When it came time to market Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) in the United States, distributor Magnolia Pictures recruited Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA to help out with the publicity. In a couple of promos, RZA hyped up star Tony Jaa’s death-defying stunt work while also claiming the film was the best martial arts film of the year. His words are put in context in Magnolia’s trailer for the film, which features no subtitled dialogue so that the action can speak for itself. It’s a similar approach to what New Line did the previous decade bringing Jackie Chan to the U.S. for Rumble In the Bronx, making the actor a bigger attraction than the movie itself.
But unlike Jackie Chan, Jaa didn’t have decades of overseas hits under his belt before entering the American marketplace. His talents were only discussed among genre fans who’d seen imports of films like Spirited Killer (1994) and Battle Warrior (1996). While Chan, as well as his predecessor Bruce Li and contemporary Jet Li, often combined elements of physical humor with violence, Jaa’s carefully choreographed fisticuffs were brutal and devoid of laughs. Ong Bak’s plot is a perfunctory excuse for combat. In the film, a sacred object is stolen from a Thai village and Jaa’s character is tasked with bringing it back, injuring or killing anyone in his path.
The action RZA hyped up in Ong Bak largely consists of quick fight scenes in which Jaa takes on a number of people at once, often without any weapons. But what’s most exciting about Ong Bak are its chase scenes. An on foot chase through a market that finds Jaa weaponizing bowls full of spices and an extended mid-movie pedicab chase that leads to multiple casualties are full of vigor, not only showcasing Jaa’s talents, but those of director Prachya Pinkaew, who went on to work with Jaa again in Ong Bak’s sequel, as well as The Protector (2005). While Ong Bak has largely been forgotten outside of discussions pertaining to martial arts, and Jaa has become more well known for his roles in Hollywood franchise films like Furious 7 (2015) and Expend4bles (2023), the film remains a testament to what he is capable of on-screen and the sheer endorphin rush of having nothing in frame but two (or multiple) men hellbent on killing one another.
Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior screens this afternoon, May 25, and on May 31, at the Museum of the Moving Image on 35mm as part of the series “See It Big: Stunts!”
