Taking place in ancient Thailand, the treacherous power hungry Lord Rajasena thirsts for more. With his ever expanding borders, few dare to oppose him, and those who do don't live to tell the tale. The film starts with the murder of Lord Sihadecho and his soldiers, those who were still loyal to their country and not their new rules. The only survivor is Ting, Sihadecho's only son. Ting barely escapes Rajasena's attack and finds himself taken in and raised by a gang of bandits. These bandits teach Ting the various disciplines of martial arts and weapons. As Ting grows up, he learns to fuse all these lessons into one hybrid form of bad-assery and sets out on a quest for vengeance.
Sounds pretty awesome right? Well frankly I'm surprised I managed to muster a coherent synopsis of this Ong Bak prequel, because this film is a muddled mess. Tony Jaa, heir apparent to the Bruce Lee throne for martial arts kick-assetry, marks his writing and directing debut with one of the most incomprehensible films I have ever seen. The dialogue is ridiculous, but forgivable, the action is awesome, but a step down from the previous film, and the editing is downright horrendous. I was convinced for the majority of the film that the projectionist had somehow mixed up the reels, but no, this film really is that confusing. It jumps around in time without any regard for story consistency, plot progression or any other cinematic convention. It's almost as if the film was edited by escalation of fight scene, because that's the only real sense I could make out of it.
But surely the action makes up for it right? Well, yes and no. It was somewhere around the time Tony Jaa was leaping from elephant to elephant that I missed modern day Jaa and his car leaping, head elbowing self. The action is cool, and his mastery and execution of old school weaponry was impressive and inventive by any other action film standards, but it would have been nice to see a flying knee or two.
So while the film basically amounts to an overlong train wreck, I'd be hard pressed to say I went home disappointed. Because regardless of the way it gets to you, that little Thai man can fight, and it will always be worth your while. I just wish the film had been more of a traditional sequel, instead of a bloated unrelated, nonsensical prequel. But hey, on the bright side the film ends with a teaser for the currently in production Ong Bak 3.
--Greg MacLennan
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