ong bak thai film

Have you heard about the ong bak thai film?

If you are an action movie fan, if you love watching martial arts movies.. I mean the real thing and not hollywood fake stuff, ong bak is THE movie to watch.

The plot of this movie is simple. There's not much of a story.. just a villager sent to recover the stolen head of the village's buddha statue. The name of their buddha is Ong Bak. Hence the name of the film.

As for the plot details, the movie script appears to be written to conveniently showcase the star, Tony Ja's stunt work and martial arts moves.

Sounds lame?

Not when you watch the movie.

This movie puts Hollywood's action movies and martial arts displays to shame. Tony Ja's martial arts is as much a joy to watch as Jet Li's.

In other words, that fighter is simply amazing.

If you look into Tony Ja's background, it all makes sense. That man is a stuntman. In this movie, besides acting in the lead role and doing his own stunts, Tony Ja is also the action director.

When the pretty boy stars of movies find the stunts too difficult or dangerous to do, or simply do not have the skill or agility or physical abilities to do a tough dangerous stunt, the real men, the stuntmen are called upon to do the job.

For most of the big budget hollywood movies, when the character jumps and runs over 6 other men, there are wires involved. When there are explosions, they are often computer generated. Where dangerous scenes are involved, the person doing them is not the actor who plays the actual role.

Ong Bak is not a big budget hollywood film. The scenes you see are real. The stunts you see are really done by the star himself. With that knowledge, in some scenes, where he fought with his clothes set on fire, my jaw dropped. That guy must be crazy. There were many such dangerous scenes involved. He did those scenes without wires or special effects. Watch out for the chase on feet where he jumps through a loop of barbed wire and over countless obstacle. All done without the help of wires or special effects.

That man can run on the shoulders of 6 stuntmen without any wire work involved.

To prove that the stunts were for real, we are often shown instant replays of the most dangerous stunts. Replays where fans of real action scenes watch with relish.

Stunts aside, the martial arts scenes were fantastic. Tony Ja was schooled at the Maha Sarakham Physical Education College in martial arts. He has won medal in competition involving krabi krabong, a form of Thai martial arts.

His martial arts prowess is displayed throughout this film. Impressive backflips, acrobatic stunts, fights where he utilizes his bare hands and legs, using poles and knives. Even a scene when he ran up a wall.

Watch the fighting scenes where he takes on one opponent after another. Tony Ja is another action movie legend in the making.