Review of Ong Bak 2 (2008) by Adam R — 20 Apr 2011

After the success of the first, here comes the larger budgetted sequel... which, as is common in asian cinema, has no connection whatsoever to the story of the first film.

There is no doubt that Tony Jaa is an awesome martial artist, but he kind of missed why Ong Bak was successful. Using Muay Thai moves in a martial arts movie was something new, here he mostly ditches them altogether. I guess there's only so many flying knees and elbows you can do before you feel like you're repeating yourself.

Here he shows he can do every other style of martial arts too, so there is a lot of variety in the fight sequences. As with the first film the story is just there to bridge to action, though there seems to be a bit more time devoted to making it "epic"... which was probably a bad idea. Keeping the story as quick as the fights would've helped.

Come for the flying elbows, stay for the elephant fight...