Tony Jaa

Japanom Yeerum, formerly Tatchakorn Yeerum or Panom Yeerum, better known to western audiences as Tony Jaa and in Thailand as Jaa Panom, was born 5 February 1976 in Surin province, Isaan, Thailand, about 400 km away from Bangkok. Growing up, Jaa was fascinated by the martial arts exploits of actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee and Vince Lam, and would imitate them whenever he had the chance. At 15, he became a protégé of stuntman and action-film director Panna Rittikrai, and under his instruction he went on to attend Maha Sarakham College of Physical Education in Maha Sarakham province. An athlete through and through, Jaa has won gold medals in Thailand for track running, swordplay, and gymnastics, and in university he was a high jump athlete, an acquired skill which still allows him to jump 2 meters high. His athleticism and martial arts ability made him a natural fit in Panna’s Muay Thai Stunt team. In 1999, Panna’s stunt team partnered with Prachya Pinkaew and Prachya’s production house, Baa-Ram-Ewe, and Panna hand-selected Jaa to star in their first collaboration – Ong-bak, which Prachya was to direct and for which Panna was to do the fight choreography. Prior to his breakout role in Ong-bak, Jaa’s had smaller roles in other films, from 1994’s Spirited Killer to 2001’s Nuk leng klong yao, and he even had an uncredited involvement as Liu Kang’s (Robin Shou’s) stunt double in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Jaa, Panna, and Prachya’s collaborations continued with 2005’s Tom-Yum-Goong, known in the west as The Protector. In 2008, Jaa directed himself in Ong-bak 2, while Prachya was busy directing Yanin Vismitananda in her debut starring role in the film Chocolate, and in 2010, Jaa and Panna wrote and directed Ong-bak 3 without Prachya’s involvement. After this, on 28 May 2010, Jaa retired from acting to become a Buddhist monk in Surin, Thailand, and he officially married his long-time girlfriend Piyarat Chotiwattananont on 29 December 2011. In 2013, Jaa left the monastic life behind and the trio of Jaa, Panna, and Prachya regrouped for another sequel, this time Tom-Yum-Goong 2, with Prachya back in the director’s chair.

Jaa’s future film plans for 2014 include a team-up with Dolph Lundgren in A Man Will Rise, and in 2015 he will have a role in his first Hollywood film, Fast & Furious 7. Also in 2015 he will be reteaming with Lundgren for Skin Trade, and appearing in a currently unspecified role in SPL 2: Rise of Wong Po, sequel to 2005’s SPL: Sha Po Lang, known in the west as Kill Zone. He has announced he will not be appearing in the planned fourth movie in the Ong-bak franchise, due to be released 2014.

Training and Style
Starting at the age of 8, Jaa was trained in muay Thai, or Thai boxing. Since then, he’s earned a black belt in taekwondo, although it is unclear whether his TKD training was formal or a part of his stunt team apprenticeship. In addition to his TKD and muay Thai training, Jaa is also familiar with Judo and Wushu, and he has taught himself krabi-krabong (a weapons-based Thai martial art), lethwei (an unarmed Burmese martial art), and kino mutai (a specialized subsection of some Filipino martial arts that highlights uninterrupted biting and eye gouging). He and his mentor Panna studied for four years the art of muay boran, or ancient boxing, which was the precursor to today’s muay Thai, and it was this training and a subsequent video demonstration that led to the creation of Jaa’s first breakout film, Ong-bak.

Trivia

• Jackie Chan was so impressed with Tony Jaa’s work that Chan convinced director Brett Ratner to give Jaa a role in 2007’s Rush Hour 3. However, Jaa could not take the role because he was busy making Ong-bak 2 at the time. “I gave the director videos of Tony Jaa because I think Tony Jaa is the most well-rounded of all action stars,” Chan told the Associated Press. “The director liked him a lot.”
• Jaa had small cameo roles as himself in Petchtai Wongkamlao’s 2004 action-comedy The Bodyguard and its 2007 sequel. Petchtai played Sergeant Mark in Tom-Yum-Goong and its sequel, and has also appeared in all three of Jaa’s Ong-bak films, so the two are frequent collaborators.
• In 2005 Jaa lent his voice and likeness to a PC video game adaptation of Tom-Yum-Goong, and it’s very difficult to find any information about this game except through YouTube videos, like this one. I’m sure a truly motivated fan will be able to acquire a copy of what looks like a terrible game through… questionable… means…
• Here’s a pretty great compilation video of Jaa and Vin Diesel training together for Fast & Furious 7.

(ssw)

What Is Muay Thai?

Tony Jaa, a Thai martial artist, stunt performer and actor, had his breakout role as a leading man in 2003’s Ong-Bak: The Muay Thai Warrior, which exposed many westerners to the muay Thai martial art. Known also as the “art/science of eight limbs,” because it depends on the fighter making efficient use of his hands, elbows, knees, and feet, muay Thai, or “Thai boxing,” is a combat sport and the successor to muay boran, or “ancient boxing.” Muay boran is an umbrella term for any style of Indochinese kickboxing to come out of Thailand prior to the 1930s and it adds a ninth weapon to the eight of muay Thai. Therefore muay boran is said to make use of the nawa awut, or “nine weapons,” since it includes headbutts, though headbutts are no longer permitted in sanctioned matches. Muay boran has a lower, wider stance than muay Thai, and is more difficult to learn today because much of the art has been lost to history and replaced by muay Thai.

The two focal points of muay Thai are clinching and striking. With clinching, the idea is to grab hold of the opponent and limit his ability to strike or retreat, as well as in preparation for a throw or a takedown. With muay Thai specifically, a focus of the clinch is to strike the opponent with the knee or elbow during the hold. By contrast, in western boxing, if two fighters clinch one another, they are quickly separated by the referee. This is not the case in muay Thai, where clinching is a fundamental aspect of the sport. As muay Thai is mostly seen and used as a full contact fighting sport, practitioners focus heavily on body conditioning. It is considered a very effective striking base in mixed martial arts (MMA).

In Tom-Yum-Goong (The Protector) and its sequel, Tony Jaa uses a modified form of muay Thai called muay kodchasarn, or “elephant boxing,” that he developed with his trainer, Panna Rittikrai. This style was partly inspired by that used by Jaturungkabart, or “protectors,” an ancient class of fighters who served as bodyguards to the king’s elephant. “‘In ancient times,'” Jaa says, “‘the elephants were used for war, and the king was sitting on the elephants. [The soldiers’ job] was to protect the elephants’ legs,’ thereby protecting the king” (source).

Here is a muay Thai match between fighters Singdam (red) and Pakorn (blue), from February 28, 2014. You can see them start clinch fighting at around the 2:30 mark. They fight for the Lumpini Lightweight title on the “Petchyindee” promotion at the New Lumpini Stadium in Bangkok. (ssw)

Tom-Yum-Goong 2 (The Protector 2)

Tom-Yum-Goong, known in the U.S. as The Protector, was released in Thailand in 2005, but it didn’t reach American theaters until late 2006. I didn’t see it until it came out on DVD in 2007 through the Dragon Dynasty distribution label. Tony Jaa’s fighting style is a new take on Muay Thai called muay kodchasaan (elephant boxing), created by Jaa and his mentor, Panna Rittikrai, the two of whom choreographed all the film’s fight sequences. After I watched The Protector, I picked my jaw up off the floor and had a new conception of what martial arts movies were supposed to be. I had an awesome aftertaste in my mouth I wouldn’t taste again until The Raid: Redemption came out of Indonesia in 2011. In Tom-Yum-Goong, Jaa did most all his own stunts with minimal wire work and minimal CGI. The fight choreography was incredible, brutal, practical, real. The cinematography, especially that four-minute long tracking shot, took my breath away. Naturally, when I got my hands on the sequel, 2013’s Tom-Yum-Goong 2, a.k.a. The Protector 2, directed by Prachya Pinkaew, I expected nothing less than the best. That’s not what I got.

The film opens on a rooftop with our hero from the previous film, Kham (Jaa), in a seemingly incongruous situation. He’s holding a defenseless man at knife point while a team of riot cops are about to gun him down, including Sergeant Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao), a Thai-Australian police officer who became Kham’s ally during his last quest. We don’t know what’s up! Kham ends up slashing the man’s throat, and Mark shoots him, which causes him to fall off the building, presumably to his death. What happened to our dear hero Kham!? Now we Tarantino the chronology a bit, to two days earlier, when Kham is alive and well in Thailand with his elephant Khorn, whom he sees as his brother. Kham and Khorn have been through quite a bit together, but an eccentric international criminal named LC, played by none other than Rza, thinks our two friends should go through a little bit more. He arranges the kidnapping of Khorn to lure Kham into the mix of some strange hierarchy of fighters he’s assembled. Every fighter in his crew is named for their ranking, and their ranking represents where their skill lies on the hierarchy. For example, #20 is a sexy assassin and LC’s love interest, played by Rhatha Phongam, and #02 is a ruthless African American played by Marrese Crump. LC’s ultimate goal is to implicate Kham and his elephant in some terrorist plot to exacerbate this civil war going on in a fictional Asian nation. It doesn’t really matter. None of the plot really matters. Seriously, every thing that happens is inconsequential and at times even incoherent. About 2/3rds of the way into the movie I realized that we were supposed to stop caring about plot about a half-hour ago. Don’t even try to make sense of it. Just don’t.

Tom-Yum-Goong 2, like its predecessor, isn’t light on the awesome fight sequences, as LC has plenty of talented martial artists to send Kham’s way, including a gang of about 100 or so motorbikers for some reason. What the film is light on, though, is the practical effects and brutal realism that made me fall in love with Tom-Yum-Goong in the first place. Instead of incredible fight sequences staged over elaborate set pieces, we get just-decent fight sequences staged mostly in front of a blue screen, with a ton of digital effects (including lame 3D gimmicks) thrown in. I’m not talking good effects, either. I’m talking made-for-television effects. I understand that a Thai action flick isn’t going to have the bloated budget of an American blockbuster, but this sequel apparently had a budget over twice that of the first one, and still managed to look like an infected forehead gash by comparison. If you can’t afford to do good digital effects, then stick with practical effects and keep it real. Half the time you can’t even tell if Jaa is actually doing his own stunts or not, the effects are so cheaply done. Despite the overburdening of computer animation, Tom-Yum-Goong 2 offers plenty of exciting fight sequences, including one in which all the walls are inexplicably covered with flames, which allows Jaa to light his shoes on fire, which I guess makes his kicks more painful. And another in which Jaa and #02 duke it out with wet feet on a train track, which somehow causes their punches and kicks to become electrified as though we’re suddenly in a Crank film and all plausibility has gone out the window. I’m not an electrician but I’m pretty sure electricity doesn’t work that way. Still, I was able to suspend my disbelief and appreciate the concept for the same reason I can enjoy the Crank films. At a certain point, things don’t have to make sense, as long as it looks really freaking cool.

Tony Jaa was just Tony Jaa, seemingly a little less daring and athletic than he was in the last film, a little less willing to put his life and limb on the line for a great stunt. He brought none of the emotional heft of his last performance as a man who’d lost his elephant. With an uninteresting hero, we require an interesting villain, and that’s what we got with Rza, but I may be biased. I love Rza. The man knows more about martial arts movies than I ever will, and it shows in his performance. He’s not an Oscar-caliber actor, no one in this film is, but he’s fun to watch: from his maniacal cackles to his poorly-written and sometimes unintelligible lines, he personifies the big bad dragon at the end of the level. Petchtai Wongkamlao, who plays Sergeant Mark, shouldn’t even be here. He adds nothing substantial, not even the comedic element he brought last time. It isn’t even adequately explained what he’s doing in Thailand in the first place. My favorite characters were a duo of young girls whom I dubbed the Pixie twins. Ping-ping and Sue-sue (Yanin “Jeeja” Vismitananda and Theerada Kittiseriprasert) are the young nieces of one of the men involved in LC’s scheme to kidnap Kham’s elephant. When they walk in to see Kham standing over their uncle’s corpse, they wrongly believe Kham killed him, and spend most of the story pursuing him independently of LC’s goons and the Thai police. They basically tend to show up at just the right moment to add more bodies to the chaos. I enjoyed their characters so much I would’ve rather watched a film dedicated solely to them than what I got with Tom-Yum-Goong 2, and I really wanted to love this movie.

By itself, despite the nonsensical plot and horrible computer effects I wouldn’t even respect in a SyFy original, Tom-Yum-Goong 2 is an entertaining enough film to justify its existence and merit a watch from martial arts film enthusiasts, mostly thanks to the over-the-top fight sequences and to the presence of Rza and the Pixie twins. But as a sequel to one of the most impressive martial arts films I’ve ever seen, this was a disappointment, and I’m almost saddened at the loss of what should’ve been a great opportunity. Please, please give us a third entry, and go back to what made the first one so awesome. I want bone-breaking brutality. I want to feel my own bones breaking. Most of all, I just want to feel something when I watch a story about a boy and his elephant. Don’t let it go down like this, man. Please try again.

There are currently no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as it has not yet been given a wide release in the United States, but you can purchase an import version of the DVD off Amazon if you feel so compelled. If it weren’t for Rza and the Pixie girls, this score would be lower. (ssw)

Score
5/10