Review of Ong Bak 2 (2008) by Josh C — 10 Nov 2010

The fight choreography in this movie is pretty impressive. Tony Jaa is certainly a skilled fighter, and there have certainly been less impressive directorial debuts than this. But beyond the fight scenes, this is not a very good movie.

A fairly straightforward of vengeance - if vengeance delayed and denied. Much more time is spent on exposition than is necessary for a movie of this sort, and the exposition really adds nothing to the overall story. Connections are created and made and then dropped and ignored. Character development is essentially non-existent. Again, not really a shock for a martial arts movie.

While this is a sequel, it has almost nothing to do with the first Ong Bak film. You don't need to have seen the first one to understand this one, and unless there's a miracle of storytelling in Ong Bak 3 (the final installment of the series) to tie them all together, well, then they might as well have given them separate titles.

I think the first Ong Bak is better. But if martial art fantasy period films are your thing, this may just be what the doctor ordered.