After being blown away by Ong Bak, I was looking forward to see Jaa's next film, Tom-Yun-Goong. I found that the film still delivered the same amount of high flying, bone breaking combat which made Ong Bak what it was, albeit delivered in a different way.
Kham (Jaa) is a village boy leading a peaceful life in Thailand, alongside his beloved elephants, Poor Yai and Korn. However, things become less peaceful when both elephants are stolen by poachers, and transported to Australia to be used for slightly unorthodox uses. This triggers Kham into action, and he heads to Australia to track down his huge 4 legged friends. Soon after arrival, he comes across policeman Mark, played by none other than Ong Bak's Humlae, only in this he is attempting to speak English alongside Thai. From then on, the 2 confront deadly martial artists, police corruption, shady business and lots of thugs in black.
Earlier I mentioned the fight scenes being slightly different to Ong Bak, mainly because they were served in a slightly more 'Jackie Chan-esquire' way than the brutal bar room knockouts we saw in OB. There is a particularly OTT scene in a warehouse, where Kham takes on a crowd of young men on roller blades and bmx stunt bikes, not to mention real motorbikes and even a quad! It is a scene more about stunts and acrobatics than actually fighting, which is where it differed from Ong Bak in a sense. However, the lack of brutality in that scene is paid in full when Kham takes on a legion of calcium deficient men in black with amazing ease and energy.
There is also the increasingly well known single take fight scene, in which Kham ascends the staircases of a multi-storied building throwing, kicking and kneeing opponents out of the way, to reach a restaurant at the top.
Another strong fight scene is where Kham takes on 3 skilled martial artists of different styles in a temple, with a 3 or so inch layer of water on the floor to boot.
Apart from the regular fight scenes, unfortunately this film does not fair well. It does not have the code of honour that Ong Bak had, and its plot is at times just silly. Many of the characters are not at all developed, and some of the lines are straight from a comic book. It would be fair to say that the concentration of talent seems to have gone into the fight scenes, leaving the interlocking scenes weak and poorly scripted. In Ong Bak he was on a mission to get back the stolen head of a village statue, which was priceless to the village and its welfare, so you could see why he went to such lengths to get it back, but in this, the fighting is all for these elephants, so the violence is harder to justify.
I wouldn't say this a merely a showcase for Jaa's skills, but as a motion picture in cinema history, it does not deserve much praise. It is the kind of film worth a watch for its combat sequences and fight choreography, but not the kind of film that you will ponder over after the credits end.
Kham (Jaa) is a village boy leading a peaceful life in Thailand, alongside his beloved elephants, Poor Yai and Korn. However, things become less peaceful when both elephants are stolen by poachers, and transported to Australia to be used for slightly unorthodox uses. This triggers Kham into action, and he heads to Australia to track down his huge 4 legged friends. Soon after arrival, he comes across policeman Mark, played by none other than Ong Bak's Humlae, only in this he is attempting to speak English alongside Thai. From then on, the 2 confront deadly martial artists, police corruption, shady business and lots of thugs in black.
Earlier I mentioned the fight scenes being slightly different to Ong Bak, mainly because they were served in a slightly more 'Jackie Chan-esquire' way than the brutal bar room knockouts we saw in OB. There is a particularly OTT scene in a warehouse, where Kham takes on a crowd of young men on roller blades and bmx stunt bikes, not to mention real motorbikes and even a quad! It is a scene more about stunts and acrobatics than actually fighting, which is where it differed from Ong Bak in a sense. However, the lack of brutality in that scene is paid in full when Kham takes on a legion of calcium deficient men in black with amazing ease and energy.
There is also the increasingly well known single take fight scene, in which Kham ascends the staircases of a multi-storied building throwing, kicking and kneeing opponents out of the way, to reach a restaurant at the top.
Another strong fight scene is where Kham takes on 3 skilled martial artists of different styles in a temple, with a 3 or so inch layer of water on the floor to boot.
Apart from the regular fight scenes, unfortunately this film does not fair well. It does not have the code of honour that Ong Bak had, and its plot is at times just silly. Many of the characters are not at all developed, and some of the lines are straight from a comic book. It would be fair to say that the concentration of talent seems to have gone into the fight scenes, leaving the interlocking scenes weak and poorly scripted. In Ong Bak he was on a mission to get back the stolen head of a village statue, which was priceless to the village and its welfare, so you could see why he went to such lengths to get it back, but in this, the fighting is all for these elephants, so the violence is harder to justify.
I wouldn't say this a merely a showcase for Jaa's skills, but as a motion picture in cinema history, it does not deserve much praise. It is the kind of film worth a watch for its combat sequences and fight choreography, but not the kind of film that you will ponder over after the credits end.