Martial Arts Film of the Day: Tom-Yum-Goong (ต้มยำกุ้ง, 2005)
For generations, the royal family of Thailand's war elephants have been put in the special care of a family. Kham (Tony Jaa) is the last one of those caretakers, and has a close relationship with the elephant Por Yai, and its calf Kohrn. However, when poachers steal them both during the Songkran festival (with the aid of a member of parliament to boot), it's Kham's duty to get the animals back, which drags him into a world trotting rabbithole of corruption, animal trafficking, and just the sheer madness of the criminal underworld.
Once again made by the trio of Jaa, Pinkaew, and Rittikrai, while this movie is not a sequel to Ong-Bak it may as well be a spiritual successor of sorts (specially since the actual sequels went into a… different direction). A rescue plot for the hero to embark into, a different city for him to be a fish out of water (if a cleaner looking one) and a nasty underworld full of crooks for him to fight. However, without a solid supporting cast to Kham's journey it truly feels like the plot is just an excuse to get into crazy fights, and taking its sweet time to do that to boot. It's not only the American cut either (fucked over by the Weinstein Company), the Thai original has some odd pacing and lackluster storytelling.
Fortunately, if the fights are what ultimately matters to you they more than justify the entry ticket, and may even provide a bargain. Once it gets rolling, the action sequences are absolutely crazy. Motorcycle chases, waterbike chases, a duel against a capoerista in a temple set ablaze, and probably the most ambitious uncut fight sequence in film history. Not to mention a plethora of guest martial artists bringing an expansive set of styles to the table, as well as Jaa and Rittikrai developing an entire Muay Thai style more focused on grappling just for the film's character. For all its issues, its a tour de force in the one area they put the most care on.
Not gonna lie, this film is actually a big reason why I wanted to talk about martial art films this March. Is it quite a bit on the dumb side of things? Yes. Somehow it has a less engaging story arc compared to Ong Bak, in spite of having an innocent animal as the target to rescue compared to a statue head. And a lot of the action does reach levels of absurdity that are quite humorous to put it mildly. Yet, for all the finger pointing you can make for this one, they threw it all at it, and it shows.
It features wrestling moves (courtesy of ex WWE member Nathan Jones), Wushu (by stunstman John Foo), whip combat (played by ballerina Jin Xing), and Capoeira (courtesy of Lateef Crowder in one of the best fights on the film). It was supposed to also feature Tae Kwon Do(through Daniel O'Neill and Dean Alexandrou) but the fight got cut… which says a lot about how much fighting footage they had on the editing room. And I thing that's not even all the fighting styles featured in the film. They even wanted a quick cameo of Jackie Chan but schedule conflicts made it unfeasible.
So yeah… I have to highlight not only one, but TWO fights in this movie.
The first involves the aforementioned Lateef Crowder in a fight that makes little sense plot wise but looks so cool it stands out regardless. Capoeira is a fighting style that has seldom any film representation focused on it. Sure, it has been represented in Marvel's Black Panther(2018), but it's rarely the star of the show. It isn't the case here either but it certainly becomes a show stealer: it's mixture of dance moves and acrobatic strikes is always electrifying to watch thanks to a combination where the dance mainly serves to obfsucate the actual strikes and keep the fighter moving, thus making them a more difficult target to predict.
Even more impressive since Crowder was actually injured during the filming of a good chunk of the fight.
The second one has to be this aboslute behemoth of a sequence. Much as Tony Jaa didn't become the next household martial artist like many hoped, this fight against multiple opponents in a single long take DOES rival many of the accomplishments of the very best and should be his biggest legacy to martial arts cinema. The sheer complexity and physicality required to pull this off is hard to describe: it's four minutes of non stop action that required the coordination of many stuntment, some of which are being thrown one or two stories without the camera picking the mats, and a fairly long list of objects that needed to break the right way.
Even the cameraman needed to be in top shape with the intricate way the camera follows the action through a special rig across multiple floors. Apparently, the American contractor hired to do this scene fainted after a few takes because of the exertion and they needed someone from Thailand to cover for him.
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