Oldboy’s infamous hallway sequence for sheer maniacal verve. An
uninterrupted, four-minute take within The
Protector shows off action movie artistry at its most elegant, finding
Kham, punching, kicking and jumping his way past and quite literally through
dozens of assailants (and furniture — perhaps part of Ikea’s Fall Breakaway
Collection) as he makes his way up a four-story staircase to confront Johnny.
lower-budgeted, more intelligently staged genre fare as a sort of practical
antidote to CGI excess, The Protector’s
effort is unique in its emphasis on harmony. The requisite viciousness is
intact, to be sure, but it also highlights (in at least slightly realistic
fashion) strategic retreat, and the advantages of picking both specific points
and moments of attack — something action movies very rarely attempt to convey,
and even less frequently get right. What makes this scene sing are its perfect
imperfections — sometimes Kham or a tossed baddie goes through glass or a door
or a vase, sometimes they bounce awkwardly off.
Technically, The
Protector’s pièce de résistance arrives after Kham has fought his way past
one comically gargantuan thug, T.K. (Nathan Jones, 6’11” and 360 pounds), only
to be set upon by three more and a
return engagement from Jones’ character in advance of a showdown with Madame
Rose. For my money, though, it might involve Kham’s showdown with a legion of
hard-charging, regular-sized henchman — in a scene that spins giddily into a
cracked, absurdist showcase of all manner of broken bones, which literally have
to total in the three to four hundred range. (I hope the foley artists got paid
a bit extra for this gig…)
in eidetic fashion, The Protector did
leave me with at least one lasting fancy: that I could sound a foghorn and
unleash a wave of roguish BMX skate bandits. That would be almost as useful as
having Jaa as my wingman. Almost… (The Weinstein Company, R, 82 minutes)