Ong Bak 2: The Beginning

Review By: Ryan Hamelin
RyanHamelin@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: C-

If you’ve ever enjoyed watching an incredibly well staged fight between opponents of supposedly equal skill and strength, you will find many moments that validate the price you paid for a ticket in Ong Bak 2: The Beginning. If martial arts films are not your forte, this movie will do nothing to change your mind. In many ways, it makes the rest of the genre look layered and deep by comparison, and with the exception of a few scenes that manage to hit the sweet spot in spite of itself, the story is actually quite painful to sit through. As an excuse for people to mercilessly beat each other senseless, the plot still doesn’t really work, as it offers few legitimately interesting setups and spends too much time with its main characters looking off into the distance with some sort of beautiful landscape vista in the background. That with a host of clichéd, if stunning to look at, flashbacks sprinkled throughout, and you have a recipe for exactly the kind of foreign film that gives foreign films a bad name.

Not to say that the movie has no redeeming qualities, far from it. The action sequences are very well done, and the wire free antics of the star, Tony Jaa, are a marvel of physical dexterity and perfect timing. One slip, one missed block, and the fighters would have been in considerable peril, a level of danger and intensity that is apparent in every shot. A small handful of actors in the cast also manage to pull their weight, though Tony Jaa is unfortunately not among them. World-renowned martial arts master he may be, but compelling actor he certainly is not. The original Ong Bak was incredibly well received in its debut, and Tony Jaa’s performance was supposedly the basis of the film’s success in the international market. Perhaps that film’s modern setting allowed him to blend in with his surroundings better than ancient Thailand, but I worry I’m giving him to much benefit of the doubt.

In case you missed that little nugget, this “sequel” is set approximately 1,000 years earlier than the original film. The fact that the movie has the same star is explained through a rather hokey reincarnation device that involves a Buddha statue with a sword gash on its face. The end of the film also sets up a rather obvious 3rd movie, leaving so many loose ends that you will walk out of the theater wondering what it was that you actually spent the last 2 hours watching. It doesn’t quite work as a stand alone film, due to the ending, but I’m also a bit dubious about whether or not it will, inevitably, be seen as a satisfying opening act of a two part story… a two part story that somehow carries over into modern times with the first story. Is any of this making sense? That’s what I thought.

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