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 (Madman)
Muddled second prequel to 2005’s Ong Bak is best avoided by the uninitiated
Ong Bak was a breath of fresh air in a genre increasingly overburdened by CGI and wirework. Its lean, perfunctory plot aside, it introduced the world to Tony Jaa, a martial-arts polyglot who famously performed all of his own stunts, many of which were almost superhumanly spectacular.
2008’s quasi-prequel saw Jaa’s blank-faced badass Tien transplanted to Thailand’s mythical past, but sadly Jaa’s overly-ambitious adoption of the roles of director, writer, and producer led to lengthy delays in the production. In order to bring the movie in on time, it was decided to end it on an abrupt cliffhanger. Consequently, Ong Bak 3 feels more like a protracted epilogue than a fully-formed movie.
It’s not that it looks entirely bad; the reused sets and costumes from its predecessor give the film’s recreation of medieval Thailand a meticulous, gritty verisimilitude, but sadly the qualities that made Ong Bak so refreshing have been cast aside in favour of 300-style slo-mo, and the sub-par CGI too often calls attention to itself. Meanwhile, Tien spends the better part of the movie recovering from his injuries, and even the final fight between Tien and the inexplicable Crow Ghost (Dan Chupong) feels like an after-thought. Needless to say, this is one for the die-hards only.
The saddest part of all this, for fans at least, is that as of May this year Jaa has retired from acting and become a monk in rural Thailand. While this will surely be better for Jaa’s fragile peace of mind, it’s a shame that this lacklustre effort may be the last we see of a man who could well have been the next Jet Li.
**
ROB NEWCOMBE
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