Ong Bak 2, bearing no resemblance to the first film, goes back more than five hundred years for a tale of revenge set during the rule of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. Tien, the young son of Lord Sihadecho, narrowly escapes death at the hands of the evil, ambitious Lord Rajasena and his group of assassins. With his parents dead, Tien falls into the hold of some vicious slave traders and escapes thanks to Chernang, the leader of a powerful bandit community, who decides to train the boy in the martial arts and raise him as his own. He grows up and excels as a warrior, but before he accepts a position as the new clan leader, Tien decides to first seek out Lord Rajasena and avenge the death of his parents.
This film has had hype and ambition written all over it since pre-production with viewer expectations, money issues and on-set meltdown stories and rumors coming across the wire. The production budget is massive and it shows from the get-go with the gorgeous settings, gritty and elaborate costume design and lurid color scheme that give Ong Bak 2 an incredibly distinctive look. The visuals are likely the best part of the film.
Which may be a slight problem when we are anticipating Tony Jaa’s top-notch action above all else. Both Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong set insanely high expectations for his acrobatic Muay Thai fight sequences, so instead of trying to top them, Jaa opts to go in a different direction. He anachronistically takes advantage of an absurd variety of martial arts styles from all across Asia, using Japanese Kenjitsu, Chinese drunken boxing, Hung Ga and more, not to mention the plethora of weapons including short swords, rope darts and yes, a three section staff. This is a love letter to the classics of martial arts, especially Jackie Chan’s work, but as a result, the action does not seem as impressive as many sequences in his last films.
Still, Jaa is one of the best working martial artists on screen today and it is definitely a treat when the action truly gets going in the final reel with hard hits, Japanese-inspired blood spurts, and brutal fight after brutal fight. The choreography is very strong and the pic employs a different shooting style with frequent medium shots and even some claustrophobic close-ups right in the middle of a fast-paced fight—but it’s all smoothly and comprehensibly edited so the punches and kicks are never obstructed. Though his action seems to have backtracked a bit, the new fighting and cinematography styles will surely please old and new fans alike.
The most glaring problem of Ong Bak 2, however, is the story—there’s simply too much of it. Jaa deserves some credit for his attempts at a dark, epic tale but as it unfolds for the first half, it’s all rather tedious. The plot is unwieldy, relying on extended flashbacks and exposition when the viewer has already figured the details out. The film only finds its emotional center when Tien returns to fight the villains who wronged him; but this doesn’t require so much background information on Tien’s past. They are simple caricatures of evil villains and they do horrible things that can be depicted rather succinctly. Much of the early action suffers because it lacks even this motivation.
And when the film finally reaches its stride, it awkwardly ends as a set-up for Ong Bak 3 rather than offer a satisfying resolution. While it is gutsy that there’s no dramatic redemption from the protagonist’s lowest point, viewers will surely be miffed by the abruptness. Hopefully, the next film will take some pacing and structural cues from Prachya Pinkaew’s works to become the dream film Tony Jaa truly deserves.
Reviewed by Tarun
