In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Thursday 24 October 2013

Ong-bak (2003)

OB is a showcase for lithe Tony Jaa to demonstrate his Muay Thai skills to the world, all of which were achieved without the aid of wires.
It paints its characters mostly black or white, making the simple village folk noble and kind and the city folk selfish and Godless, but there’s just enough depth beneath that to make you care about Jaa and his do-or-die quest. The additional subtext about the power of spiritual belief to invigorate and encourage the individual stops the plot from teetering over into the two-dimensional abyss that hovers nearby at all times.
It gets face-palm bad when it mimics other directors (that Besson style tuk-tuk chase was a disaster), but it took the first steps in delivering a unique kind of action cinema to the West, one that we hadn't seen before.

3 different angles out of 5

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