Tony Jaa amazed the world with Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, and the prequel Ong Bak 2: The Beginning built on a key fight scene in its predecessor.
Tony Jaa improved on one of the major fight scenes of Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior with its 2009 prequel Ong Bak 2: The Beginning. The worldwide release of Ong Bak, which started the martial arts trilogy, made the movie into a martial arts classic. Jaa later returned to the Ong Bak franchise with the prequel movies Ong Bak 2: The Beginning and Ong Bak 3.
Both films are set several centuries in the past and show Jaa’s character Tien as a master of many different martial arts forms. Jaa’s first major fight scene in Ong Bak 2 is a training sequence, showing Tien display his skills in different disciplines against masters of each martial art form he wields. This fight scene also builds on one of Ong Bak’s biggest action sequences.
In the fight club sequence in Ong Bak, Tony Jaa displays his Muay Thai skills as his character Ting faces three opponents while trying to track down the thief of his village’s sacred Ong Bak Buddha’s head. On its own, the sequence is an excellent fight scene with Jaa fully showcasing the power of Muay Thai against his three enemies. It is also what makes the opening of Ong Bak 2 so special, as the movie manages to one-up its predecessor in a few specific ways.
The fight club sequence in Ong Bak and the first ritualized sparring matches of Ong Bak 2 are built on the same foundation of Jaa fighting opponents that each have their own strengths. However, Ong Bak 2 is far more diversified in the collection of martial arts both Jaa and his opponents use.
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Ong Bak 2’s Tien betters Ting with his eclectic skill set, utilizing Muay Thai, different forms of kung fu, kenjutsu, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu all at once, with numerous other martial arts also used in the film. With modern MMA making the blending of elements of different martial arts more popular than ever, Ong Bak 2’s entire story is built on one warrior who does exactly that. Jaa presents each discipline with great respect, allowing viewers to see their individual essence as well as having them work in tandem. Jaa also really primes viewers from the beginning of Ong Bak 2, showing the young Tien being introduced to multiple martial arts and presenting his mastery of each in the film’s first action scene.
Ong Bak continues to stand as a great tribute to Muay Thai, and helped pave the way for Jaa’s later work in movies like Tom Yum Goong and Tony Jaa’s most important movie, SPL 2. Still, Tony Jaa has always been determined to deliver amazing new action scenes for audiences, and the two Ong Bak prequels more than pulled that off. With Ong Bak 2: The Beginning specifically, Jaa took the basis of one of the Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior standout fight sequences and added greatly to it with the prequel’s first major martial arts battle.