Word: ong
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Bunch of villains chases the hero through back streets clogged with human traffic. Nothing new there. But watch the way Thailand's Tony Jaa uses his daredevil energy and grace to obliterate action-movie clichés in the pummeling, exhilarating Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. With a spring in his sneakers, he vaults over a pyramid of tires, a flotilla of cars and a class of children while being pursued by a gang of thugs. He dives through a ring of barbed wire, glides under moving vehicles. He jogs up pedestrians' backs and tiptoes on their heads. In this thrilling...
...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 pleasure...
With its primitive action premise (a sacred MacGuffin has been stolen; you go get it back), Ong-Bak needs the things Jaa can add. And there are plenty. As Ting, a country-boy studying to be a monk who has been taught Muay Thai martial arts and goes to Bangkok to retrieve a missing Buddha head, Jaa battles a series of Asian and Caucasian bruisers with fists, feet, elbows, head--he uses them all in his full-body barrage--with a sleek intensity and jaw-swiveling impact unique in movie martial arts. He also knows how to take a fall...
...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...
...huge hit in Thailand, Ong-Bak generated brisk box office in Asia, then in Europe after French auteur Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element) bought the rights to the film, trimmed a few minutes and slapped on a new music track. Even before its February opening in 20 U.S. cities, the movie has sparked a rabid cult, thanks to festival showings, bootleg DVD imports and Internet downloading...