Elephants and Ninjas!

ONG BAK was a hell of thing: Introducing the
world to a particularly Thai method of ass-kicking, muay thai,
and to muay thai‘s star student, Tony Jaa, it reinvigorated kung
fu cinema. In 2003’s Ong Bak—and its follow-up, 2005’s
The Protector—Jaa skittered up walls like Spider-Man and
effortlessly whipped his elbow into people’s noses; not since the first
appearances of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li had there been a dude
who was so much fun to watch kick people in the head.

Then Tony Jaa went crazy.

That’s the story from the Thai tabloids anyway, which, OKAY,
might be wholly fabricated—but after seeing Ong Bak
2, I’m guessing it isn’t. Ditching Prachya Pinkaew, the director of
Ong Bak and The Protector, Jaa elected to direct Ong
Bak 2 himself, and the production didn’t go well: An overwhelmed
Jaa reportedly took long breaks from the set, dabbled with black magic
(!), showed up to direct dressed as a shaman (!!), repeatedly went over
budget, possibly fell in with the Thai mafia (!!!), and eventually
broke down sobbing on national television (!!!!). Trust me: This all
makes a lot more sense after watching Ong Bak 2, a film that was
clearly made by an insane person.

Having absolutely nothing to do with the original, Ong Bak 2 is a humorless epic splattered with pixels of CG blood and shot almost
entirely in slooooow motion. The baffling story follows Tien (Jaa), who
as a child was sold into slavery and made to fight alligators (!!!!!);
rescued by a “king of bandits,” Tien alternately seeks revenge and
receives wise counsel. (“Power is terrifying,” one mentor observes,
“but power abusers are more terrifying.”) As for the action, Jaa
can do it, but he can’t shoot it: Shit here feels disorienting and
jarring, with little of the clarity that, in Ong Bak and The
Protector, showed off Jaa’s prodigious ass-kicking skills.

That said, for all its dreary disappointment, there is a
scene in which Jaa and a ninja fight WHILE ON TOP OF AN ELEPHANT. So
there’s that, I guess.