Ask any martial arts fan who the best screen fighters of today are and it certainly won't take long until Tony Jaa's name gets mentioned. After working in supporting roles for a number of years Jaa exploded on the international scene when he first took the lead in Ong Bak, blowing minds with his obvious skill level and willingness to risk life and limb in a series of extreme stunts. Making Jaa even more impressive was his insistence that his fight work be all natural: he uses no wires, no CGI, it's all him. Though let down by a weak script Jaa's follow up role to Ong Bak - Tom Yum Goong, released in North America as The Protector - proved once again that Jaa is a simply huge talent.
And now comes Ong Bak 2, Jaa's third leading role and his directorial debut. The film has no story connection to the first Ong Bak, instead moving the narrative back in time and casting Jaa as a young man saved from execution by a group of global martial artists as a boy who has since trained in every one of their arts in an attempt to fuse them all into one master martial art. From a fight standpoint this is clearly Jaa's most diverse role to date and any fears that he wasn't ready to step behind the camera will disappear within the first couple shots. Clearly Jaa knows what he wants to do back there and the level of detail in the production design and the kinetic shooting style are both very impressive. More impressive? Seeing Jaa fight with weapons and using kung fu techniques on screen for the first time. And if you're thinking he's just faking the Chinese martial arts in this one, that's where you're wrong: Jaa's history with martial arts actually began with kung fu and he didn't pick up muay thai until his mentor, Panna Rittikrai, suggested he might want to play to the local audience a little more.
Anyway, enough of the background. You want the sales reel. The good people at Shamongkol have been kind enough to give us an exclusive first look at the English subtitled promo reel prepared to sell the film at this year's Marche du Film in Cannes. Strap in and get ready for three and a half minutes of non stop action. You'll find it below the break in the Twitch Player.
Wow!
It looks so much different than any other Thai action film. Grittier, yet more polished.
Sweet merciful crap!
Hey. That's my line!
Sweet, finally!
Holy Temple Shit..
PS. God Bless you Todd, for bringing us this fine, fine trailer.
damn... looks like he's finally getting balance into his movies.
This looks insane. I have a feeling that this will be number one on the twitch player for a while.
"Real Fight...is Back!"
Yes. Yes it is.
I just cried a little bit.
Thank you Tony Jaa.
The first minute looked god awful. If this is the first movie with Tony Jaa directing, it really shows.
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPEALIDOCIOUS!
sorry, everyone had used up the best lines, so all i had left was that.
this looks like Matrix meets Drunken Master meets Crouching Tiger meets Iron Monkey meets National Geographic meets Fearless meets Discovery Channel meets Shaw Bros meets ... oh wow.
Tony Jaa is The One.
Awesome. What more is there to say?
I just shit my pants. Thank you, Todd.
I get a "this video is unavailable" error message. Has the file been removed or is it just a temporary error?
it's temp. just try it more often
Hellz yeah!!! I was really dissapointed with Chocolat, but I think this movie will make up for it. Looks sooo damn evil!!!!
Ja. Just to inform you guys that Jaa is using lots of stunt doubles in the material in the trailer. This is not speculation.
Stunt doubles where? You can see his face in all of the fights. Maybe for the other guys but not for Tony.
I totally agree. Even the bests like Yuen Biao (who has acted as a stunt double in many movies) or Jackie Chan have used stunt doubles at one point or another in their carrers. It's a common practice and I don't see why it should come as a shock. Many reasons can explain the use of a stunt double for those action stars: shooting time restrain, exhaustion, injury on the set, insurance problems or just plain common sense that you don't want your main star to get injured. It doesn't take anything from the amazing physical abilities of those action stars. People like Tony Jaa are a rare breed in this day and age, even IF he uses a stunt double on occasions, he's still an amazing performer like their are sadly so few left...
Looks amazing but I have reservations. This looks more like BORN TO FIGHT and less like ONG BAK 2. As cool as BORN TO FIGHT was, there really was no story, just a collection of stunts. Which is fine, but I actually liked the story of the first ONG BAK and the dialogues inbetween the fighting. I also hope there is a story to explain why he is using so many different fighting styles and not just Muai Thai (which we all know has done the job perfectly well before).
The fighting will be awesome not doubt, I just hope for a full movie and not just a collection of stunts, because it would the film that much better and more memorable.
Even with stunt doubles, the fact its all done without cgi or other trickery is always an amazing sight to behold and so rare these days. Even Jackie uses wires and cgi more often these days (obviously due to his age).
Hmm didn't wow me :(
Wow. Finally. I had to attempt Dynamite Warrior to satisfy my lack of T. Jaa fix
and turned in off within the first 10 WEAK minutes of the film.
This looks astounding I almost cried in glee.
Agree with what has been said about the stunts and story, but so far from what i see in the video (and i have seen it like a dozen times already) i always saw Jaa doing everything, elephant-running scene included. Maybe two or 3 shots of him spinning very fast could not be him, but hard to say for the moment.
And Gunde, let me be the first to welcome you to this plane, how long have you been undercover within the human race, and from what planet you came from?
A lot of the action stars use stunt doubles who do a certain trick better than they do. Jackie Chan has said so and has used them almost all his career.
Thank you Swarez- Like the aforementioned Yuen Biao, Mars and the late Lam Ching Ying..
I just got happy in my pants!
Yeah, it looks cool, but how about a good story too, once in a while.
People keep talking about this film like the Weinsteins don't already have the US rights or something. As far as I can tell the Weinsteins have had them for ages. They once had [i]global[/i] rights to it, but they re-negotiated their deal and presently only have the US rights to the film. Or at least that's Variety's story.
If this found its way onto their Dragon Dynasty label I'd be happy, as so far they've put out some very good discs. UNLESS they do their horrible habit of renaming the movie. Having heard come across Tom Yun Goon as either The Protector (UK title) or Warrior King, you could have knocked me down when | finally saw the movie and discovered the Tom Yun Goon was the name of the Restaurant being used as a front for the badguys. How dificult would that have been to market, really? And don't get me started on what the hell "Killzone" has to do with SPL... or how "The Banquet" becoming "Legend of the Black Scorpion"...
Yeah tony ja leads the thai invasion!
for more of thai invasion go see my myspace,hehe
cheers
L
Hmm... style is heavily borrowed from the movie "300". Great results! Cant wait for this movie to come out.
This movie is going to rock so hard it astounds me - it's b.s. that it can't release to the US in December but come hell or high water I'm going to get a copy shipped to me. Since I'm here - I don't know if this will count as spam since it's not intended that way...plus I'm not selling anything LOL But I wanted to let any Tony Jaa fans out there who are wathing this reel like daily medicine, developing a nervous tick waiting for this movie to come out that you're not alone ;) haha I started a site where us poor, deprived Jaa fans can go to commiserate and mingle:
www.tonyjaafans.com
Like I said, this isn't intended as spam - I just figured that since I'm over here, *clears throat guiltily*, AGAIN, I'd take the opportunity to spread the word ;) *Goes back to watching reel*