Let’s make one thing clear right off the bat: Ong Bak 3
is barely a movie. In fact, if you were to break it down, you’d find
that it is 30% healing montage, 25% dance montage, 20% flashbacks to Ong Bak 2 and 15% Tony Jaa ruining people with brutal Muay Thai, which is the reason everyone came to see the movie in the first place.
So let’s get that part out of the way: the fighting in Ong Bak 3
is amazing, bone-crunching, limb-snapping stuff. Tony Jaa fucks folks
up in truly special, wonderful, irresponsible ways and when the talking
stops and punching and the kicking start to happen, Ong Bak 3 is a glorious ode to the art of smashing faces.
And with that out of the way, I run out of nice things to say about Ong Bak 3.
Jaa pumped this thing out just before retiring from the international
action star game to pursue his new life goal of being a monk and his
absolute disinterest in martial arts shows throughout. After a brutal
opening sequence that sees Jaa tortured to the verge of death, our hero
is rescued and spirited away to a remote village to begin the healing
process. A healing process that will take most of the running time. He
also learns to dance. And he remembers the last film. A lot.
If anything, Ong Bak 3
manages to say a great deal about Jaa and what he finds important, even
if his target audience isn’t on the same wavelength. You’ve got a lot
of time devoted to dance. You’ve got a lot of time devoted to vague
Buddhist mysticism. You’ve got a lot time devoted to preaching about how
wrong violence is (usually right before the next fight scene). Hell,
you’ve got more than several scenes featuring elephants. The ultimate
conclusion of the film, with Jaa turning back time to avoid a violent
conflict and defeating his evil mirror self in combat to achieve total
spiritual enlightenment and (I think) become a new Buddhist god, is just
as silly as it sounds, but you’ve got to give credit where credit is
do: the man has made a movie straight from his heart.
I guess inner tranquility and ass-kicking just can’t mix.
8 comments
Nice spoiler warning about the finale
As if it's possible to spoil a movie like this.
Someone NEEDS to edit OB 2&3 into one lean, solid, cohesive 100-minute kick-ass movie!
@#1: if you knew anything about the production of this movie, you'd know it was only a "movie" in name and that it was going to be a giant clusterfuck of irrational proportions. the "movie" was made, as some say, to help Jaa pay off his debts. there were even some rumors about him partaking in black magic on and off set. so seriously, you troll, go back to your hole and do the site a favor and never come back.
@#2: thank you
Whilst you're right about the quality of Ong Bak 3, if there's one thing it ain't it's "a movie straight from his heart." Even the slightest bit of research into the production of the film would tell you that. Ever since Jaa decided to direct this flick himself it was a horrific mess. Ong Bak 2 is what they manage to salvage from it and Ong Bak 3 is a vain attempt to round off a nonsensical story with a star who had completely imploded and had no interest in being in cinema anymore Or at least not on the terms the production company, who had thrown huge (by Thai cinema standards) amounts of money at the project and demanded some kind of return.
It's a sad end to Jaa's screen career. I hope he makes a comeback and redeems himself a few years down the line.
So yeah, it's a poor film but not for the reasons stated. If you're gonna put up a review you could at least spend 5 minutes googling before making assumptions about the film makers intentions.
I thought the 1st one was just ok (I'm a much bigger fan of "Where's my elephant?!" aka The Protector) so I never checked out part 2. Also I heard it sort of sucked. It's available on instant view but is it worth checking out?
Part 2 isn't really good but it has the best fights Jaa's ever done, I'd say.
I love submitting over and over for the comment to work! CHUD, you do everything so well and with much thought and care!
This is the best review of any Tony Jaa movie ever. This line is absolute perfection
"Hell, you've got more than several scenes featuring elephants."
Its sad it such a colossal mess but Ill see it for the 15%.
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