Much of Ong Bak’s action is reminiscent of the daring stunts and brutal fights that Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan became famous for. However, in the late 70s and early 80s, Thai action cinema had its own champion – Panna Rittikrai. While still in college, he put together his own stunt team, and in 1978 they showed off their skills in Born to Fight, a film Panna directed and starred in. And in Born to Fight, you can see the seeds being planted for what would eventually become the style adopted by Tony Jaa’s films – like the slow-motion shots that emphasize full contact between fighters, or the instantaneous replay of a dangerous stunt so that audiences could absorb it and re-watch it in amazement.
It’s hard to say whether this was an influence or perhaps the general style of action films of the time, but Panna’s gritty depiction of fight scenes implemented similar tactics that were incorporated into Sammo and Jackie films. However, the more limited reach of Thai cinema would keep Panna and his team in the shadows for some time. In addition, Sammo and Jackie benefited from training in Beijing Opera, which gave them a more dramatic display of their actions, giving them a spectacular edge with weapons and acrobatic abilities to create sensational moves. With this, Panna could keep up with their brutality and insane dedication to stunts.
Panna eventually took a young Tony Jaa under his wing as one of his stuntmen and occasional actor. Jaa was a huge asset to the stunt team, as his athleticism and skills made him a standout talent. This actually led to Jaa breaking into Hollywood early, playing an uncredited role as stuntman Robin Shou in the 1997 film Mortal Kombat. Annihilation. There are even some moments that foreshadow his signature dynamic moves. In Ong Bak, although Jaa took center stage as the lead star, Panna still played an integral role in shaping the action sequences.
The plot of the film is simple but effective. It is very fairy tale-like in nature. The title Ong Bak refers to a sacred statue that resides in a small, humble Thai village. The villagers have prospered for years due to the crops and good fortune the statue brings them. Then one day, a visitor from the city steals the statue’s head to sell. The villagers are devastated and the crops begin to die, so a young villager who has been expertly trained in Muay Thai volunteers to travel to Bangkok and return the statue’s head. This young warrior is Ting, played by Jaa. Ting was an orphan child who was found and raised by a monk who once killed a man using his Muay Thai.
Ting himself has become quite the warrior and is on his way to becoming a monk, as he has been uncorrupted by outside forces. Although he will now have to undergo a trial by fire with this mission.
The film is frankly a thinly veiled showcase for Jaa’s skills. While there are vanity projects that can become quite egregious when they are clearly suffering from narcissism, Jaa takes a cue from stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li by not playing a tough guy, but a simple, peaceful man who only fights when necessary. This makes it easy for us to root for him. Ong Bak happily flaunts not only his fighting prowess, but also his physical fitness for parkour-type action in a time that barely pre-dates parkour.
RELATED:
Tony Jaa Didn’t Make It Out Of Ong Bak’s Flaming Fight Scene Unscathed
The film opens with a cool capture-the-flag scene atop a large tree in a village. Here, we see a glimpse of Ting’s athleticism as he climbs and navigates a complex pattern of branches, all the while trying to dodge and fend off rivals trying to take the flag. We are quickly shown that stuntmen will take hard falls for the sake of the action. It’s a crazy and wacky scene, and there’s actually a similar scene in one of Jackie Chan’s early films called Dragon Lord, where hordes of fighters are trying to get to a golden egg at the top of a bamboo pyramid. In the making of Ong Bak, you can see how the obstacles were designed around Jaa’s ability to move through various acrobatic moves.
The film isn’t just a coming out party for its star. Ong Bak also proudly aimed to show the world some of the more authentic Muay Thai practices. Van Damme’s 1989 film Kickboxer focused heavily on the art form. While the traditions were shown, the action itself was more or less similar to what you’d find in his other films. An early scene in Ong Bak provides a good introduction to the style, as Ting performs a kata using a list of offensive and defensive moves. He shouts the name of the moves as he performs them, making the scene “Muay Thai 101” for the audience. You can see that the style’s main focus is on elbows and knees for maximum damage.
What makes this part even more impressive is that later in the film, he uses all of these signature moves during some of the fight scenes.
The fight design doesn’t have too many complicated hand-to-hand choreography like a lot of Hong Kong martial arts films. The combat scenes are an interesting mix of grit and spectacular moves. This includes Jaa displaying his amazing jumping ability to soar across the room for big hits or pulling off some really showy kicks. In between all that, the choreography can get surprisingly grounded. There are times where the hits hold a lot more weight since they aren’t film graceful and they don’t instantly put down the opponent.
The sound design even holds back on typical bombastic movie sound effects for some realistic impact sounds. The final fight between Ting and another Muay Thai fighter particularly has some impressive moments of realistic exchanges that emulate the spontaneity and chaos of a real fight in a way that doesn’t seem choreographed.
One interesting aspect to note is sometimes in these fights, Ting looks seemingly invincible as he takes multiple hits but keeps coming. Some may call this out as him being too unrealistically invulnerable. However, the mentality of Muay Thai displayed here is one that’s rarely depicted in films, where fighters are conditioned to be “hardened.”
They will not emphasize defense. They’ll just eat punches and kicks in favor of looking “harder” than the opponent. To those not familiar, it may seem like a cop out that our hero is just unfazed and it makes him look less of an underdog, but this is more of an element that’s somewhat lost in translation. Ong Bak made Jaa a star in his native Thailand. He, Panna and the film’s director, Prachya Pinkaew, wanted this movie to bring Muay Thai into the mainstream around the world. So, they would insert little easter egg messages into the film to shoutout to international directors. There’s a scene in the movie that features a chase through the streets with compact Thai vehicles called Tuk Tuks.
RELATED:
One Of Ong Bak’s Most Noticeable Scenes Was Making It For Three Years
And it’s like the filmmakers are making it their own special Thai version of a Blues Brothers chase with these Tuk Tuks. During this sequence, there’s a shot that features a message to French director Luc Besson that reads, “Hi, Luc Besson. We are waiting for you.” And in the footchase scene mentioned earlier, there’s a shot where some writing on the background shouts out to Steven Spielberg and reads, “Hi, Speilberg. Let’s do it together.” Not only is the message hilariously translated, but they spell Spielberg’s name incorrectly.
While I can’t say specifically if Ong Bak was thee major influence, but after the release of the film worldwide, shortly, the popularity of Parkour and Muay Thai would skyrocket. Besson would even produce a French action movie called that seemed to emulate Jaa’s style while it featured French martial artist, Cyril Raffaelli and Parkour founder, David Belle. It’s hard not to make the distinction, Tony Jaa does make both practices look awesome, so it would be easy to see his movie as being a big contributor to both movements. Ong Bak made it seem like he could do anything.
Jaa would reunite with the dream team of Panna and Prachya for the next movie, Tom Yum Goong, or The Protector. The success of their first movie got them a much bigger budget for this sophomore effort. Where Ong Bak had Jaa going to the city to get back his statue head, The Protector had him traveling to Australia to get back his stolen elephant. Yup, his stolen elephant. In that film, he constantly shouts, “Where’s my elephant?” Which is a pain that only Bart Simpson can relate to. The Protector would follow similar story cues, even having Phetthaireturn as another comic relief character. But the action is turned up with more elaborate and jaw dropping sequences.
There’s even a bit where Jaa bumps into Jackie Chan. However, Chan is played by a lookalike.
There would be two sequels made to Ong Bak that were filmed somewhat back-to-back in 2008. Here, Jaa also took a seat in the director’s chair. Those films would be sequels in name only as Jaa played a completely different character in an unrelated story that took place in the year 1431.
Jaa would eventually break into several Chinese and Hollywood productions. These include American films like the Vin Diesel movies, Furious 7 and xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. He could also recently be seen in The Expendables 4.
And on the Chinese side, he would also co-star in the sequels to SPL aka Kill Zone and the Ip Man spinoff, Master Z.
Ong Bak looks crudely made by modern standards. It doesn’t have a lot of flash, but it doesn’t need to. It has an ace up its sleeve with Jaa. The confidence the film has in its star and its native traditions makes this film an entertaining watch, even if it gets silly at times. It’s simple. It’s raw. It’s hard-hitting. Much like the style of Muay Thai itself.