Ong Bak 2: An underwhelming journey

I have recently seen the fight scenes from Tony Jaa's newest film Ong Bak 2 and I am actually disappointed. The first Ong Bak was an amazing display of Jaa's fresh Muay Thai techniques and unique acrobatic style. He managed to slightly raise the bar with Tom Yum Goong, with even more breathtaking stunts as well as the famous six minute continuous take fight scene.

However, for Ong Bak 2 (an in-name-only sequel), Jaa decided to try an altogether new direction for him, directing the movie himself, and choreographing different styles such as kung fu. The project went through numerous difficulties (including Jaa pulling a Dave Chappelle and retreating to the jungles of Thailand, where no one could find him for weeks), and the film turns out to be very uneven as a result.

The fight scenes are filmed with a very flat and unenergetic style - no doubt due to Jaa's inexperience as a director. The fights are somewhat slow and unexciting - the viewer is not as involved and the action is not as hard hitting as you would expect. What really drags the fights down is Jaa's poor attempts at different martial arts styles. His snake style and tiger style kung fu are laughable in their simplicity, and echo that of a poorly made 1970s exploitation flick. Props go to Jaa for trying something different, and the original trailer was breathtaking, but the final product does not quite work.

In my opinion, what Jaa needs to do is film a higher quality Hong Kong movie to really take his career to the next level. The filmmaking style there will add a new dimension to his impressive physical abilities and unlock his new potential. We shall have to wait and see if he will make an HK film like this in the future.