Ong Bak: The Time Waster

[nobody]

I was eagerly waiting for the release of "Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior" after hearing such good things about it, but when I went to the store to buy a copy there were none to be found. Thankfully I had to resort to renting it. Now I can return this garbage movie and walk away only having lost a few bucks.

Here's my short three-point review:

1) The fighting was okay. It was all believable for the most part. The director was absolutely in love with the fighting, however, or so it seemed. I say this because he cut instant replays of certain stunts into his film. This effect was retarded, especially since I rented the film and could easily rewind if I wanted to. There were times when the replays were giving you different angles of the action, but that wasn't always the case, and even so, they were completely unnecessary.  

2) The subtitles were a total joke. They seem to have been written by someone who barely speaks Thai and has no clue what information subtitles should actually convey. For example, you get several random reminders that people are speaking in Thai when the subtitles appear in brackets, "[Speaking in Thai]" before everything the characters say. That reminder pops up at least 20 times. There were also moments when "[Speaking in Thai]" trumped the dialog all together, supressing what actual dialog was spoken.
Other subtitles were equally as stupid, pointing out things you can see with your own eyes, such as "[Crowd applauds]", "[Applause continues]" and "[Crowd screams]."

3) I wasn't expecting a good plot. In fact, for this movie I didn't want any real plot at all. What I got was the worst possible thing: A long and boring plot that was excruciatingly painful to watch. I ended up fast forwarding through the last half of the movie just to get past it.

I could continue to rant about several things (i.e. the annoying comic relief, the god awful "techno" music that's anything but techno, and so on), but you all get the point.

All in all this is totally a film everyone should avoid. I got sucked into the hype- something this film never should've had- and I'd hate to see anyone else get suckered as well. :)

[lester1/2jr]

I totally disagree.  Loved the old school action.  HK has gotten to artsy and clever.  This one remembers the Chuck Norris cliche-ledden stuff we all love watching when we should be working/ thinking.  I liked seeing thailand.  I never been there!

[BeyondTheGrave]

I liked this flim also. I was geting tired of recent asian action flicks like Hero that in IMO make fighting alittle to artsy and this was a breath of air. My favorite part was when he fought the bar brawler how was throwing stuff at him like chair and tables.

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Most of all I hate dancing then work, exercise, people,stupid people

[Jim H]

I'm in partial agreement.  I also think the fight sequences are vastly overrated (in the same way that those in Fist of Legend are, reminds me a lot of that actually).  However, they're still entertaining and well-done.  However, I found the stuntwork very enjoyable to watch.  Some neat stuff going on.

All told, I'd say the film is worth watching, but not worth owning.

[lester1/2jr]

The opening scene was cool too.  with the tree

[Fearless Freep]

Just put in on my Netflix Queue...