Tom yum goong

There are parts of Tom Yum Goong (or, as we like to call it, WHERE'S MY ELEPHANT) that amateurish and distracting; especially in some of the camera work and editing. However, those are but minor nit picks in a movie that has some of the best fight sequences I've seen. One, in particular, stands out as it involves a continuous tracking shot of a huge mêlée involving a 4 or 5 story building and a long staircase that winds up all the floors. The entire sequence is one shot, with no cuts or edits. It's worth watching the movie through again just for that sequence.

The story is pretty basic, but really, what at we going to see? This is no Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but it doesn't aim to be. The story is adequate to get you from one sequence to the next.

Tony Jaa is outstanding. His skills in the fight scenes are particularly astonishing given the overall lack of editing in these sequences. He's obviously doing all these things himself, and mostly in real time.

One minor note that I found amusing, though it might only be funny to fans of the movie BABE, the name of the production company is "Baa-Ram-Ewe"

The makers of 2003's Ong-Bak are back with bang, a crash, a couple of elephants and many, many cracks. In fact, every other word spoken appears to be "Argh!". Muay Thay expert-extraordinaire Tony Jaa returns to lead us once again, as his sacred elephants are poached from Thailand and sent to, of all places, Australia. As our hero Kham, he must travel there himself to basically kick the living snot out of anyone who steps in his way. And that's about it.

The maker of this film, Prachya Pinkaew, is either a really shoddy storyteller, or has clocked on to the fact that no one goes to see martial arts films for the plot. Warrior King has an almost identical structure to his first film Ong Bak: a good 25 minutes or so of religious Thai imagery, villagers roaming around with animals before someone comes along and messes everything up. Petchtai Wongkamlao essentially reprises the comedy role he played in the previous release, although this time he hogs all the comic moments, as the wafer-thin script offers little in compensation for its action scenes. All the English-spoken acting is terrible. With that said I'm assuming most of the foreign language acting is terrible too, but for obvious reasons the Australian acting stood out more. The script is full of age old Hollywood clichés such as cops being taken off the case, only to go vigilante, gold-hearted prostitutes and a whole host of colourful looking gangsters (former WWE reject Nathan Jones makes a hilarious cameo) that wouldn't look out of place in a straight-to-video Steven Seagal flick.

And yet despite the glaring faults with a film as silly as this, none of the criticisms truly matter for one simple reason: Tony Jaa is absolutely amazing. Watching our protagonist fly kick the hell out of everyone before performing all sorts of acrobatic stunts will have your jaw on the floor. The man can obviously smash through thin plot points as fast as he can human bones. The film isn't badly shot either. Apart from getting a nice sense of Thai culture and a splendid view of Sidney, Warrior King is expertly choreographed. There is one remarkable sequence in which our protagonist battles his way through four stories of the same building absolutely smashing the hell out of anything thing that moves, which seems to go on forever, taken all in one single steady-cam shot. It would make David Lean jealous.

Granted if you've seen Ong Bak watching Muay Thay for a second time won't have the same head-crushing impact. Whilst Warrior King boasts plenty of superbly choreographed action sequences, it doesn't peak as well as the much more pure Ong Bak managed to. The movie does, however, generate a sense of darkness amidst the stalking threat of campy buffoonery. So it's an impressive sophomore effort, obviously catering more towards an ever increasingly cognizant western audience.

I have watched this movie several times and have come to a number of conclusions. The first is that 90% of the North American audience knows nothing about Asian films and more to the point, martial arts. Several other IMDb members commented on the repetitiveness of the movie, comparisons to Jackie Chan/Jet Li and its use of Kung Fu.

First of all martial arts flicks will always be redundant to some extent since there are only so many ways to pick a fight, but stories do vary as does the quality of action. Tom Yum Goong is very similar to Ong Bak in its simplistic story and the noble feeling that surrounds Tony Jaa's character. Mind you in this movie Tony is much more violent and brutal to his enemies. His sorrow at the loss of the elephants is a big part of his rage and the simplicity of the story left lots of space for action. Perhaps left simple for international appeal or for the simple fact that a simple, pure story would be more poignant. Anyway, if you go to a martial arts flick looking to pick it apart and analyze the acting skills then your a fool and should never leave your American Hollywood watering hole.

As to comparing Tony Jaa to Jackie Chan or Jet Li, are you insane?! Both Jackie and Jet are in their forties. Both are from China and went through actual training schools and academy's as well competitions. Wu Shu, Crane, Drunken Boxing etc... These are the styles these men made famous. Jackie built his comedic style from the ground up with his amazing acrobatic abilities, fighting skill and on screen charm. Now I'm not a Jackie Chan fan by any means, but credit where it is due. Jet Li was one of the youngest Chinese National Tournament winners ever and blew people away with his Tai Chi and Shaolin style Kung Fu.

How does this relate to Tony Jaa? It doesn't at all and thats the point. Tony was very poor growing up in Thailand idolizing Bruce lee in the movies. He earned every break he has in his own way, and built his style accordingly. This movie is so amazing because it not just Kung Fu and Karate for the thousandth time. Tony is a master of Muay Thai Kickboxing, which he uses 80% of the movie. Now you don't even need to know anything about fighting to notice the difference between karate (or other styles) and Muay Thai. Through the diversity of his fighting style as he battles people who using everything from crane style Kung Fu to Capoeira, you understand why comparing him to others is unfair. While he has trained in similar martial arts its obvious that he is unique. He is in the best shape of his life and just now coming into his prime. His screen presence, skill and experience mean he could be as big or bigger than Jackie or Jet in the next ten years. At the very least he is going to be a major Thai action star for years.

Also people keep in mind this is a Thai movie. Hollywood wouldn't even have finished the credits before they ran out of money if they worked with the same budget. More International success will give Tony Jaa access to a bigger budget, more talent (ie writers, language instructors, studios etc..) and allow him to grow. Its easy to bash but look at the low budget flicks Jackie Chan or any other martial artist made when they where twenty and you'll see that this movie is much much better than most.

Remember it all just opinion people, everyones got one. PacManPolarBear

The Jatalangkabaht people are proud villagers who live as one with the elephants. Kham and his father look after the mighty Por Yai and the baby Korn and, when they learn of a royal elephant inspection, decide to travel to the city to take part. However the two elephants are taken and Kham's father shot. One fight later, Kham learns that the elephants have been taken to Sydney, Australia. Kham travels to Australia to recover his elephants – a path that brings him into the lives of police officer Mark, call girl Pla and crime boss Madame Rose.

I'm not entirely sure why this flopped because, like Ong Bak, although everyone knows the plot and acting will generally be weak, few will be in the cinema for anything other than impressive action. Of course Warrior King delivers this but I was also reasonably impressed by how the other factors had improved to a certain degree. The narrative is still a weak excuse for lots of people to get kicked in the head and there are still lots of scenes that don't seem to make sense and, well, just happen. However the film does feel a little bit more professional; touches of humour such as the comment about pirate DVD's for example. Of course none of this means that the plot is any good but at least it is better than previous. Perhaps it is not PC to say it, but the use of English with Thai helps as well – I find the latter a very ugly language and the way it is scaled back does make it more accessible to a western audience.

The lack of a really engaging plot does rather mean that the action exists as a separate entity and is not part of a gripping total film – the temple fights being a good example as they are more like baddies in a video game than a film. Of course with action this good it doesn't really matter and you will still find yourself gasping at some of the violent kicks. Some of it is a little overdone (the rollerblading bit was all a bit daft) but some is surprisingly well done. There is a continuous tracking shot that moves up several floors and encompasses many individual fights that I thought was stunning and must have been so difficult to get right. Jaa's skills are undeniable and he is helped by the way his character is given more anger to work with and isn't a "naïve country boy" to the degree he was in Ong-bak. He still isn't a great actor but he is getting better at least in his native tongue. Wongkamlao has less to do here but his English is good and he comes off well. Khongmalai is a good addition as she is natural and very easy on the eye (although I did feel a bit cheapened by her gratuitous mud bath scene). Xing's Rose isn't great but De Montemas has a bit more menace (shame his character is so poor), while Nguyen is generally a good turn.

Overall then this is not a great film because of the weaknesses in the plotting and some reasonably average acting turns. However it is a marked improvement on Ong-bak in these areas and should be a bit more accessible as a result. The action suffers from being cut off from the narrative but is still very enjoyable for what it is. Fans of the genre should love it.

As a coherent , well acted film tom yum goong is a failure.As an opportunity to see tony jaa completely and utterly destroy his opponents in the most awe inspiring and brutal ways possible, its a huge success! The action in tom yum goong is phenomenal to say the least - tony jaa proves that ong bak was no fluke!The part where jaa does battle with a gang of bikers and roller bladers is an exciting sequence , reminiscent of jackie chan in his police story days. The fight where he battles his way to the top floor of a restaurant in one continuous tracking shot, is a truly amazing piece of work that demands to be re-winded more than once .The fight that pits jaa against dozens of suited henchmen is a bone crunching, applause worthy spectacle that proves what ong bak fans already know- TONY JAA IS THE MAN !!!!! These fights are just some of a collection masterful action sequences .

As for the rest of the film...lets put it this way- if the action was no good then tom yum goong would be unwatchable. The action makes up for the moronic , near pointless plot . I know that we don't watch these sort of films for plot, but tom yum goong takes the cake with its "one man looking for his elephant" story!And don't get me started on the acting, particularly the lines spoken in English.Tony jaa needs to work with a decent script writer in future....

Weak on pretty much everything else except the fights , tom yum goong has Superior action and confirms that tony jaa is an amazing performer.