Ong-Bak: The Beginning

Ong Bak: The Beginning tells the story of Tien (Tony Jaa) who is out for revenge against the ruthless people who massacred his family. Tien is rescued from slavery and trained by outlaws into a vicious warrior until he has mastered many forms of combat and is soon well equipped to exact his revenge and boy does he do that. Those of you who thought Kill Bill was a little excessive may want to steer clear of this film as I shudder to imagine the body count for it. The film is just awash with violence, action and bloodshed and those of you expecting a thoughtful film obviously are at the wrong place. I have to admit the plot is a little cliché, this isn't a new story and I'm sure it has been told many times before and really there is not much different added to the revenge plot in this film.

Tony Jaa is an amazing fighter and stuntman, his work in this film, which I believe is all him and no wires or CGI is pretty impressive. Sure, he is not as relatable as Jackie Chan or Jet Li, but his intensity makes up for it and he carries this film well. Unfortunately, the film suffers from the fact that if you took away all of the action scenes you would probably be left with about ten minutes of footage. Fights are a little excessive and rather than compliment the story, they become all that this film has to offer. I'm not disputing the quality of the choreography of this action as it is stunning to watch, but after the first two you become less and less impressed with what Jaa can do.

The story, such as it is, is almost non-existent and my head hurts trying to figure out what the connection to the original Ong Bak is. Tony Jaa has said that the forthcoming sequel (Ong-Bak 3 due for release in 2010) will clear all this up and I hope that it does and doesn't just raise more questions than it answers.

Extras are a little on the sparse side including a photo gallery, trailers, a behind the scenes thing and four interviews with Tony Jaa, Sorapong Chatree, Primrata Det-Udom and Panna Rittikrai. These interviews are all fairly short, but interesting and could really have been better with a 'Play All' feature. The twenty plus minute behind the scenes footage is simply that, we are shown various scenes and how they were set up and created, but there is no voice-over or interviews between them to explain what we are seeing. You wonder why they didn't include the original film on this set to at least stretch the Blu-ray disk, however as I say the connections between the two films (beyond same actor, writer and production crew) are so vague it's probably best that they didn't.

Ong Bak : The Beginning is a great series of action sequences and nothing else in between. It is an enjoyable film and the action is wondrous to watch at times, but really I could have done with a little more story and a little less blood.