Ong Bak 3
Ong Bak 3
Directors: Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai
Year: 2010
One might conjecture that the narrative arc of Ong Bak 2 and Ong Bak
3 was a reflection of the troubles that director and star Tony Jaa had going
on in his personal life during the making of these two films. During the
production of Ong Bak 2 there were numerous on and off set problems with
Jaa disappearing at one point and rumors of a possible nervous breakdown.
This created major dissonance between Jaa and the Sahamongkol production
house that has been behind all of Jaa’s films. But things were patched up
and Jaa along with his mentor Panna made Ong Bak 3 (a direct sequel to the
second film but no relation to the first in terms of story). Ong Bak 2 is
full of angst and pain and the sequel begins in the same manner – but by
the ending Jaa’s character has come to terms with who he is and is at peace.
Regrettable this resolution does not make for a particularly compelling film
and Ong Bak 3 is a disappointing simplistic jumble of mysticism, brutality,
action, Buddhism, revenge and redemption.
Ong Bak 2 ends jarringly with Tien (Jaa) being captured by the killers of
his father and imprisoned primed for torture. This film takes the story up
right from that point with Tien being literally broken with bone crushing
techniques. Tien is saved at the last moment – the sword getting ready to
descend with a horse rapidly approaching cheap scenario – by an order of
the King and turned over to a monk for repair. Tien’s tormentor, the ever
smirking Prince (Saranyu Wongkrajang) soon gets his just desserts at the
hands of the even more evil Bhuti Sangkha (played by the terrific Dan Chupong
– Dynamite Warrior, Born to Fight) who impressively appeared near the end
of Ong Bak 2 as the Crow like fighter. Tien is made whole again – not only
externally but more importantly internally – and he begins to accept the
teachings of Buddha. But Bhuti makes one mistake – he messes with Tien’s
female childhood friend – and now Tien has to face an entire army of killers.
None of this is particularly interesting – a martial arts revenge/redemption
story that has been enumerated hundreds of times all over the world but it
is made even less compelling by stereotype sketch characters – the good monk,
the loving innocent girl, the evil menace, a stiff lipped hero. But come
on – let's face it, no one watches a Tony Jaa film in expectations of narrative
complexity – we come to see asses kicked in multiple ways and here is where
the film truly is a let down. If memory serves me correctly, there are five
action set pieces – one with Jaa taking on his tormentors, one with Bhuti
killing all of the Prince’s men, Jaa in another small combat number against
some of Bhuti’s men, the large set piece against the army and the finale
one-on-one against Bhuti – and none of them really excite. Perhaps I have
seen Jaa and his bag of martial arts tricks once too often but nothing here
felt original. In Ong Bak 2, Jaa displayed a number of martial arts styles
that were astonishing – but all the choreography in this film is basically
one guy charging Jaa and getting crushed – after the first 20-30 victims
it all gets a bit repetitive. Even the final showdown was less than inspiring
because by then Tien was almost Buddha like and nothing could beat him. Jaa
seems a lot more interested in sending a message than in generating excitement.
My advice to Jaa would be to bring his films back into contemporary times
and to find his sense of humor again.
My rating of this film: 6.0
