Very Cool!!!

Fantastic!

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

In this film, Tony Jaa demonstrates how to fight two persons simultaneously, and he brilliantly finish his job by completely beating them up. It is a very rarely seen action sequence, and that is the main reason why I love this movie: truly fantastic fight scenes. Tony is just one of the most speedy martial artists in terms of fighting style.

Set in 15th Century Thailand, the subtitled "Ong Bak: 2" brings little that is new to the martial-arts genre - but a barrel load of impressive fight scenes and an authentic look make it worthwhile viewing for the aficionado. It's the oldie about a young boy who is trained to become a righteous warrior, standing up for the innocent and the helpless against a cruelly oppressive regime.As noted, there isn't much in the way of storytelling, dialogue and characterization to distinguish "Ong Bak: 2" from the countless other films in this category, but the battle scenes are impressively staged and mounted, with a brutality that, while it makes them hard to watch at times, seems an accurate reflection of the era in which it's set. Moreover, directors Panna Rittikrai and Tony Jaa (who plays the lead role) never feel the need to prettify the setting, offering up a screen full of snaggle-toothed, matted-locked extras to go along with all the muck and mud.Tien, ace martial arts fighter and tamer of elephants, takes on a half-a-dozen opponents at a time, slicing-and-dicing and karate-chopping them into the dust, only to have them rise again to face a second, third, even fourth humiliating go-round at his punishing hands. It's 100% absurd and just about everything a die-hard martial arts fan could wish for from such a film.

I was directed to this because I am interested in cinematic choreography. From a practical perspective, that usually means martial arts.Further, it means Asian films. But gee they sure get tedious after the first few unless there really is a master behind the camera. So I was sent to this. The idea was to skip the original because this one is directed by the performer himself. I am struck by a truth discovered by other means: actors do acting, not filmmaking. They are instruments. A few understand how to act in a way that truly supports the intentions of the filmmaker, but the reality is that they are in different businesses. Often, the last person to understand the dynamics at work are the actors. An example is Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner." It probably is his best work as an actor, and he still today has no idea how he was as manipulated as much as his replicant character.So when you put an actor in charge, you sometimes get interesting stuff, but rarely good films. And this guy is an acrobat, not an actor. What we end up with what you might expect if a brickmason decided he was an architect and made everything including the furniture out of bricks.I was briefly part of a startup which would have been able to extract things like the movements of the Thai martial arts in this film and compare them to the few Hong Kong- produced fight moves. But it all just seemed the same smacking around to me.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

This exciting, blood-drenched, historical revenge yarn about pugnacious Thai empires set in the 15th century qualifies as an in-name only sequel to Tony Jaa's "Ong Bak" (2003) with the acrobatic Jaa making his directorial debut. Action choreographer Panna Rittikrai of "Chocolate" lends Jaa a hand and the two of stage some incredible jaw-dropping, death-defying, gravity-flouting martial arts combat. In the war-torn kingdom of Ayudhaya, our hero Tien is the son of a slain nobleman Siha Decho, and he rarely has time to do anything but fight for his life during this exhilarating 98-minute epic. Most of this action-packed tale takes place in flashback and the narrative is often difficult to follow, but the action scenes compensate for this shortcoming. Initially, our agile, adolescent hero is captured by dastardly slavers and hurled into a murky mud pit with only his bare hands and his wits to battle a ferocious crocodile. This is a pretty terrifying scene but everything looks fairly realistic. While the young Tien is playing cat-and-mouse with the croc, another man, Chernang (Sorapong Chatree of "The Tsunami Warrior"), admires the urchin's audacity in the face of peril. Chernang is the chieftain of the Garuda Wing Cliff bandits. He intervenes to save Tien's life and slings the kid a sword to slash the croc. Afterward, a blind seer utters some mighty impressive declarations about the kid's future, and Tien finds himself learning how to become a champion. In the process, as he grows up, the long-haired Tien learns all kinds of arcane martial arts combat. Just watching the nimble choreography in the fighting scene will make you work up a sweat. In fact, Jarr created a new kind of fisticuffs that blends dancing with fighting and calls it 'Nataytuh.' Bangkok-born superstar Tony Jarr is truly the successor to Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Bruce Lee. The elephant stampede scene with Jarr dashing across the backs of these lofty beasts as they trample the earth looks spectacular. Later, after our hero asserts himself over them, the entire herd bows down to him.