Ong Bak 2

From the old days itself, our audience were always fans of action films. Though there is some space for Hollywood films at that time, we were more affectionate towards heroes from Asian region like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan etc. Into that group, another name added was Jet Lee. In the post 2000 period, yet another young action hero became popular by his own style; his name is Tony Jaa.

Tony Jaa has given films like ‘Ong Bak’, ‘Tom Yum Goong’, ‘The Bodyguard 2’ etc which has got scenes involving ultimate martial arts. We won’t usually welcome an Indian film without a relevant story even if it is told in the action background. But a foreign film with a bulk of action mix can attract the average audiences in our country. This is what the popularity of Tony Jaa films shows.

It was heard that Tony Jaa came to the cine field as a stunt dupe to many actors. He is a great fan of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Lee. He took vigorous training in martial arts and gymnastics to reach the current position. He claims that he does not use any rope works or graphics effects while doing the action scenes (but I spotted out one or two of such shots in his latest film, but that will not be an issue here).

‘Ong Bak 2’ is directed by Tony Jaa. He did the action choreography also. The enmity between two kingdoms is shown. The hero, who is the son of one king, survives the attack from their rivals. He lost all his family members and reached forest. He is been escaped from the slave traders and knowing about the extra powers of the child; he is allowed to live with them. He gets training in all aspects and grows as a super hero. He comes first in all the training sessions and thus becomes the leader of a province and keeps an end to the illegal trade for slaves. Later he went in search of the real villains who destroyed his family and they were all crashed by his ultimate martial art skills.

This story pattern is being followed for most of the films in which martial arts forms a major role to play. Here also the situation is not different. Such a repetition in the story line lacks freshness. The scenes in which the hero delivering his different skills in the first half, created restlessness. Such a lag also affected in the scene in which the hero and heroine performed dance in the later time. The major disadvantage lies in the English dubbing. Since it is done in South India, some of the characters’ voice felt amateur. Also the grading of the film gave an old effect for the output.

The actor-director had also added a thrilling scene in the middle of many elephants, in which he succeeded in taming a big male from the group. The climax is too lengthy, but it involves ultimate action in Tony Jaa style. The selection of costumes and location sometimes resembled the film ‘Apocalypto’ by Mel Gibson. The main attraction as usual lies in the action scenes.

‘Ong Bak 2’ cannot be deeply promoted as previous films by Tony Jaa; but a die hard fan of the hero can try this one also.

Rating : 7 / 10