Tom Yum Goong
Reviewed by Anabela Voi You
Director: Prachya Pinkaew
Cast: Tony Jaa, Bongkot Kongmalai, Petchthai
Wongkamlao (Mom Jokmok)
Year: 2005
Runtime: ?? minutes
Tony Jaa was simply brilliant
– I can’t recall anyone better in dislocating people’s joints so methodically
on screen. At one point I was convinced that the muscled dudes in the movie
were so bright they could have been theoretical mathematicians and martial
artists; it seemed that they all fell for Tony’s joint-dislocation moves
for the 700th time. These potential theoretical mathematicians and astrophysicists
didn’t detect Tony’s bona fide move of grab-your-arm-go-behind-you-and-twist-the-hell-out-of-you
move, even though he must have used it on the entire cast at least 12 times.
For the guys out there, the chick (Bongkot Kongmalai) of the story almost
went nude during a mud bath. Although it was a teaser this alluring Thai actress
won’t disappoint. It was funny that her tease was used to cause a dude’s
heart attack, because I have seen quite a few times when the female sexual
power was used to kill men via heart attacks… again, on screen of course.
It would be problematic if I actually witnessed the dislocation of body parts
and using sex to kill people on a daily basis.
I liked the story and I
don’t set high standards for plot when it comes to action flicks, because
if intelligence and common sense is actually required, then the existence
of these films would be obliterated. The opening was innocent, sweet, and
oh-so sentimental that Hollywood and soaps will have trouble catching up.
I didn’t have a problem with it, as I love elephants almost as much as Tony’s
character did, and interestingly enough, imdb.com also mentions that Tony
Jaa really did grow up with elephants. I liked using Thailand’s national
symbol as the theme for the movie. Elephants are magnificent creatures and
there should be more movies on them. And if Tony is there to defend and fight
for their existence, even better. There were lots of explosions, reckless
chase scenes, big muscles, good fighters, general havoc, and mandatory destruction
of all standing objects, so it will definitely entertain. Jackie Chan’s New
Police Story, a very good recent action flick, doesn’t even match up presenting
enough rampage as Tom Yum Goong does. The plot though is better over-looked.
Basically, Tony is a nature-loving man of an ethnic minority in Thailand,
and he lives peacefully and lovingly with his family and elephants. On one
really bad day, some evil poachers steal his elephant friends and they all
disappear. In no time Tony figures out all his enemies and elephants are
in Australia, and he goes all the way there (the issues of visas and air
ticket prices don’t exist) to save his elephants and embark on a huge destructive
spree of great proportions. His victims’ medical and funeral bills as well
as civic structural damages to Sydney might take at least 30 lifetimes to
pay off – that is, if you work as a yuppie in the G8. Of course, you forgive
Tony because he’s the hero and he’s only hurting the bad guys. Massive destruction
is justified if you’re trying to save two cuddly gentle creatures; it’s really
no argument unless you’re in an academic in philosophy class.
For Tony, no structure
is too high for him to kick and pulverize, no bones impossible to crack,
no limits to the possibility of how many acrobatic tricks he can perform
just about anywhere with just about anything. Sometimes it just seems he
is indeed airborne. His signature move of flipping backwards to kick a high
lamppost bulb is awesome, and the classic scenario where the hero is the
last man standing in a room full of big, defeated dudes groaning on the floor
happened a few times. While one can say that Jackie’s style mostly consisted
of the Peking Opera School of acrobatics and self-styled stunts or while
Jet Li is the exemplary performer of traditional Chinese martial arts, Tony
Jaa seems to combine many martial arts traditions to the point of where it’s
hard to trace what is what. Obviously, his eclectic style consists of many
muay thai moves, but at one point I was wondering how in the world he could
master gymnastics as well as do kicks that were clearly more Korean than
Thai. He’s definitely a hard worker, experimenter, and indeed it’s hard to
find someone who can absorb and master so many martial arts traditions. Recently,
it just seems that crime films won’t lay off doing criminal network stories
without going to several international locations, and this is one of them.
Moving on, the villains
in the movies were appropriately despicable, although the problem on how
to finish them off satisfactorily is a creative problem for scriptwriters.
The villain didn’t quite die and not well enough. The sets were quite impressive
as one can tell that much deliberation and creative input was invested in
the grotesque visuals, costumes, and character sketches. At one point the
set resembled the contrived, disturbing interior of a video game. The restaurant/headquarters
of endangered species, drug and human-trafficking were so eerie and disturbing
that I actually think this movie, as intelligently limited as it is, did
justly address the shamefulness of these issues by its sheer visual presentation.
It’s nice to see the villain be a female bitch for once, and she was oh-so
vicious, an accomplished mistress of poison as well. Evil males have been
over-used and usually the women are just victims. The number of good fighters
was impressive. Even in Jet Li and Jackie Chan films there weren’t so many
eccentric fighters as in Tom Gum Yom. In any case, Tony reunites with his
elephant and justice prevails. It’s good, go see it, Tony Jaa’s stylish and
unreal physical skills might just replace Jackie and Jet, who are getting
older, as the next action hero for coming generation. And he well deserves
it.
A note of little interest:
Tom Yum Goong is a Thai dish
of prawn soup with Lemongrass.
Rating: 8