Midweek Mention... Ong Bak

Ong Bak

Sidey: Well, this is, this is your nomination rigs, wasn't it? And it's definitely a movie that's cropped up in various discussions before.

Reegs: up in various discussions before. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of this movie. If I remember correctly, it didn't come out at the Multiplex over here. Right. And I remember having to import this from the U.

1. And, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, but it was not an easy thing to get hold

Sidey: Right.

Reegs: The movie is on back. And for a Hold on. Well, no, I'm just gonna call it Ong Back,

Sidey: because I thought it was just, yeah, that's how I remember it. But there's various different colons.

Yeah. Muay Thai Warrior, The Thai Warrior. Yeah. And so on and

Reegs: For me, this was always just Ong Back, that's what it said when the credits come up, so that's what I call it.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: And for a long time, if you came to my house, I would force you to watch this.

Dan: Oh, you wouldn't. Um,

Reegs: And basically I haven't been able to stop elbowing people in the face since I watched this movie.

Dan: it made me want climb trees fairly soon.

That's

Sidey: I

Dan: isn't it? Yeah.

Reegs: This,

is a sort of classic action movie setup but with a very distinctly Thai flavour.

Sidey: Well, it's probably the fish sauce.

Reegs: Yeah, and, and it's got... Astonishing sort of practical stunts using this brutal Muay

Sidey: Muay Thai

Reegs: style of fighting and it's performed all without wires but feeling like those impossible moves that you see in those wuxia type things.

Sidey: not a single CG or wire, it's all done practical.

Reegs: You can tell some of it is done with, like, clever editing, and where the camera is placed, and maybe judicious uses of trampolines, but still, there's only so much you can fake being kicked in the face.

Dan: I, well, I wondered straight from the beginning because I felt some of those people's pain as they fell out that tree and onto the floor.

You heard the thud. It kind of rocked the room. I, I was watching it. It was just like no you could hear those big heavy thuds

Reegs: Yeah, so you're talking about the opening of the

Dan: Opening in a movie. Yeah, so

Reegs: sort of weird game of capture the flag.

Sidey: Yeah,

Dan: right, it's up a tree. It's it's kind of a Huge tree with loads of branches and the whole village of all the strong young men in it Anyway, all running towards the tree climbing up and each of them is pulling the other one down and Once you've climbed sort of 10, 20 feet and you've fallen down, they're taking some heavy tumbles.

They're really kind of crashing

Reegs: Yeah. And, and through, so the, it's a ritual in the celebration of On Back, which is a festival that's being held in this village non Purdue. And they worship their local deity. He's gonna bring prosperity and water, especially water to this remote Thai village. So, Ting, our hero, Tony Jaa, demonstrates his prowess by winning this capture the flag game, like you say, that involves people being kicked and leaping acrobatically from branch to branch and falling horribly and

Dan: And a lot of them are really good at climbing trees and trying to get there, but he's the best and he's able to shrug anybody off as he's got this flag wrapped around him and he jumps down from quite a height as well. And... Raises it kind of aloft to a big cheer and the village had their champion.

It's quite a poor village. It's just agricultural kind of sustenance

Sidey: very remote, isn't

Dan: really remote.

Reegs: It's very remote and it's mostly a village that revolves around a sort of I think it's a Buddhist temple that's there that's teaching ting alongside his martial arts.

We see him practicing his martial arts, but he's also being taught Buddhism and pacifism.

Sidey: pacifism.

Yeah, because his master, whatever you call him, he says, Well, well done, you know, you're fucking really good at Muay Thai. Now never ever use it.

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: that's right, he says, don't use it. You know, it's fair.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Massive gorilla. Massive gorilla. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's why he says that you don't use it.

You know, you it's it's there but you don't

Dan: and,

Reegs: But wouldn't you know though, he will end up with a chance to use those

Dan: but Ting

Sidey: I was

Dan: want to, he wants to, you can see he's a really obedient, lovely young man, and he

Sidey: I think he was gonna be the hero of this film.

And all the

Dan: out because first though you need a problem to be a hero, and the problem is, there's another guy called Don who's got an eye, his eye on these amulets which you'll see him in Thailand sometimes there.

Hanging off the necklace, they're, they're kind of blessed stones often with Buddha or a symbol, religious symbol in there and they go for a hell of a lot of money. I mean, the old ones and the ones that have any kind of significance in, in In that kind of religion and buddhism and everything they go for tons of money So if a monk has had one and he passes it on then and this is what Don wants.

He wants to Buy one of these amulets off Tings I don't think it's Tings dad. It's just a guy from the village, isn't

Reegs: a guy from the village.

Dan: And he doesn't want to sell he said no, I'm gonna give it to my son one day. It's But Don then comes back and he says, Well, if I can't have that, I'm gonna take Ong Bak's head.

And Ong Bak is the, the Buddha figure inside the church or inside the, the temple, sorry.

Reegs: So, according to information I found, Ong Bak, the crack or the scar, that is, is Bak. And Ong is referring to the Buddha image. So it's got a crack across it anyway.

Dan: Right. Okay. So it's so old and it's really revered.

I mean, they'll, they'll say, you know, the rains aren't gonna come. There's a big festival in a week's time, and

Reegs: Well, as soon as the statue's head is gone, you see there's still, there's like a horrible drought, isn't there? Straight

Dan: There's a horrible drought and there's a lot of screaming going on and one woman in particular is telling how everything's going to be doomed.

Sidey: going like the Temple of Doom, isn't

Dan: yeah, they need, yeah, exactly.

They need a hero now. And Ting puts his hand up and he says, right, I'll go.

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: I know where he lives. I know where Don is.

Reegs: Yeah, so he is sent off to Bangkok to meet...

Dan: with like little bits of money. 'cause he is been given

Reegs: He's been given everything what the villagers have got.

All

Dan: have got to go to, to the big tiger.

And yeah,

Reegs: He knows he's got, he needs to follow the trail of Don and he's sent to meet Humle, a former resident of the village.

Sidey: Is it his cousin or is it just a,

Dan: I think it's that boy, the guy who didn't want to sell the amulet. I think that's his son.

Sidey: right? He's a grifter.

Dan: Yes.

Sidey: There's a, there's a young lady and him, and they're fixing

Reegs: they're fixing Muey

Sidey: they're, they're fixing card games and they're up to no good. Yeah. And they're constantly in.

Reegs: Yeah. And in his departure from the village he's become very sort of westernised, hum, le. He calls himself George, he's got like bleach blonde hair, he wears sort of western clothing.

Dan: And he's,

Reegs: He's forgotten all of the rural, peaceful village that he's come

Dan: Yeah. He calls him a hillbilly.

I think as soon as he sees him and he's not having anything to do with him until he realizes, oh, wait a minute. He's got a, he's got a few Bart. I better bring him in because Ley owes money. To everyone. And and so he he encourages them to come in. He says I'll take a shower, you know, relax Don't worry.

Sorry about that before be fine as soon as he goes in the bathroom He takes the money and runs off to the betting shop

Reegs: To the Kosan road. We've

Sidey: all had fun on the Kosan

Dan: car yes in Kosan the Kosan Fight Club Not like that, I think But nevertheless, it's, it's Fight Club down in the bottom of a a basement somewhere and bets are going on and it's a legal betting and fighting

Reegs: Yeah. And there's a, it is like the Kumite. And there's a fighter there. I think his name is Pearl Harbor and he's beaten the shit out of absolutely everybody. And Ting tracks down Humle to the fighting club. And it's a sort of scene where as Humle is placing the bet. Ting ends up, sort of comically, the next opponent of Pearl Harbor.

He's pushed

Dan: out and cheered on when he's when they realize he's, he's stepped into the ring.

Reegs: Yeah, and we get one of my absolute favorite tropes that you see in a movie when you get a scene, especially when there's a guy who's quite considerably smaller than the other guy, and there's just a one hit knockout.

Yeah.

Pearl Harbor wades in and is just dispatched with a single brutal knee to the

Sidey: face. And

Reegs: and the whole crowd is silent and Humle is cheering.

Sidey: You've been waiting to see some action, because that's what you're here for, these movies. Like, come on,

Dan: It's Tony

Sidey: some action.

But this one's, like you say, this is brief, you know, you're going to...

Reegs: Oh, it's literally over in half a second, it's absolutely brilliant.

Sidey: knee to the

Dan: Like I wasn't sure whether one of the fighters, don't know if it was Pearl Harbor or another guy, was one of those other actors that we'd seen in the films that you like, I forget, with Frenchie and,

Reegs: It wasn't Scott Adkins, but he did look a

Dan: like him, didn't

Sidey: not a million miles away, yeah.

Reegs: So yeah, he sort of accidentally ends up winning this fight, but he doesn't want to take his winnings ting, he just wants to take his money back.

Dan: literally his money, he wants his money. The money in the handkerchief. Yeah. Behind the bar. Not the 5,000 bar. He's just won. He wants the 220 bar. He's just from Taken. Yeah.

Reegs: And sort of meanwhile this has been going on, ComTown, who is a, I think that's how

Dan: you pronounce his

Reegs: He's a sort of local crime lord who's in a wheelchair and he speaks with one of those like,

Sidey: it's an electronic voice box Yeah.

Dan: and he's got plenty of attitude still. Even with that as an

Reegs: an AEG.

Sidey: Ten mil? Or a mil? Or is it was a lot.

Dan: Yeah. They were, they were going up through thousands then it was a million.

And they're just, they've got these. Pretty young girls kind of stroking them and rubbing them down as they're just drinking and gambling

Sidey: It's

an electro larynx.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: yeah.

Dan: Good larynx,

Reegs: So that's sort of drawn some unwanted attention on Ting. Sort of next day, there's a bit where, I can't remember exactly how it happens, but the drug dealers that George and Moylek were ripping off, sort of see them in the street. And we get this fabulous

Sidey: They tried to rig a Baccarat game. That's right. And yeah, this leads to I think the most storied and like celebrated scene in the whole movie.

Reegs: I could just watch this endlessly, this scene. It's mostly Tony Jha demonstrating his gymnastic skills as he goes through a series of like comically set

Sidey: It's like Wayne's World 2!

Reegs: is, it's brilliant, and it, and it's, but it's all fine, but it works

Sidey: it's amazing

Reegs: see him spinning round a bunch of school children running over the shoulders of about eight men in a

Dan: Jumping

Reegs: pane of glass, through a hoop of barbed wire, sliding under a moving car.

I mean, it's just incredible.

Dan: Is incredible when you understand that these are all for real. Yeah,

Sidey: it's so good they show you it two or three times. Yeah.

Reegs: Which I'm fine with.

Sidey: a hundred percent.

Reegs: So really, the cartwheeling between the two, like, tiny, thin panes of glass, absolutely amazing, and he finally, he's able to, like, sprint

Dan: sprint...

Well, jump in, jump in through that that,

sort of, circle

of barbed wire

Reegs: there.

It's mad, isn't

Dan: well. Two guys, kind of, carrying barbed wire on a, on a

Sidey: stick. He

Dan: goes through head, and

Sidey: basically jumps touching his toes. Yeah. Forward to go, to make himself so tiny to fuck. I mean, any fuck up there. Jesus.

Dan: Oh,

Sidey: It's impressive. Very impressive.

Reegs: And the sort of scene culminates with, they come to a dead end, but it's not a dead end when you're Ting, because he just runs up the wall.

But George is sort of fucked and he bargains now at this point, right, save me, I will probably, I promise you I'll sort this all

Dan: get on back

Reegs: head back.

Dan: And he has promised a couple of times before, so, but eventually, I think knowing that this could be the end of him, Ting throws down his hand and they climb.

Still getting these big pieces of wood thrown up at him but managed to get away and live to fight another day.

Reegs: and... literally live to fight another day. Because the plan is just to go back to the Cosan fighting tournament. And now we get an astonishing scene of like three consecutive fights where Ting is forced to defend his championship against.

First a really unpleasant Australian guy called Big Bear. He's like, slapping women around and shouting a load of abuse about Thai people and really horrible.

Dan: was calling Ting out because Ting had the reputation now as... The

Reegs: champ. He's a champ, Dan. Yeah. Yeah. He's a world

Dan: and

Reegs: It's not the

Dan: and he, he does. Yeah. He doesn't like it. Does he? He doesn't like having to, to call him out or being called out.

So he's saying, come on, you gotta fight me. And he doesn't want it. Ting's like, no, I don't need it. But then he starts beating up the girls. And he must defend their honor.

Reegs: Yeah. And Ting, you know, it's a pretty brutal fight.

Lots of elbows and knees and jumping, and it's painfully

Dan: like, elbows to the head, where he jumps up and he just crashes down the elbow on the head.

Sidey: characteristic of this particular fighting style. So we would be used to seeing karate, kung fu style things. You know, when you talk about...

I don't want to say the wrong thing about whatever discipline Bruce Lee does, but this is, you know, very, very strictly this particular type, which is a lot more of that kind of style.

Reegs: it's much less balletic than you are used to seeing in Chinese martial arts

Sidey: It's more violent, if that makes any sense.

Elbows

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: they use anything. And

Reegs: and you see them all connect in horrible

Dan: We went to a Muay Thai, Sunny and I went to a Muay Thai fight in Bangkok earlier in the year. In Chiang Mai, sorry. And it's brilliant. I mean, it was just...

Eight fights and it got better and better. So they started off with the young boys, but against foreigners as well.

So it mixed up a little bit and there was a good crowd of people around, but the guy right at the end and

Sidey: real deal.

Dan: you can see it was, it was real deal back in the day, but he still had the moves like, and he was just taking the punches, taking the punches, taking the punches, and then he just like.

Squats. Oh yeah, exactly Like this, as you say, really violent comes outta nowhere. It's just a, you know, it's like a knee with an elbow across the face and everything. This guy was gone like, you know, just

Reegs: But a lot of it, you know, plays up on the size difference of Tony Jaa, who I don't know what his height is, but

Sidey: Pretty slight, isn't

Reegs: he's, he's not a huge chap, but watching him, the athleticism of which he attacks these guys who are so much bigger. So he dispatches with big bear and he tries to get out of the fight, but the crowd pushing back in, including Sam Singh, who is, com town sort of bodyguard guy and he points a gun at him and like forces him to fight against him. He has to fight Toshiro, a Japanese guy who does a lot of like impressive looking roundhouse kicks but gets dispatched pretty quickly because they're pretty ineffectual.

Dan: they do get kicks in. It isn't like impossible to hit Tony Joe or he doesn't get, you

Reegs: he takes a licks.

Dan: he takes the punches as well.

Reegs: Yeah, and then it finishes up with like a brutal bar fight involving like appliances and electrical wire and bottles and all sorts of

Dan: electrical wire and bottles and all sorts of stuff.

Reegs: Well, they fight all the way up to where KTown is, and then out of the window, which is above the fighting pit, and he pushes this guy mad dog out the window and then jumps on him with his knees fall about, I dunno, 18 feet onto his chest with his knees.

It's amazing.

Dan: And he kind of gives it one last look, and, and closes his eyes, gone, and the crowd then go, ah, and they just, it, you know. Massive

Reegs: Well, the electricity's gone and there's all the sparks in slow motion as Ting's looking round, it's brilliant. So anyway, with the fight over...

Dan: over... Well, they've just lost a load more money as well, upstairs. So these gangsters who who actually, as we, as we learn, Don is working for this gangster, and this guy wanted the amulet originally, and now he's been offered Ong Bak's head. He didn't see the, that being anything that he wanted.

No value in it for him. So, Don's done

Reegs: and religion is nothing to him. He has, he's explicitly says he's no respect for it.

Dan: No, no, nothing whatsoever. So he's a little bit later we find out he's building a massive, oh, he's nicking another kind of head,

Reegs: Oh, he is. Got loads of them. When they, when he falls later after the tuk tuk scene will, that's amazing.

Dan: Well, that's it. It runs, it runs not far into this scene, I

Reegs: is about, yeah, so, you know, Tony Jar and ley and all that get taken away. I can't remember exactly how it's gonna happen, but Compound's effect gonna fuck off.

And Tony Jar's gonna get his legs set on fire and then gonna beat people to death with them.

Dan: Yeah, well he, he, that's it. He jumped in a load of oil then in the fire and then starts like ass kicking while he's on fire.

Reegs: He did several takes of that. So he, and he had like third degree burns or whatever on his legs, but he just wanted to

Sidey: is definitely committed to this

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: it was all in. And then you have this brilliant tuck tuk tuk scene where there's a chase with maybe 12 tuk tuks.

Reegs: I mean, it's literally like they get on them and they drive about 10 feet and then they just slide over on their side. It's just amazing.

There's so many tuk tuks falling

Sidey: We have to talk about the final tuk tuk that flips and

Dan: the

Reegs: because there's like a speed style where the bus, like the lane, the highway isn't finished. Yeah. And they're all gonna, like, a load of them are gonna pile off the end hook,

Dan: that, or Humle's front wheel's

Sidey: one goes up and and it's like just amazing.

I loved it. It was just a dummy like so amateurish but brilliant

Dan: Oh, when they're, when they're falling down and

Sidey: when it flips

Dan: and blows up in the air.

Sidey: you can see I

Dan: great scene.

Sidey: loved it. It was so good.

Dan: so this, this tuk tuk just sort of explodes flying in the air above another load of, of tuk tuks that have all ended up off the end of this bridge. Yeah, it was,

Sidey: that's where Ting then jumps into the harbour, isn't he, to evade something and he sees everything, all the stolen stuff is suspended underwater.

Reegs: Yeah, there's been a sort of plan to

Dan: Well, that's it. So they're all floating underwater. There's this whole kind of treasure trove of artifacts. They're not floating. They're

Sidey: was going to say suspended,

Dan: suspended. But, yeah, then it gets called in, because next thing there's a reporter there, it's a night time scene and they're, they're cataloging this huge haul of artifacts and this is obviously the, the same guy who's been after Ong Bak and he's

Reegs: Yeah.

huge Well, they go up to, yeah, they go up to where the boss's layer is

Dan: they haven't. And Coldtown

Reegs: No, they haven't. And compound says where they've got this giant head of that, they're drilling into a giant boot head. He says, oh, if you go, and I've lost so much money, if you go and throw this fight against Sam Singh, my bodyguard, I'll give you the head back after that.

Sidey: Yeah, definitely Yeah, 100% do that. Yeah.

Reegs: So we get Sam Singh, the bodyguard, versus Tony Jha in a fight that he has to throw. Does he

Dan: Well, does he was

Drugged up the other guy, wasn't he? He had some

Sidey: He was on the roids. Yeah,

Dan: he had some kind of yabba that just meant that he wasn't going to feel any

punches.

Reegs: Yeah. but he does, He

is explicitly told to throw it though

as

Sidey: Yeah, he is and he

Dan: And he, and he does end up losing, but even though, you know, you thought he might lose anyway, because this guy was pretty much indestructible. He was

Sidey: ends up. with

Dan: Yes.

Reegs: with

a big,

a massive fight scene back at the Buddha statue all around the scaffolding, leaping around there, taking on multiple guys, taking down Sam Singh, who injects himself, like, six different needles

Dan: at one point, Comtown's like, He's gonna smash Leon back.

Sidey: needles that

Reegs: that he and then at one point, Comptown's like, he's gonna smash De Jong back.

Heads, the statue head with a sledgehammer and Humlai has sort of learned a lesson and respect at this time, throws himself on the statue to protect it and he's, yeah, well, it's, I had to rewind this bit because I didn't remember, but it does actually kill him, doesn't it? Yeah,

Sidey: does,

Reegs: Yeah. So,

Dan: I didn't remember, but it does actually kill him, doesn't it?

Yeah, it crushes him. He gets a few last words before he, he goes. Yeah

Reegs: 'cause we also get the giant statue head falling down and like literally seven tons of irony. Killing the main villain,

Sidey: ha ha ha!

Reegs: you gotta love that.

Sidey: Yeah, that's where Himley says Yeah, gives him back or, you know, just take their head or whatever. Yeah. And please look after we like, yeah. And then who lays, he does die because his ashes are taken back to the village or they're not.

Dan: it

Reegs: The village the end of the

Dan: yeah, it comes in although they have brought the head back and you, you get to see it reattached and them enjoying the, the festival, praying in the temple it is kind of filled with the sadness of Humlai who, who kind of died in the mission to get it back.

But there ends the film and it was There was a lot of action in it as well. Once

Reegs: it's an action movie Dan.

Dan: Yeah,

but you know, there was good action is what I mean to say. It wasn't just it was compelling, you know, each each and every scene was really well choreographed. And, you know, Look at Hollywood and things.

Is it a Thai film and it's right up there with any others

Reegs: and it feels very Thai and there's a slight, you know, there's definitely a thematic thing that's slightly critical of Western influence in Thailand and all that.

To have all this stuff presented with this like astonishing stunt performances. Just great

Dan: I'm really well directed, you know kept the pace up

Really like

this. Yeah I wasn't sure that i'd seen this before. I think i've seen parts of it I certainly didn't have any memory like I have now on it and Strong recommend for me

Sidey: Spawned a couple of sequels was hugely successful. I don't actually know what the budget was, I don't imagine it was millions upon millions.

Dan: it's on back too. I've definitely

Reegs: yeah,

I, the sequels are not as good in my opinion. But yeah, for, for a long while, this like was a benchmark I think in sort of action cinema,

Dan: Tony Jar. I mean, this was his breakout

Sidey: Jarhead. Yeah.

Did you see any of these graffiti on the walls?

Reegs: Yeah, of course I did. Yeah. I

had

Sidey: a few. I don't know like weird please to Western directors. Um in the in the scene, one of the crashed into building on the wall. You can see hi, Luke Besson. We're waiting for you scored on the wall and then later on in the alley chase No, it's, it's it's before that. It's in, it's in the famous chase thing down the alleyway.

There's a thing for Steven Spielberg. What did it say? Da, da, da, da. Hi, Spielberg. Let's do it together.

Reegs: Ooh.

Dan: Oh,

Sidey: they're trying to, they're, they're putting it out there, which I quite, I quite like that. And Steven Seagal tried to insert himself into the movie. He's so impressed by it. He tried to get his production company to buy it and insert himself as Tony jars teacher,

Reegs: Alright. Which

Sidey: is like ego to the

Dan: so, that is so Seagal, isn't it? I'm glad that never happened.

Sidey: And I also did enjoy because this is a particular. And that and this what it's one of the things that make it stand out is the particular style of fighting. Yeah. It's actually it's it pre Muay Thai. This is Muay Buran.

Dan: Okay,

Sidey: Which is an ancient form of Some Thai kickboxing style known for its violent strikes with fists, feet, shins, elbows, and knees.

Reegs: and you feel every single one of them watching

Sidey: and one of the reasons why the bad guys have fairly ludicrous hairstyles is to cover up all the padding that they're wearing on their heads. So, so they've got like mad quiffs and stuff as to, yeah. Because he was obviously whacking them pretty hard.

Reegs: He the same combination of director Pratchett Pankow...

And Tony Jaa did Tom Yum Goon, or The

Sidey: It is a soup.

Reegs: which is a

Sidey: Right, okay.

Reegs: The movie is about a restaurant of where exotic animals

Sidey: What's it called? The Protector?

Reegs: What's it called? The Protector or Tom

Sidey: Oh, that's the one with the elephant. Where's my elephant?

Reegs: an elephant, yeah, it goes...

Sidey: to you. And

Reegs: the wrestler throws one through a window. It's fucking amazing. Yeah, absolutely brilliant this.

Dan: that's fucking amazing. Um, Yeah, absolutely brilliant this. Yeah, really, really good. If you're going to see one Thai action movie this week, make it this one.

Sidey: For sure.