Review of Ong Bak 3 (2010) by Andrew S — 18 Nov 2010

When I was a kid, we had a school trip where we spent a week staying in a Christian holiday camp. It was a pretty good place, and the only condition we had for staying there (as a secular school) is that we had to watch a film one evening. The film was a story of (if I recall), two brothers who are stranded in the Rockies after their plane crashes. They fight to survive in the inhospitable environment, including being menaced by a mountain lion, but wind up surviving through the power of their prayers and the tenacity of their faith. Ong Bak 3 is the Buddhist version of that film. This film features a sequence that felt about half an hour long where our hero has a Buddhist body & soul rehabilitation montage. It finishes with a scene where the lead characters quietly pray to a statue of Buddha. It's Buddhist enlightenment fantasy at its most lavishly produced, and while I don't actually have a problem with the existence of such a thing (the message is admirable enough: abandon revenge and hatred, for it only makes your enemies stronger), it's not really how I was looking to spend my Thursday evening.

That's not to say there aren't some extremely well-staged fight sequences. It's just they're kind of overshadowed by a sluggish, earnest religious message. I'm sure if I were a Buddhist I would find it all very engaging, and more power to you if you are. I'm not. Two stars.