In the conversation about the best martial arts films, Prachya Pinkaev’s 2003 gem, Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, stands out. Featuring full-contact fight choreography by the late Panna Rittikrai (leader of the Muay Thai parkour stunt team), the action film is a parade of incredible acrobatic, multi-disciplinary stunts with a spotlight on its star Tony Jaa. Jaa jumps through a barbed wire hoop without a scratch, knocks out a giant with one punch, absorbs blows from every available piece of furniture, and carries himself with a level of energy unseen outside of the Dragon Ball universe. Many who watch his films, from the Ong Bak sequels to The Protector and its sequel The Expendables 4, were shocked to learn that his stunts were free of
CGI and wires. But there are many dangers here.
“Ong Bak” tells the story of a villager named Ting (Jaa) on a mission to recover the stolen head of the statue that bears that name. Along the way, a remarkable scene finds him at a gas station, fighting off armed thugs. At one point, his legs are engulfed in flames, but this does not stop him from jumping out of the flames as if he were spring-loaded and delivering a knee strike to his shocked attacker. The next trick is a backward kick jump soaked in water. According to Jaa, such stunts are the result of careful planning: Despite Jaa’s extensive training, he didn’t walk away from the shoot untouched.
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“Me and my master would choreograph the scenes, and the director would tell us how he wanted the scene to be, then they would talk about it. The stunts we did took a long time because we would write them out as a storyboard first, and then we did test shots to see how they looked before we did the actual filming.”
Portrait of A Stuntman on Fire
Stunt work can be an elusive animal. The “Jackass” crew, known for their ill-advised feats of daring, operate under the ethos that the only bad stunt is the one that wasn’t captured on film. Thai cinema is a bit more discerning, requiring multiple takes to nail a perfect stunt filmed at the perfect angle without obstruction. The repeat takes take a toll on the stars. Often, the first take is risky enough. Tony Jaa told Firecracker magazine his woes:
“I tore a ligament and sprained my ankle. That put me out for a month. And in one of my favorite moments, I actually got burned. I really had to concentrate because once my pants were on fire the flames spread upwards very fast and burnt my eyebrows, my eyelashes and my nose. Then we had to do a couple more takes to get it right!”
The result, however, is breathtaking, particularly when thrown into relief by funnyman Humlae (Petchtai Wongkamlao), whose skills have nowhere near the same level of finesse or accuracy as Ting’s. Thai cinema continues to make waves with films like Banjong Pisanthanakun’s chiller “The Medium,” and much of the overseas success can be traced back to the work of Tony Jaa and early aughts Thai action.