Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
When the head of a statue sacred to a village is stolen, a young martial artist goes to the big city and finds himself taking on the underworld to retrieve it.
Ong-Bak is a landmark in action cinema primarily for its raw, uncompromising showcase of Muay Thai through Tony Jaa's extraordinary physical performance — entirely stunt-double-free and shot with jaw-dropping practical ingenuity. The novelty is genuine and high: its bone-crunching authenticity and relentless kineticism made it feel unlike anything audiences had seen. However, the plot is threadbare and formulaic (village artifact stolen, hero goes to city to retrieve it), the acting is functional at best, and the ending resolves somewhat abruptly without much dramatic payoff. The cinematography is competent and energetic in action sequences but unremarkable in dramatic scenes.