Word: !kung
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...battle is about to begin--good guys on one side, bad guys on the other. They advance and clash, executing kung-furious feats of acrobatic derring-do. It's like a Hong Kong action film, but every take has to be perfect. It's being done live, in a theater at Las Vegas' MGM Grand, so any misstep could injure a performer and kill the flow of the drama. Moreover, the battlefield is a large platform that has been tilted 80°, a nearly vertical position. That gives the audience a unique, God's-eye view of the action...
...doesn't work much anymore. The genre needs another hero, and Jaa (Thai name: Phanom Yeerum) is the fellow to fill the void. He's young--28--and good-looking, with a quiet élan to match his athletic skill. He's also a throwback to kung-fu film's early days, when stars and stunt men alike took a licking and kept on kicking. Ong-Bak has no crouching, no hiding, no wires, no pixel-perfected stunts. Like Chan's early epics, it convinces you that the mayhem is real, that the star is enduring the pain for your...
Like most other martial-arts stars, Jaa has been preparing since childhood. Born to elephant trainers in the hard-luck northeast province of Surin, the boy watched kung-fu movies on outdoor screens during temple festivals. Soon he was aping his heroes and studying gymnastics as well as Muay Thai, an ancient Siamese boxing discipline that is a kind of combination of karate and kickboxing. He worked as a stunt man, doubling Robin Shou in Mortal Kombat, before director Prachya Pinkaew saw a reel of Jaa's best stunts and built Ong-Bak around...
...when technological gewgaws abduct the magic of fantasy in films like The Polar Express, where can a curious cinephile go? China. That's where director Zhang Yimou blended history book with graphic novel in the worldwide hit Hero, and whence he returns with the even zippier, more cunning kung fu caper, House of Flying Daggers...
...fact, the current American exposure to Asian actors consists of Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan and maybe Zhang Ziyi. In the 21st century, the face of modern Asia is the Exotic Trophy Girlfriend, the China Doll and Funny Asian Dude With Bad English Who Does Kung Fu. We’ve sure come a long way from the days of Fu Manchu and Suzie Wong...