Ong Bak 3 (2011)

Tagline: Do that thing where you knee people in the face.

Curiosity: It’s the thrilling conclusion to the mighty Ong Bak 2.

Plot: Ong Bak 3 picks up where 2 left off, with Tien (Tony Jaa) getting carted off by Lord Rajasena’s (Sarunyu Wongkrajang) men. Rajasena has his bones broken and is about to Tien put to death when he escapes. While Tien heals, Rajasena has strange dreams about an usurper to the throne, eventually made manifest by an even badder bad guy named Demon Crow (Dan Chupong). DC kills just about everybody he comes in contact with. Meanwhile, Tien studies dance and grows a beard.

Thoughts: Considering the sequels have next to nothing to do with the original, Ong Bak would’ve been a questionable trilogy anyway. But at least the first two installments were solid throughout. 3 mucks up the plot considerably, to the point the film drags despite running only 95 minutes.

But here’s the thing: 3 gets a lot of stuff right. It shows Tien’s evolution as a fighter while wrapping up his personal growth from 2. It also slips in some Buddhist philosophy. Those scenes are slow too, but in a good way that should appeal to martial arts fans. But when those bits get mixed in muddled storytelling, the film falters. 3 introduces fantasy elements via the magical Demon Crow, but he jars with the film’s previous set tone of realism and attracts some lackluster special effects. The fight scenes are great; the CGI is not.

I have to believe that some elements were lost in translation, but the plot points of 3 comes off as uneven. Characters’ deaths are often underlit and barely remarked on. For a while, I forgot that I love Tony Jaa.

But the movie is nicely bookended by nice action sequences, and the final 20 minutes are just amazing. Though slightly tainted by bad CGI, 3 delivers some of Jaa’s most intricate stuntwork yet, with a whole slew of humans and elephants fighting all at once. It’s also some of Jaa’s most brutal choreography yet. While it’s a little disappointing coming after 2’s surprising emotional depth, Ong Bak 3 should still satisfy many a Jaa fan until the inevitable Ong Bak 4.

Reflection: I’m getting old. I had to break this movie up into three installments because I kept falling asleep around midnight.