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 It’s
been ages since we’ve seen Tony Jaa kick up his heels, and knees, and
fists on the big screen. Four years since our last glimpse of the man
hailed as reviving martial arts cinema with 2003’s Ong Bak. Muay Thai
was the new move thanks to Jaa, but then after 2005’s Tom Yum Goong {The
Protector}, the unexpectedly tragic story of a boy and his elephant,
Jaa went underground.
Fortunately for chop-socky fans, Jaa has returned, not only as the lead
in the sequel to his star-making Ong Bak, imaginatively titled Ong Bak
2, but this time Jaa has taken up the reins as director, guaranteeing
some of the most beautiful “hero” shots ever filmed and a seriously fun
Muay Thai good time.
Going
centuries into Thailand’s past, we are shown the downfall of a royal
dynasty. A violent coup has left the young prince Tien, orphaned,
hunted by rebels and left to fend for himself in the wilds of the
jungle. Kidnapped by a group of slave traders, and forced to fight in
gladiator-style combat in an alligator pit, the prince’s will to live is
noticed by an observer who is much more than he seems and takes the boy
under his wing and into his den of thieves collected from around the
world. The prince grows up a student of all different styles of martial
arts and shines so well in his adopted father’s eyes that he is made the
bandits’ leader, organizing successful raid after raid and eventually
exacting revenge not only on his former slave masters, but on the
traitors that destroyed his family.
Perhaps wisely, Jaa speaks perhaps three lines in the entire film,
letting his fists, knees elbows and other body parts do the talking. A
mash-up of Gladiator, Robin Hood, Bruce Lee’s Game of Death and even a
bizarre Empire Strikes Back pollination; Ong Bak 2 is overlong at 115
minutes, but Jaa keeps the action coming, and what action it is. We get
to see Jaa do his expert Muay Thai as well as his mastery at Shaolin
kung fu, kenjutsu, Polynesian grappling and Capoeira and it’s all great
fun to watch. Jaa’s first effort as a director deserves some praise,
though certainly not for everything in this film. His inability to
reign in some of the abundantly bad acting, particularly by the grown–up
version of his childhood sweetheart and a bad guy who must be the Thai
version of the late Richard Kiel gets no luv. Maybe it’s a cultural
thing, but really, repeated extreme close ups of nasty mouths spitting
nasty things into the camera is usually not big comedy in this country.
No kudos, either, for his inability to choose competent costume
designers - Over and over we see Tien’s adversaries battle him in
increasingly heavy outfits in the blazing Thai sun, all wearing silly
headgear so high and cumbersome they would topple over. Where Jaa gets
a pat on the back from me is in finding the key to the pet peeve I’ve
had with every non-Asian film that employs extreme hand-to-hand combat:
Jaa is a master of capturing close-up martial-arts fight cinematography.
My constant complaint about every single film that thinks a study of an
elbow and frenetic editing equals an exciting fight scene has been
stilled by Jaa’s use of wonderful staging, choreography and camera
placement to elegantly show non-Asian action director wannabes how it’s
done. Ong Bak 2’s climatic battle begins with Tien versus two ninjas
and is a wonderfully filmed symphony of violence. Unfortunately, this
is followed by an unending plethora of anonymous bad guys in those
aforementioned ridiculous outfits, all challenging a mostly victorious
Tien, who even recruits the help of a handy pachyderm friend {PSA: We
at The Diva Review do not advocate the use of elephants as furniture,
weapons or athletic equipment, no matter how cool looking those scenes
may have been.}. Because the villains are so indistinguishable and
comically multitudinous, that for as beautiful as the violence is, it
feels pretty empty and becomes wearisome after the first 20 minutes. If
Jaa had removed half of those glory shots I mentioned earlier - There’s
Tien standing heroically on a cliff in the sunset. There’s another
close up of Tien looking moody and mysterious. There’s seven minutes of
Tien busting some ancient moves infiltrating the enemy’s camp disguised
as a dancer (Jaa’s extremely developed Popeye-like calves give the
game away) - the film could have been whittled down to a taut,
exciting ninety minutes. The other thing that must be said is my
complete confusion as to why this film is even called Ong Bak 2. Until
literally the very last seconds, you don’t really know what connection
this story of this prince from the past has to do with the first film’s
modern day Jaa recovering the stolen gold idol. The tacked-on,
way-too-convenient explanatory voiceover is just ridiculous and cheapens
the already questionable fun. Why didn’t Jaa simply make this a
separate, original project instead of piggybacking on his earlier
success?
Eh,
petty nitpicking I suppose, when all I really want to see is Tony Jaa
doing what he does best and that’s beating the tar out of people, and
while burdened with an overly long, sloppily told story, we get that in
spades in Ong Bak 2.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
October 23rd, 2009
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