After a run of hopeless movies, this Sunday night I got to see a movie which I classify as “total paisa wasool”. It’s a movie that has been released in India by the name of Enter the New Dragon. And trust me it is a great tribute to the Original Enter the Dragon.
The original name of the movie was “Ong-Bak”. This movie has also been released under the name “Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior” in the rest of the world. It is a Thai movie, dubbed into English. The dubbing is poor, in fact very poor. but the action sequences make up for much more than that.
Move over Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat of the world! Tony Jaa is here and he will blow you off your feet. Tony makes all others look like Sissy Dolls.
He will distinctly remind you of Bruce Lee’s times. When Marital arts movies used to be Martial Arts movies – pure adrenaline rush and human fighting skills at their best (well at least on Silver Screen).
This movie is about a boy(Tony Jaa) from a Village in Thailand. There is a severe drought there, and to make matters worse some goons steal Ong-bak’s (Lord Buddha’s sacred Statue) Head from the Village temple to sell it for huge profits. The boy takes up the responsibility of bringing the statue (and associated good luck) to the Village. He heads off to Bangkok for that. Then starts a non-stop mind-blowing action.
The Martial art shown in this Movie is called Muay-Thai. The one that Van-Damme cheaply used in some of his movies(Bloodsport, Kickboxer). The movie has no duplicates or special effects. It’s purely based on the talents of Tony Jaa, and he has done an outstanding job. All the fight sequences are brilliantly crafted. Slow motion has been used in the right places, to show you what exactly happened. Yes, the action is that fast.
When I come to think of it, I went for this movie because all of the other flicks on offer in the city were Guaranteed time wastes. Dil Bechara.. , Decoy, Hathya, Tauba-Tauba etc were all crap. We had almost settled for watching Spiderman-2 again (Yes we are that sort of big screen addicts).
But somehow we went to Skyline for Enter the New Dragon and were preparing ourselves for another second-grade so-called Martial Art movie. But good things mostly come as surprises. And what a pleasant surprise it was.
I have grown up on Martial art movies. There were times when after School I would Rush to my friend’s place to see movies. And that would mean Anything that had, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jean Claude Van-Damme names associated with it. “Enter the new Dragon” reminded me of those days. This has re-ignited that passion for Martial art movies. If you want to see a real Martial Art movie, Enter the New Dragon is a must-watch.
PS: I am told Tony Jaa was the Martial Arts Coordinator for Mortal-Kombat – 2