So i had the opportunity to see this yesterday with a few of my friends. And we had the most kik ass time ever.

Ofcourse, this was all after we sat there and acknowledged that this movie has no story, terrible dialogue, horrible acting, forced events taking place to get us to the fights but man ... did we have fun when those fights came along.

And Ong Bak plays out like a combination of a adventure and fighting video game. I'm not even lying. About 90% of the occurances we saw in the movie, we found a way to relate them to a game. Hell, the dude even had a power up pill on him : )

Level 1 fights, level 2 fights, all the way upto level 5!! The big boss fighter who first comes in normal fashion and then right when hes dead, gets a power up, bringing his bar back to full .. and giving it a bit more! Random enemies to dismiss on your way to the enemy layer. Block, punch, block kick and hell, even combo and special moves.

Sigh ... if theres a movie that resembled a video game, this was it.

But mind you, other than the fight scenes and this amusing connection to the world of gaming, theres nothing more to see here. I'm surprised it ranked so high in the critics list.

I have heard that this film is all action sequences with no plot. Is that true?

I'd like to see it.

Like i said, its a videogame.

This is how it plays out. I shall describe this in videogame style.

**cut scene. Introduction laid out. Setting explained. Graphics look great**

training session

**Cut scene. plot set up. Ong Bak's head (Buddha's head) has been stolen. Our hero must bring it back. For that he must travel the world (Bangkok)**

Stage 1
Beat up random dudes. Stage ends with character running from mob

**Cut scene. More crap**

Street fighter style video gaming. Character must face foes in 1 on 1 fights. All the way upto level 4. Foe's strength increases with each level.

**Cut scene. Big Boss introduced**

character proceeds to move through stages kicking random dude's asses.

**Final fight stuff set up**

Hero journeys to bosses layer, baeating up random packs of baddies along the way. Faces main foe. Uses pills to fuel up his health bar. Fights final boss. Big fight.

**Game over**

I saw a spanish language version of Ong Bak a while back (which was strangely easy to follow despite my not knowing the language. It's probably because I speak the international language... of muay thai!). One thing that stuck out was that the whole thing was very much like the dreamcast/Xbox game Shenmue. Young, small-town guy goes to city to find vengeance/buddha's head. Along the way he has some random fights with street gangs and intermittently has to run through the streets pressing (a) when he needs to jump over obstacles, and (b) to kick bad guys in the head.

I'm afriad to ask, but...


What happens when he pushes (c)????

Thats the special combo movie i was mentioning above .. or was i. Thats prolly when he dodges and kicks bad guys at the same time. Honestly, he does that.

The map and/or save screen opens up. Duh.