Before martial arts films became associated with art-house prestige ?? la \Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"" and Zhang Yimou's 2004 one-two punch with ""Hero"" and ""House of Flying Daggers,"" a good kung fu flick was like a good porn-the draw is the action, not the story.
In fact, the story often becomes a major sticking point, only serving to briefly but frustratingly delay gratification; whether it's sex or ass kicking, we really don't need much of an explanation. The latest martial-arts phenomenon, ""Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior,"" is an old school throwback to the genre, sans wires or CGI, with a carbon-copy-of-a-carbon-copy storyline culled from Jean-Claude Van Damme's body of work stringing together sensational stunts and action sequences.
""Ong Bak"" is meant to announce the arrival of an unquestionably gifted martial artist, Tony Jaa, who plays poor orphan Ting. Ting is studying to be a monk but finds himself obliged to bust some heads after a Bangkok crime syndicate pilfers his poverty-stricken village's Buddha head (the titular Ong Bak). After arriving in Bangkok, Ting introduces thugs aplenty to his Muay Thai fighting style with the help of hapless gambler buddy Hum Lae (Thai comic Petchthai Wongkamlao).
This involves repeatedly putting foot to ass in a sleazy fight club overseen by a sinister, wheelchair-using gangster with a voice modulator in between evading hordes of snarling baddies.
Yes, the ""stolen holy statue"" plot is about as common as the ""pizza guy visits a horny housewife"" plot, but again, that matters little. However, what sinks ""Ong Bak"" is its veritable lack of any quality outside of the show-offy action sequences. Director Prachya Pinkaew is barely competent and burdened by the constantly annoying habit of repeating the action. This disrupts the rhythm and takes a sizable amount of the verve out of the action; this is a shame, because the sequences themselves are stringently, viscerally choreographed.
Jaa is a bona fide action hero, possessing the small stature and athleticism of Buster Keaton, the daredevil grace of early Jackie Chan, the acrobatic brutality of Jet Li, and the seemingly invincible showmanship of Bruce Lee-but this is a 105-minute audition tape masquerading as a feature film.
Wongkamlao and especially his shrieking tomboy sidekick (Pumwaree Yodkamol) perpetually grate on the nerves, the use of the Stephen Hawking-esque villain is bizarre, misplaced camp and thanks to the amateurish lighting, much of the film is barely visible. ""Ong Bak"" is the kung-fu equivalent of a crappy student film boasting Robert De Niro in the cast. Once Jaa teams up with a competent director, he may rival Li and Chan (but never Lee), but this borderline-awful film can only put his foot in the door.
As a film, it's a laughable failure, but as a showcase for Jaa's jaw-dropping agility, ""Ong Bak"" delivers in spades. And, though Jaa serves up one mean knuckle sandwich after another, the numerous escapes are as virtuosic as any display of martial-arts skill caught on film since Lee's untimely death. Seeing Jaa leapfrog over cars, do the splits underneath an SUV, somersault over canvas and fruit stands and literally jump through hoops makes for undeniably thrilling stuff, perhaps justifying the chopsocky hokum constituting the remainder of the film.
At one point, after dispatching a cocky musclebound Aussie, Jaa proclaims, ""The Mustang has just galloped on your face."" Let's hope Hollywood catapults Jaa into bigger and better things, not to mention much more face-galloping.
