Tom-Yum-Goong (2005)

Tom-Yum-Goong is a 2005 Thai martial arts action film starring Tony Jaa. The film was directed by Prachya Pinkaew, who also directed Jaa’s prior breakout film Ong-Bak. As with Ong-Bak, the fights were choreographed by Jaa and his mentor, Panna Rittikrai. The film was distributed as Warrior King in the United Kingdom, as The Protector in the United States, as Thai Dragon in Spain, as Revenge of the Warrior in Germany, and as Honor of the Dragon in Russia and CIS countries. In India, it was named Haathi Mere Saathi (literally elephant, my partner), from a name of another Bollywood film starring Rajesh Khanna.

Plot.

Kham is the last of a family line of guards who once watched over the King of Thailand’s war elephants. Traditionally, only the most perfect elephants could successfully defend the throne, and very great care was taken in raising them. Kham grows up forming close relations to his elephant, Por Yai and his calf, Kohrn. During Songkran festival, the elephants are stolen with help from Mr. Suthep, a local MP and his son who are collaborating with elephant poachers. Kham raids Mr. Suthep’s house and beats up the poachers. He intimidates Suthep into telling him that the elephants are in the hands of Johnny, a Vietnamese gangster who runs a Thai restaurant named Tom Yum Goong Otob in Sydney, Australia. Kham arrives in Sydney and is immediately taken hostage by a wanted thief posing as a taxi driver. Sydney police officers Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao), a Thai-Australian, and his partner Rick corner the thief while he holds Kham at gunpoint. However, a second policeman, Inspector Vincent, has been following Kham since he left the airport. First he shoots the thief.

After the thief drops dead, he tries to shoot at Kham. Mark, who is puzzled at Vincent’s actions, questions why did that. Vincent argues that Kham was not a hostage and orders Mark and Rick to retrieve him, which they eventually do. In the car, Kham tells Mark that he is searching for relatives (but he does not directly tell him that they are elephants). Along the way, they spot Johnny at the Tom Yum Goong restaurant. Kham becomes erratic and urges Mark and Rick to arrest him, but Mark argues that he cannot because Kham is offering no proof of a crime. Kham causes the car to crash and he evades the police. He follows Johnny to a bridge, but Johnny escapes, forcing Kham to fight his henchmen. Kham coerces one of the henchman to lead him to Johnny’s hideout, interrupting a drug deal. Outraged, Johnny summons countless extreme sports enthusiasts, who arrive to fight Kham.

After defeating the thugs, Kham is exhausted and falls asleep in an alley. A prostitute named Pla (Bongkoj Khongmalai), who met Kham earlier when he confronted Johnny, brings him to her apartment. In his sleep, he dreams of an epic battle involving war elephants and the Jaturangkabart, the elephant protectors. When Pla leaves, Kham wakes up to the sound of police sirens and must escape. Mark and Rick are taken off the case and reassigned to provide security for the Police Commissioner’s meeting with Mr. Sim. In that meeting, Pla acts as a hostess girl and dancer to the two men. During the meeting, Mr. Sim and the Commissioner are murdered by someone hired by Vincent. However, the murder is caught on the commissioner’s camera. Vincent kills Rick and puts the blame on Mark. Mark escapes, but is later captured.

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Technical aspects.

Compared to Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, which was noted for its lack of wirework and CGI, this movie uses CGI in several scenes, from the obvious (helicopter scene, and an entirely computer-animated dream sequence), to the subtle (a glass window shattering in the four-minute steadicam long take that follows Jaa up several flights of stairs as he dispatches thug after thug in dramatic fashion). The largest example of CGI is Tony Jaa’s dramatic leap from the top of a building to attack Madame Rose with a double knee attack. While the background was blue screen with the Australian backdrop added in post production, the long fall shown on screen was real as Jaa and a stuntperson pulled the scene off, landing on large mats below. Even in scenes like this with blue screen, normally a stunt double would be called in for the lead actor, but Jaa once again made sure he did the stunt himself.

Fighting styles.

Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai created a new style of Muay Thai for this movie called muay kodchasaan (มวยคชสาร roughly translated as “elephant boxing”), emphasizing grappling moves. “I wanted to show the art of the elephant combined with muay Thai,” Tony told the Associated Press in an interview, adding that the moves imitate how an elephant would defend itself, with the arms acting as the trunk.

Deleted scenes.

A two-vs-one fight scene taking place in the burning temple near the end of the film was deleted from currently released versions of the film. The taekwondo sequence, featuring Dean Alexandrou and Daniel O’Neill is shown in part in nearly all promotional trailers for the film, but was cut due to unknown reasons from the final release. However footage can be seen in the making-of featurettes, and some behind-the-scenes VCDs. The two bodies are seen to mysteriously appear on the temple floor, near the beginning of the temple fight scene. Prachya Pinkaew stated that he trimmed several of the fight scenes due to their length. Some of these include the sequence on the bridge in Sydney, when Kham confronts Johnny and his henchmen for the first time.

One can see in certain trailers Kham launching himself off of the shoulders of one henchmen to elbow the other one. Another sequence that he trimmed considerably was the warehouse fight scene. In the U.S. release of Tom-Yum-Goong, where it was named The Protector, there is a deleted scene of Kham beginning his ambush of the house party by the criminal group who stole his elephants. In all of its releases, the fight sequence begins with Tony Jaa throwing a henchman down the stairs. But this deleted scene shows where the fight really began.

Box office.

Tom-Yum-Goong opened in Thailand on 11 August 2005, and grossed US$1,609,720 in its first weekend and was No. 1 at the Thai box office (normally dominated by Hollywood imports) for two weeks in a row. It ended its Thai run with US$4,417,800, blockbuster business by Thai standards. The Weinstein Company released Tom-Yum-Goong in North America in a heavily edited version entitled The Protector, which was the third release by their Dragon Dynasty label. It was also given the “Quentin Tarantino Presents” brand, which had proven lucrative in the past for films like Hero and Hostel. It opened in 1,541 cinemas on 8 September 2006 and ranked No. 4 in its opening weekend, grossing $5,034,180 ($3,226 per screen). It ended its run with $12,044,087. In the US, it ranks 67th among martial arts films and 14th among foreign films. The film’s total worldwide box office gross is US$25,715,096. It is the most successful Thai film released in the US.

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Critical response.

On Review aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 53% out of 91 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The critical consensus reads, “Despite some impressive fight scenes, this trimmed-down version of the Thai action pic is an off-putting mix of scant plot, choppy editing, and confusing subtitles and dubbing.” Combat sports and striking analyst Jack Slack has written that Tony Jaa’s multiple attackers scene in the film is “the best fight in movie history”.

Cast:

Tony Jaa as Kham
Sotorn Rungruaeng as Kham’s father.
Petchtai Wongkamlao as Sergeant Mark, a Thai-Australian policeman.
Bongkoj Khongmalai as Pla, a Thai student.
Xing Jin as Madame Rose.
Damian De Montemas as Inspector Vincent.
David Asavanond as Officer Rick.
Nathan Jones as T.K., a giant wrestler.
Johnny Tri Nguyen as Johnny
Lateef Crowder as a capoeirista who fights Kham.
Jon Foo (Jonathan Patrick Foo) as a wushu