3/31/2021 0 Comments Ong Bak Film
These nine words represent the most astonishing element of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, the first Thai film to break through in the martial arts market.
Ong Bak Film Movie Impressed AtHaving seen documentaries showing how stunt men are flown from wires that are eliminated in post-production, having seen entire action sequences made on computers, I sat through the movie impressed at how real the action sequences seemed.Then I went to the Web site, and discovered that they were real.With the right lens and angle and slow-motion, you can make it look like an actor is defying gravity, when in fact he is simply making a big jump from a trampoline.![]() In Red Trousers (2004), a documentary about Hong Kong stunt men, we find that they perform a lot of falls simply by falling. Ong-Bak opens with a tree-climbing contest in which the competitors try to capture a red flag at the top of a tree, while kicking and shoving their opponents off the limbs. Say all you want about wide angle lenses that exaggerate distance, but we see the tree in an undistorted shot that establishes its height, and these guys are falling a long way and they are landing hard. The movie stars Tony Jaa, a young actor who is an accomplished stunt man and expert in Muay Thai boxing, a sentence I have typed just as if I had the slightest idea what Muay Thai boxing is. Jaa, who plays the hero, Ting, is an acrobat and stunt man in the league of Jackie Chan or Buster Keaton, and theres an early chase through city streets where he does things just for the hell of it, like jumping through a large coil of barbed wire, jumping over two intersecting bicycles, and sliding under a moving truck. This chase, and the tree-climbing scene, set the pace for the movie. It is 107 minutes long, and approximately seven minutes are devoted to the plot, which involves the theft of an ancient Buddhist statue from the heros village. One bloody sequence has him taking on three opponents in an illegal boxing club where enormous sums are wagered by Khom Tuan ( Sukhaaw Phongwilai ), the local crime lord. But I found when the movie was over that I had written down its title, and nothing else. Thats because theres really nothing to be done with this movie, except watch it. My notes, had I taken them, would have read something like this: Falls from tall tree. Barbed wire Fruit Cart Scene Persimmons everywhere Illegal boxing club. Chase scene with three-wheeled scooter-taxis, dozens of them. And so on, and on. The movie is based on the assumption, common to almost all martial arts movies, that the world of the hero has been choreographed and cast to supply him with one prop, location and set of opponents after another. Ting needs a couple dozen three-wheelers for a chase scene They materialize, and all other forms of transportation disappear. He fights 20 opponents at once Good, but no one is ever able to whack him from behind; they obediently attack him one at a time, and are smashed into defeat. The plot includes a pretty girl ( Pumwaree Yodkamol ), who I think is the girlfriend of George ( Petchthai Wongkamlao ), a friend of Tings from the village who has become corrupted by Bangkok and betrays him. I was paying pretty close attention, I think, but I cant remember for sure if Ting and the girl ever get anything going, maybe because any romance at all would drag the action to a halt for gooey dialogue. I think they look at each other like theyll get together after the movie.
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