3 out of 5

Director: Prachya Pinkaew

Some years ago, when Ong-Bak hit the Americas and the kids were all atwitter (this was lo-tech, internet/magazine twitter though) about this new martial arts flick, I rented it, got a little bored, thought the direction was fairly shoddy, but agreed that Tony Jaa was fun to watch. Now, years later, the rental professional that I am, Ive rewatched the film. Subjection to a wider variety of crap has probably softened my opinions a bit, and, of course, rewatching it without the surrounding hype, but the film works much better as a movie than I recall. It plays the buildup pretty well, showcasing Jaas mixture of Muay Thai (sp?) and free-running stunts in flashes until an extended fight-scene just past the mid-point and then again at the end. And the humor and characters work mostly well, sufficing as typical bad-guys or foils or whatever. But I realized that Jaa brings this all together, with a believable face and presenting his fighting ability in a way that, as a viewer, it does make it seem that he is initially reluctant to fight (which is part of the plot). Its amazing to watch, and if you can look past the fanboyish need to replay stunts from several angles, the director does handle the material as maturely as possible. It gets a little tedious by the end, I felt, and theres this overwhelming feeling of unimportance to the whole journey, placing this smack-dab in the three star range.