“You’re being a bad loser.”

Drake’s rating: Two flying knees and a rapid elbow smash

Drake’s review: In the Mutant Matinee episode on martial arts, I mentioned studying both karate and kung-fu for a few years when I was younger. Now that’s important to this particular review since, while I don’t have Flinthart’s extensive martial arts background, I was decent enough at it to have some fun and learn how to throw a variety of punches and kicks without looking too ridiculous.* And in the years** since, it’s also been a source of personal entertainment to watch a karate flick here and a kung-fun flick there and spot some familiar moves and maneuvers, and to think to myself, “Hey, I know what that person is doing!”

Then I watched Tony Jaa in Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior, and realized that I know nothing.

Nothing.

Because watching Tony Jaa flip, jump, and leap across the screen is like seeing a martial arts movie for the very first time. Anything and everything you might expect to see a human being do gets turnedon its head, and you can only watch, jaw hanging open in amazement, as Jaa spins himself effortlessly through the air throwing knees and elbows, landing with barely a hair out of place. And then, a split-second later, he’s in the air again and you’re left wondering just what he’s going to do next.

There’s a great chase scene in Ong-Bak that sees our hero Ting (Jaa) on the run through the streets of Bangkok from a score or so of ruffians. This is a fantastic showcase for Jaa’s impressive athleticism as he bounds over carts, slides under a truck while doing the splits and dives through a circle of barbed wire coincidentally being carried across the street by two workers. It’s an obvious homage to the work of men like Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan, but it’s also a brilliant sequence that shines a spotlight on Jaa’s unique talents in an entertaining way.

But of course Ong-Bak is a martial arts flick, so we get fight scenes as well. And again, these scenes take advantage of Jaa’s impressive abilities, as Ting dispatches opponent after opponent with flying kicks, roundhouse punches, and devastating elbows, all part of Thailand’s homegrown Muay Thai martial art.

Jaa and stunt coordinator Panna Rittikrai go all out for these sequences, with Ting besting one opponent after another as he makes his way through Bangkok on a quest to retrieve a Buddha head stolen from his village. And Ting really has no interest in fighting. He’s intent on becoming a monk and only wants to retrieve the head so that he can finish his training and meditate in peace.

However, in the big bad city Ting finds himself up against criminals who have no time for monks, whether they’re proficient in Muay Thai or not. He finds some help in the form of Humlae, a man from his village who left years ago, but Humlae himself is mixed up in shady dealings and isn’t exactly the reliable sort. Still, Ting doesn’t have much choice if he wants to get the Buddha head back, since he’s a fish out of water on the streets of Bangkok.

And that’s about all that I want to say about this movie. If you’re at all interested in martial arts flicks or good old-fashioned action movies that rely on stupendous stunt sequences rather than computer generated effects, then I cannot recommend Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior enough. It is one heck of a roller coaster ride from beginning to end, featuring displays of martial arts and acrobatics by Tony Jaa at the top of his game. In this, he forced his way into the movie scene as a future international superstar.

And if all of that isn’t enough, there’s also a tuk tuk chase! C’mon, you know you have to see that!

*Citation needed but conspicuously absent.

**Decades.

Intermission!

• Starting off with a bunch of Thai stuntmen earning their pay racing to the top of a giant tree.
• Ting accidentally walks into a fight and then ends it with one spectacular kick.
• The bar fight feels like one of those 1990s fight-based video games, with escalating difficulty as each new opponent steps up. That’s honestly perfect for this movie.
• Never bring a refrigerator to a Thai boxing match.
• A tuk tuk chase! This is just so good.
• If you have to smoke thru a hole in your neck, maybe stop smoking.
• Feet of flaming fury!
• Ting breaks a motorcycle helmet into three pieces with his knee. Really too bad for the guy still wearing it.
• Dropping his sword and running. That’s the smartest guy in the room.