This deeply religious film mixes elements from a number of sources, both traditional and modern to bring this culture crossing tale to the screen, along with a mighty helping of whoop arse.
Running at 97 minutes, of which seven minutes of it seems to be plot, which is just about the right balance. A small village has the head of it’s idol, Ong Bak stolen, so they send Ping, who won the tree climbing competition (they don’t have television) the day before off to the city to find it.
Along the way this quite youth becomes an arse kicking machine, all in the name of retrieving the deities head and saving the village from having to drink muddy water. Amongst the foes that cop a justified beating are the Ong Bak thief (who wears an army shirt) a loud mouthed Australian, a gang of taxi drivers and finally the head henchman who partakes in performance enhancing drugs.
This film has it all religion, moral fortitude, sacrifice and several different shades of crap being kicked out of folks as Ting demonstrates a number of different ways of kicking someone (with lots of slow motion).
It all ends up in a cave in the mountains where Ting has his final showdown with the wheelchair bound head bad guy (not a particularly disabled-access friendly venue).
If you are looking for some god endorsed sweaty man on man action this could be just the film for you. It’s fast paced, well choreographed and not too taxing on the brain cells.