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Ong-Bak (2003)


Ong-Bak (2003)


6/10


Starring
Tony Jaa
Petchtai Wongkamlao
Pumwaree Yodkamol


Directed by Prachya Pinkaew


I have never seen Ong-Bak before, but after seeing it, I have to say it's an okay movie. The cinematography wasn't that great, and the lines were cheesy, but the action and stunts were good enough to keep me going.

It has a weird start, which almost made me not finish the movie, but my determination came from the fact that when I was in university, this was a film everyone had seen but me. In the end, it was worth it, and I liked the way Ting (played by Tony Jaa) wasn’t portrayed as overly naive. He was sharp and smart, even though his cousin seemed to want to take advantage of him at every turn.

The fights were cool to see, but there were times when it felt like a showcase. I felt like there were moves he did just to show us what he could do. Well, if you want to see what he can do, this movie doesn't hold back, and note, he did all his stunts.

The movie starts in a village in Thailand, where a young man named Ting is very skilled in Muay Thai. Ting was trained to know that fighting for no just cause is wrong. We also meet a greedy man who wants to buy artifacts from the village. The village seems to have many artifacts that could fetch good money.

The same man returns and steals the head of a Buddha statue named Ong-Bak. This devastates the villagers, and one of them sees who stole it. The information of the thief’s whereabouts in Bangkok is given to Ting, who volunteers to go get the head back.

Ting was to find his cousin, who stays in Bangkok, so he could assist with accommodation and the search. Unknown to the villagers, Ting's cousin, Humlae, has become a nobody, unable to pay his own way and in so much gambling debt that his life is in danger. Humlae and his friend Muay are regular scammers on the street who are in too deep for their own good.

Ting finds Humlae and gets dragged into his mess, while still trying to locate the stolen statue head.

The movie plot isn’t that exciting when I think about it, but the stunts were. The movie is good to watch for the stunts and the fights. As long as you can overcome the distaste of repetition when he does a cool stunt. Seeing him do it again from different camera angles may look cool the first time, but then becomes annoying when it happens all the time.

See it if you want to watch the movie that gave Tony Jaa his big break.

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