Word: bak
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...East can also borrow from East. Prachya Pinkaew's Ong-Bak Muay Thai Warrior is a Thai gloss on the old Hong Kong plots that spurred heroes from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan: kid from the country (superhuman martial artist Petchtai Wongkamlao) comes to the city on a noble mission, takes infernal beatings, kicks back even more furiously. It's insanely vigorous fun that's guaranteed to delight video action fans on four continents. Kim Ki Duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring starts as a tale of spiritual apprenticeship (boy taught by old monk) that might have come...
...film draws us into the world of Bak Khan, a former temple boy from Laos who has come to Nong Khai province from Bangkok and is appalled at the commercial exercise the festival has become: full of crass city slickers getting drunk, brawling and gambling. As he struggles with his faith, he falls for A-Lit, a pretty schoolteacher whose scientist husband is determined to prove the fireballs are a natural phenomenon. Bak Khan wants to expose the charade, especially as the TV crew seems to be closing in on the secret. But his former abbot tries to convince...
...haunting painting The Introduction to the Game, two older men hold a pawn before the eyes of a blindfolded, timid man. The mouths of the elders begin to explain the beginning and rules of the game. Some sets of Bak's work show pawns escaping from a toy horse, an allusion to a Trojan horse, only to win the game. The notion of a battle won by the supposed weaker player is an idea that radiates from these rare, passionate pieces of Bak's paintings. In Symposium, sagacious men discuss where to replant their tree which floats above, its roots...
...tree that is the most constantsubject in Bak's work. A prayer passages describesits importance: "It [the Torah] is a tree of Lifefor those who grasp it." Figures struggle to savethe trees; to save history and an uprooted people.Trees are carted through the landscapes, suspendedby string from an unknown origin, braced,nourished by rubber tubes and held by human arms.The trees find a way to grow again in each of thepaintings, even if by only one leaf, welcoming thebirds. This is the manifestation of Bak's vision;the song of hope of a new life...
...human body turning into stone, wood or acutout, as well as broken fences, severed treesand faulty instruments all symbolize destruction.Yet Bak counters each with the representation ofresurrection and reconstruction through plantedroots: wise elders, stars, doves and triumphantpawns. He speaks to us about what the heart canwithstand, learn and still survive, "I speak aboutdestruction and reconstruction--the amazing humanspirit...