Review: Ong Bak

The Bottom of the Bag:
A little stale, but the some new flavours keep it interesting, as does a healthy ladel of cheese.

The Thai movie Ong Bak doesn't exactly bring anything new to the martial arts genre, but it does provide a refreshing change of scenery. Like in most Kung-Fu flicks, the plot and characters of Ong Bak exist only to provide convenient excuses for dazzling displays of athletic prowess. In this case, however, the form on display is Muay Thai, a widely popular martial art that for some reason has rarely graced North American movie screens. This novelty turns what would otherwise be pretty standard fare into a worthwhile movie-going experience, and luckily the filmmakers seem perfectly aware of this fact. Rather than attempting to dress up an obviously threadbare story with false poignancy or canned sentimentality, Ong Bak's makers embrace their hackishness. The laughs are simple, but work, and a thin layer of fromage coats this bit of celluloid from start to finish.

Although subtitled 'The Thai Warrior' for an English speaking audience, Ong Bak is actually the name of a statue in the film dedicated to the local village boddhisatva. When nefarious Bangkok gangsters steal Ong Bak's head in revenge for a petty dispute, Ting (Tony Jaa), an innocent, but Muay Thai trained villager, must ensure his village's survival by traveling to the big city to retrieve their precious artifact. A pretty standard, bland setup and surprisingly, or perhaps thankfully, they don't even do much with the 'fish out of water' potential. But then, nobody making this movie is intent on serious storytelling here. The villains are cardboard, plot points are introduced and discarded for no reason other than to move the film along, and scenes are lifted straight out of other similar fight movies. I caught whiffs of old 'classics' like Bloodsport, Lionheart, and even elements of Jackie Chan slapstick, to name a few. But the film is so blatantly and unapologetically conventional that I found myself not minding. You're here to see Muay Thai and cool stunts, the film seems to say. What do you care for little details like story and character development?

This film doesn't just rip off convention, it hyperbolizes it to good effect. The main villain, who I don't think is even given a name, is a tracheotomy patient who speaks only through electronic assistance and occasionally puffs on a cigarette through his breathing hole. He exists only to place bets on his collection of full-contact fighters and exhibit hubris. Most movies of this genre cheaply space out the fights by prodding a bad plot into stumble painfully along to the next excuse for a fight. In Ong Bak, when the hero is predictably tricked into fighting for the bad guy's amusement, we're treated to three unique fight sequences, one after the other. No change in scenery or any attempt to explain why all these opponents are readily on hand, just well choreographed fighting and abundant property damage. And then there's the cheesy humour. The film sets the tones early on with the laughably overdone histrionics of the distraught villagers. Later on, when a repentant ex-villager has to act fast to save the head of Ong Bak, he doesn't just tackle the bad guy threatening to smash it with a sledge hammer. Nope. He shields it with his own body, taking not one, but three cartoonish blows. When a particularly vicious and creative fighter named 'mad-dog' enters the ring, the spectators flee screaming in terror. A major bad guy is karmically dispatched by a giant Buddha head. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

But of course, the real point of Ong Bak is to showcase the impressive acrobatics and Muay Thai expertise of Tony Jaa. While the filmmakers have done their best with an extremely limited screenplay, it would be fair to say that this film is still largely churned out pap intended to capitalize on the recent American appetite for asian martial artists. However, so long as the movie succeeds in satisfying that craving, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Jaa himself is quite simply an amazing athlete. His style lacks the speedy, artistic movements of Kung-Fu stars such as Jacky Chan and Jet Li, and instead gives a more realistic impression of brutal effectiveness. Whereas blows in Kung-Fu flicks often seem to have exaggerated effects, it's not hard to understand why an attacker in Ong Bak is floored when Jaa drives a kneecap into his face. I found the movements of Muay Thai particularly interesting in that both the striking points and portions of the body used are different than other martial arts more typically displayed in films. This peculiarity probably would have been enough to keep my attention, but the fights in general are well choreographed, interesting throughout, and provide a range of opponents utilizing different styles of their own. One thing I can say is that Ong Bak never gives you time to be bored.

Many modern martial arts flicks tend to rely heavily on special effects for visual impact, and while this is fine within its own context, it's very gratifying to be reminded of what the human body is capable of unassisted. In back breaking feat after feat, with no stunt men or computer effects, Jaa springs through beach-ball sized loops of chicken wire, somersaults over pots of boiling oil, and suffers abuse that could easily have shattered bones in the event of any single mistake. A small criticism would be that the film has an irritating tendency to replay a shot from several different angles when Jaa executes a move the director found particularly impressive. It's a trick I've always disliked as it tends to jar me from the narrative experience, but I was willing to put up with it here to better appreciate the difficulty. Still, I'd rather they simply found a better angle that could encapsulate the effect in a single shot.

In conclusion, Ong Bak is a good bit of fun, due mostly to the abilities of Tony Jaa and the novelty of Muay Thai. Don't come expecting anything profound and it'll do just fine. Two warnings though. To filmmakers: This kind of thing only works once. The next time we see this martial art in a movie, we'll be expecting more. To the audience: Thai can be a bit harsh to the English ear. You may be tempted to skip some of the dialogue. Go ahead, you won't miss much.

Review: Corpse Bride

The Bottom of the Bag:

A beautifully polished bunch of kernels. It's a shame most of them didn't pop.

I'm a longtime fan of Tim Burton's work. From the steely realism he brought to Batman, to the surreal charm of Edward Scissorhands, his artistic flair has an odd blend of lighthearted creepiness that's always had a certain appeal to me. His musical masterpiece, The Nightmare Before Christmas, has a particularly special place in my heart. He somehow managed to pull off the creation of a fantasy world entirely devoted to a single holiday, populated by dancing skeletons, a melancholic zombie, and a bad-ass Santa Claus. In clay. Put to music. Without seeming ridiculous. It was utterly unique, and with Burton I've come to expect something a little different.

Perhaps that's why I found Corpse Bride somewhat dissapointing. In some ways, it feels like it's riding on the success of its predecessor. I want to love this film, but whenever I try to analyze it, the words that keep coming to mind are 'half-realized'. Much like the film's titular character, Corpse Bride is dressed up nicely and has enough flesh to remain generally pleasing, but the portions of exposed skeleton are simply impossible to ignore.

Visually, the film is absolutely beautiful. I'm floored by what Burton's team was able to do with clay and stop motion photography. How do you make a tattered wedding dress flutter properly in the breeze with that kind of medium? The 19th century architecture and detailed scenery paint an excellent setting, and everything is suitably dark and bluishly gloomy while somehow remaining perfectly lit. Typically Burtonesque, one might say, but for me it never gets old. The range of emotion capable of being displayed by the characters is even more impressive, so much so that I have to suspect a certain amount of computer animation. The film is definitely worth a view even just to enjoy the sights.

Now for the criticism. It's not so much that this film suffers from an identity crisis, as that it isn't given enough time to adequately flesh out the different parts of its psyche. Is it a character driven romantic comedy? It seems to start out as such, and the first 30 minutes are quite strong in setting up what could be an interesting plot. We’re given a love triangle, questionable motives, a nefarious character, and in general the beginnings of a very promising story. Unfortunately, we never get much farther than this. The love triangle falls a little flat, as I never get enough of a feel for the characters’ motivations and desires that I’m able to pick a couple to root for. Depp’s character seems more lost than anything, but that’s alright because love triangle stories are rarely about the man. The women, however, don’t get much more treatment. The Bride herself, while potentially the most complex character, is so vacuous and one dimensional for most of the movie that it’s hard to connect with her. The other female lead is largely powerless and granted so little screen time that at points you almost forget she’s part of the story.

There’s also the sub-plot of a murder mystery, but the villain is so painfully obvious from the get-go that there’s no joy in the ‘revelation’ of his nefarious intent and history. To be fair, he does succeed as an adequately despicable character who deserves his comeuppance. Building the kind of character you love to hate is a difficult and admirable task. This one’s final speech is so unabashedly and heartlessly cruel that I personally couldn’t wait for his imminent punishment, in this case made all the sweeter by the fact that everyone knows it’s coming.

By the time the movie has reached the last 30 minutes or so, it seems to suddenly realize that it must now resolve a satisfyingly complex plot in an unsatisfactorily short amount of time. The solution? Deus ex machina! A vital bit of plot information is introduced at a critical moment, meanwhile the Bride spontaneously grows both a conscience and a clue. While I won’t spoil the final scene, suffice it to say that it resolves her situation a little too easily, and in a way that feels like cheating. I have no problem with suspension of disbelief, but a story should either follow its own rules, or have none at all. No part of the film had even once hinted that such a thing was possible, nor given me reason to understand why it should happen to the Bride and no one else.

Perhaps then, if it fails as drama it can succeed as a musical? Certainly a thin plot can be excused when it’s used as a vessel for some other kind of artistic expression. Well, Corpse Bride does contain a few musical numbers, but while they're certainly passable, I wouldn’t call them great. In what's otherwise a mostly dialogue heavy movie, the songs feel somewhat forced. It’s as if the director were given a minimum number of songs he had to shoehorn into the film, and so wedged them into any available crack in the plot when ordinary dialog would have sufficed perfectly. In fact, at one point, when the film uses a musical number to describe perhaps the most important plot detail of the movie, I felt that dialog would have worked far better.

Was the film enjoyable? Sure. Despite my criticisms, there’s lots I did like about Corpse Bride and I would recommend it to many people looking for a bit of light entertainment. I suppose I’m being a little hard on this movie precisely because it had so much potential. All the ingredients are here: a great concept, potentially complex characters, and actors who can deliver dialog and even carry a decent tune in spite of mediocre composition. I wouldn’t have taken the time to analyze what was wrong in such detail, if I didn’t see so much that could have been right.

Now with added sodium!

As mentioned on the parent site, Tom's Mental Stew, this blog will be devoted to reviews and thoughts on movies and cinema in general. Heck maybe even the occasional bit of theatre.

My rating system will attempt to use the perplexing metaphor of microwavable popcorn in order to illustrate my overall impressions of a given film. For example, to describe a film I mostly enjoyed, the rating could be, 'Lightly buttered and pleasingly salty". Conversely, if a film was a complete abomination, I might summarize it as: 'Unpopped and Blackened'. In other words, it will be completely arbitrary and inconsistent. Take that, statistics!
In any case, suffice it to say that you'll come away with a general impression of how I felt about the film. Here's hoping for fewer unpopped kernels...