Review of Ong Bak 2 (2008) by Mark M — 16 Mar 2010

Loved the first film, this was a mess. The direction was terrible and the story is trying to be meaningful, but totally fails. The ending is totally frustrating, they're making a 3rd Ong Bak that will start right where this one left off, so I guess this is like Back to the Future 2. A few action scenes were fun are really the only payoffs. It seems to me that Tony Jaa watched the movie 300 and just couldn't get it out of his head, because this feels more like a Thai 300 than it does a Ong Bak prequel, which is a bad thing by the way. This movie forgets to have fun.

My interest in this series flew out the window unless there is some major redemption in the 3rd film. Tony Jaa is not a story teller and he sure as hell is no director, not to mention actor. He has about 5 lines in the entire movie, and that is about 4 too many. I think it is apparent that Jaa is no successor to Jackie Chan or Jet Li, he just can't act.