The story begins in the rural Thai village of Nong Pradu. Villagers are preparing for a great festival for Ong-Bak, the local Buddha image, which is held only once every 24 years. According to information I found, villagers call this Buddha statue Ong-Bak because of the crack, or “scar” on its face. “Ong” is a term that refers to a Buddha image; and “Bak” means a scar or mark left from a sharp weapon, like a knife or sword. It is not shown in the movie, but the legend of the village says that Burmese soldiers plundered this Buddha during ancient wars. Kru Dum was a brave Muay Thai teacher who risked his life, going into Burmese troop territory to bring the statue back to the village. In the movie, the legend repeats itself. An outsider from Bangkok steals the head of the statue of the deity, and brings it to the capital. According to local belief, if the head does not come back to the village before the festival, they are all doomed. A brave young Muay Thai fighter, Ting, takes up the mission to bring back the head. He sets out to Bangkok where he faces an absolutely different world of illegal fighting, drug dealing and artifact smuggling.
In my previous article about Thai movie history, I mentioned one of
early 20th century films, “Long Thang” (Gone Astray). There, a man
leaves his wife and goes to Bangkok, which is full of brothels, erotic
entertainment and immorality. This 21st century movie shows the same
dilemma between the traditional and modern, the countryside and the
city. The contrast shown in “Ong-Bak” is very sharp. People from the
village are moral, naïve, sincere and well-wishing, while people from
city are immoral, greedy, insincere and aggressive. Anyone who goes to
the city is corrupted, and getting back to their roots in the
countryside is the only escape from the rut. I would usually consider
this kind of categorical moral approach as a negative in a film;
however, “Ong-Bak” is the type of movie where this approach doesn’t hurt
the film, and even adds to it.
One thing I find quite unusual about this movie is the main character, Ting. Tony Yaa plays Ting and does all the impressive stunts himself; however, there was no classic “journey of the hero”. Ting does not seem to change emotionally, morally, or in any way from the beginning to the end. He is focused single-mindedly on his mission, and does whatever it takes to retrieve the lost deity’s head. Of course, maybe because of this single-mindedness (which I assume is a good trait in a well trained warrior), he does not give in to the corruption of the city. If the goal of director was to show Ting as a hardcore, single-minded warrior with no emotion, then Tony Yaa played it well. Otherwise, I find him to be quite bland as a character. Another thing this movie really lacked was the moral wrap-up. In the beginning, Ting’s master forbade him to use his Muay Thai skills. In the city, however, he was forced to do it; and while reluctant, he did not seem to have too much moral conflict over it. After fighting a lot and killing people, he retrieves the head of Ong-Bak, the Buddha, who stands for non-violence. Moreover, in the climax of the movie, it was Buddha’s head that crushed the evil crime lord. Ting comes back to the village, and all ends well. He does not even get scolded by his master for using his Muay Thai, which makes one think that the real moral of the story is: as long as you are using your martial arts skills for a good cause, and killing the baddies, even Buddha will approve and even help out.
Format:
One thing I find quite unusual about this movie is the main character, Ting. Tony Yaa plays Ting and does all the impressive stunts himself; however, there was no classic “journey of the hero”. Ting does not seem to change emotionally, morally, or in any way from the beginning to the end. He is focused single-mindedly on his mission, and does whatever it takes to retrieve the lost deity’s head. Of course, maybe because of this single-mindedness (which I assume is a good trait in a well trained warrior), he does not give in to the corruption of the city. If the goal of director was to show Ting as a hardcore, single-minded warrior with no emotion, then Tony Yaa played it well. Otherwise, I find him to be quite bland as a character. Another thing this movie really lacked was the moral wrap-up. In the beginning, Ting’s master forbade him to use his Muay Thai skills. In the city, however, he was forced to do it; and while reluctant, he did not seem to have too much moral conflict over it. After fighting a lot and killing people, he retrieves the head of Ong-Bak, the Buddha, who stands for non-violence. Moreover, in the climax of the movie, it was Buddha’s head that crushed the evil crime lord. Ting comes back to the village, and all ends well. He does not even get scolded by his master for using his Muay Thai, which makes one think that the real moral of the story is: as long as you are using your martial arts skills for a good cause, and killing the baddies, even Buddha will approve and even help out.
Format:
Matroska
File size:
849 MiB
Duration:
1h 38mn
Overall Bitrate:
1 205 Kbps
Language:
Hindi + English
Subtitle:
English
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