Ong-Bak 2 (องค์บาก 2) Thai DVD Movie Review
March 26 2009, 11:48am
When I first heard about Ong-Bak 2 being produced I was still thinking this will be a follow up of the fantastic fun that the original Ong-Bak was: A modern story, filmed in crazy Bangkok with lots of bad mafia guys and the awesome fighting scenes that I learned to love from Ong-Bak. And why should you change a winning concept in the first place? Right?....Right?
Well, turned out I was very wrong. Ong-Bak 2 has absolutely nothing to do story-wise with the first Ong-Bak. The only common denominator is Tony Jaa. I was a little disappointed I have to say because it looked some kind of Thai version of Braveheart from the first pictures I saw. Of course I went to see Ong-Bak 2 at the cinema when it was released in Bangkok. Contrary to most DVDs almost all Thai movies are shown with English subs in Thai cinemas, so if you should ever come here, go check out some Thai movies at the cinema.
Overview of the plot:
Tien (Tony Jaa) is the son of a noble man, Lord Sihadecko. Another lord wants to gain control of the country and kills Tien's father. In a last effort, Tien is bright away so he cannot be killed and later he is adopted by a group of thieves and bandits. In their camp high in the hills they have a camp where Ting learns to become a master in all sorts of fighting until he feels a call to take revenge on the people who have killed his parents. He takes off to find Lord Rachasena (the lord who was behind the killings of his parents) and kill him. But he is of course protected by many of the best fighters, including a mysterious hooded ninja master fighter who Tien remembers as the one holding the sword that killed his father.
The Good:
The movie turned out to be good in the end. I didn't think it was fantastic and it wasn't as genre changing as Ong-Bak was but it was still good entertainment with some awesome pictures, scenery and fighting scenes. But Ong-Bak 2 is a movie you can "grow into". Re-watching it on DVD after about half a year I actually had much more fun than watching it the first time. I could appreciate more some of the scenes that are really great. Everybody is talking about the final fight scene with what must be something like 20 Ninja fighters and Tony Jaa. Watching this the second time I realized even more how brutal and dangerous the stunts are in this scene. Some of the stuntmen are thrown down meter high buildings and I bet there must have been at least a couple of bones broken during the filming. Also, the choreography is absolutely stunning. Ong-Bak 2 has some of the most stylish fights of any movie.
So my rating after watching it the first time would have been 1-2 points lower than the rating I give it below for the reason that this movie is definitely stuff you can watch several times without getting boring but actually being more fun than the first time.
The Bad:
Now we come to the first thing about the DVD that I was extremely surprised about to see: The DVD is only 1 hour 33 minutes long. Why I say only, this sounds like a normal length for an action movie you say? I don't remember the exact time of Ong-Bak 2 at the movie theater but I can assure you that it was a very long movie.
Update: Apparently I was indeed wrong. The movie was originally 97 minutes long so it seems only a few minutes were cut. I could have sworn it was longer...
The Strange:
As you might have heard already, the ending is.....strange. to say the least. I think everybody was like: WTF, is it over now? Is that it? The worst thing about it was that nowhere before it was mentioned anywhere in Thailand or anywhere else that this movie doesn't have a real ending and seems to leave the door wiiiiiiiide open for a follow-up (that by the way is scheduled to be released this year later in 2009). But it was just so strange that nobody said anything about it, so nobody expected an "end", basically the movie stopping right in the middle. The story behind this apparently is that the movie was taking too long already in the production and that Tony Jaa was getting into a fight with the production house over money and then basically walked off the set. So the movie might never have been finished.
And after it was finished (but not as originally thought which shows in that non existing end) it was very unclear if it will be a success. But, many didn't believe in it, Ong-Bak 2 turned out to be the biggest hit in Thailand ever, bringing in more money at the box office than any other Thai film before. So as I mentioned earlier, the third part, which will hopefully bring the conclusion is planned to be released this year and I will definitely be one of the first to go watch it.
For me, Ong-Bak 2 is a must have, although opinion about it is more split than for the original Ong-Bak. The Thai DVD is a DVD9 and has a great quality, noticeably better than many other Thai DVD's. There is no artifacts whatsoever and even watching on a computer screen the picture quality is excellent. thee Thai DVD of Ong-Bak 2 comes with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. You better watch this with the sound cranked up to get all the bone shattering sounds and effects. It's worth it, believe me.
Cast:
Tony Jaa as Tien Nirut Sirichanya as Master Bua Tim Man as Black Ninja (the one killing Tien's parents) Sarunyoo Wongkrachang as Lord Rajasena Sorapong Chatree as Chernang Santisuk Promsiri as Lord Sihadecho
Rating: 8/10
Trailer:
Buy:
Buy Ong-Bak 2 DVD Thai version at YesAsia
Screenshots:
