Ong-Bak

There's such a fine line between gloriously bad and wickedly awesome. During the opening moments of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, I was worried the film would lean toward the bad. The basic set-up is simplistic.

Meet Ting (Tony Jaa), rural villager, monk-in-training, and master of Muay Thai fighting. An elder monk stresses that Ting must not use his impressive combat skills. Everyone watching knows he will spend the entire movie using his impressive combat skills.

Meet Don, a shady character. How do we know he's shady? Because he wears jeans, has a trash 'stache, and offers to buy a sacred religious artifact from the villagers. When his offer is spurned, he steals the head of Ong-Bak just prior to the annual Ong-Bak festival.

Meet the villagers. They moan and wail and cry about how their village is doomed to perish without their sacred statue. They pool their meager savings to help Ting on his journey to track down the statue in the big city. There's actually a scene where they realize the well is running dry and, rather then, oh I don't know, look for more water, they gather and wring their hands about their missing statue.

It's a stilted yet quick way to get Ting into situations where he must fight against his peaceful will. But a funny thing happened on the way to the butt kicking: the movie suckers you into caring. It wins you over with humor while cleverly setting up a simple, effective theme to underscore the wild action.

The director and his co-writers find the perfect tone to launch Ting on his journey through the grimy, corrupt underworld of Bangkok. The film is sardonic and wry, almost satirical, but never silly and stupid. One funny scene has scam artist Humlae, a jaded former neighbor of Ting's, stumbling futilely while Ting leaps gazelle-like down an alley and away from an angry gang. Humlae eventually steals a knife from a butcher and wields it, the tables briefly turned, only to have a knife vendor pass through hawking her wares to the gang's sudden delight.
Instead of making Ting a superhuman hero, the film makes him a fish out of water. He's on the outside looking in with his peaceful mindset and singular beliefs. The filmmakers know a modern audience can't really identify with his mystical mission. Just like con artist Humlae and his partner, who Ting hesitantly links up with, we're skeptical of what Ong-Bak means and why it's so important. The joke is on Ting half the time, as when Humlae tricks him into participating in an underground fight club to pay off his gambling debts. Humlae keeps baiting and switching Ting, helping only so far as he can help himself. Tony Jaa finds the perfect note to play Ting. He isn't there to convert anyone, he's just a guy trying to make things right. He's patient, kind, but not stupid. He knows when he's being used but doesn't act out of spite or revenge. His refusal to compromise, if only to make his journey a little easier, is endearing. He's kinda like an ass-kicking Forrest Gump, a lovable country bumpkin with some seriously vicious flying elbows who's resilience won me over.

What I especially liked about the film is the way they make the conflict actually kinda sorta interesting. It's not just Jaa versus gangsters. It is that, but time and again the story reflects themes of the old versus the new, the traditional versus the modern, and the sacred versus the corrupt. I'm not saying it's Pulitzer material, but there's something identifiable in the fighting that goes deeper than good and evil. My brain was tickled just enough to keep it awake. It's not just Jaa that you're pulling for, it's his cause, which I started to root for almost in spite of myself.

And by the way, the film kick serious ass. It's amazing stuff, especially considering that it's all basically real. Jaa's knees and elbows really are making contact, although it's a little suspect that every would-be victim either has big hair or a cap to hide the padding protecting him. No matter. Jaa is clearly an athletic freak, and the fights are quick and nasty, choreographed for maximum impact. (Doesn't "maximum impact" sound like a B-movie action flick? Curiously, it isn't. Dibs!) I appreciated the way that Jaa almost always is on the defensive, a reflection of his character. Most "peaceful" heroes in these things usually have an angry switch, but Jaa does only as much as is necessary to kick your ass.

He gets hit with chairs, tables, refrigerators, saws, more chairs, and even fire. Since this is an action movie, all sorts of bizarre and dangerous obstacles (plates of glass, racks of sharp rakes, whatever) magically appear during foot chases, but Jaa doesn't stop. All that stuff about tone, themes, and character? It adds just enough reality to the film to make me believe he can do all these things that he does. I willfully and gratefully suspended my disbelief, not just so Tony Jaa can jump off balconies and through scaffolding, but also so he can make things right with the gods, and maybe even redeem a few corrupted men along the way.

Ong-Bak had me going. It knows when to be funny, when to be serious, and when to let the stuntmen do the rest. That's how asses are kicked.

Gloriously Bad Movies: Bloodsport

When the idea for this blog was percolating through my head, one of the ideas I was most excited to write about was the Gloriously Bad Movie. You've seen them really late at night on FX or TBS, or all day on The Sci-Fi Channel. You may have taken part in a drinking game surrounding a Gloriously Bad Movie, or at least stumbled drunkenly home after a party, you and your friends about to tear into some fast food as you refuse to go to sleep while still buzzed, gleefully watching one.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about guilty pleasures. We all have movies that we're ashamed to like, that we enjoy even though we know we'll get ridiculed for it. I really dig Ronin, despite the cardboard cutout characters and a plot that's both byzantine and simplistic at the same time. It's a bad movie. But the car chases rock. They are sublime in their badassness.

The distinction is this: We like guilty pleasures in spite of their badness. We like Gloriously Bad Movies because of their badness. We revel in how awful they are. We cannot believe the low-rent acting or the do-it-yourself special effects or the fact that it was obviously shot without permits behind the liquor store down the street. The suckiness of these films is so entertaining that we just can't contain ourselves.

First and foremost, Gloriously Bad Movies are not about the details. At least, not the right details. Common utterances during a typical viewing include: "Wait, what?" "No way!" "Did that just happen?" and "Oh, my God, that was retarded!" If it's a truly glorious Gloriously Bad Movie, then you might even start doing the Mystery Science Theatre bit and speak overt, sexually explicit dialogue on the characters' behalf.

The inaugural entry into the Gloriously Bad Movie database: Bloodsport. Featuring that stalwart of Gloriously Bad Movies, the Muscles from Brussels himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme. It doesn't fit the mold of bad, it IS the mold. Watching this is watching every sports and action movie cliche from the past thirty years. And those are the good parts.

If you haven't had the good fortune of seeing it, the movie revolves around a secret, full contact martial arts contest in Hong Kong called the Kumite (KOO-mi-tay). A song plays during several fighting montages during which "Kumite" gets chanted in faux-hypnotic fashion. Remember, this is a non-John Hughes 1980s flick, which means the music is at a truly abominable level of cheesy synthetic shame. Jean-Claude plays an American soldier named Frank Dux who's representing his surrogate Japanese father who's dying but isn't dead. And never actually does die during the course of the story, so who knows, maybe he just has the flu.

"Wait, what?" Frank Dux. Surrogate Japanese martial arts master father. Wait, it gets better. In a really awful way.

Again, these bad flicks are about the wrong details, and Bloodsport is a prime example. Why is Dux an American with a Belgian accent representing a Japanese master in a secret Chinese martial arts contest? See, early on in the film, Van Damme visits the Tanaka home. Van Damme stares and stares at a sword before looking up into space for a prolonged beat, probably wondering why it's taking so long for the flashback to kick in. Then it kicks in, showing a young Van Damme first being beaten up by, then coming to the rescue of, Tanaka's real son. Tanaka takes Frank under his wing, but then the real son dies. We are not told why, but clearly it's because Frank needs to say to Tanaka that he's been treated like a son. Which happens a few minutes later.

Does any of this matter when the fighting starts? Is Frank's manhood or family ever questioned? Not so much. Anyhoo...

The flashback sets a good and proper tone of unintentional hilarity for the rest of the film. Rather than going with a kid who has a natural accent to match Van Damme's, the filmmakers cast a completely insecure stiff of a boy who may or may not have Down Syndrome. Watching the poor kid half-heartedly put up his dukes during a fight scene just about made me wet myself. It's important to note also that during this extended flashback/training sequence, the film keeps cutting back to Van Damme in the present day, still looking up into the air and wondering just how the hell long this damn flashback is.
Probably the biggest running unintentional gag is the secretive nature of Kumite. Time and again, the characters refer to the underground event as a sacred, honor-bound club. And time and gain, these conversations happen in public. At full volume. With other people around. In hotel lobbies. On the street. At restaurants. The police station. This is the worst-kept secret in the world. Less secret than Marilyn Monroe's affair with JFK. Less secret than Britney Spears' vajayjay. Everyone in all of Asia knows about Kumite. Except, of course, the requisite love interest: the hard-talking, career-driven female reporter who, nevertheless, falls in love with our hero.

The character of Janice is introduced with a shot of her legs, a short skirt being the outfit of choice for caucasian investigative reporters on the prowl in Hong Kong. Her investigative techniques are direct and to the point, "Hey, tell me about the Kumite. Where's the Kumite going to be? Come on, tell me about the Kumite!" She could have gone Jan Brady and screamed, "Kumite! Kumite! Kumite!" at the top of her lungs in public. Since everyone and no one knows the secret of Kumite (sssshh!), the effect would have been the same.

The film isn't really interested in Janice. There's a tremendously dumb scene where Frank, trying to explain what Kumite means to him, asks her why she's a reporter. "Well, my father was a reporter and I was a good writer and it seemed like a good fit." Um, okay. Frank practically goes into a spasm since this answer doesn't help him make his point. Janice eventually gets in on the arm of a gambler, sits ringside, and whispers illicit notes into a monstrously big tape recorder in full view of the rest of the crowd. By the way, if Kumite is such a secret, who are these peasant spectators? And how exactly does betting work when you're simply standing and holding up money? Oh, nevermind.

Above all, this is a movie of sheer manliness. The fighting stuff is actually pretty cool, although all the cliches of movie fighting are there. You know, if your opponent surrenders and you turn your back, he's gonna try and get the jump on you. Or the bad guy using some illicit substance to either pump himself up or blind the opponent (Van Damme gets blinded). The various fighting styles are in fine form, though sometimes the film is a little too manly. In fact, homoeroticism is taken to absolutely fabulous heights. When Frank beds Janice (after a scene of not-so-subtle innuendo), the filmmakers go out of their way to cover the naked Janice with a bedsheet. She looks offscreen at her lover, and the reverse shot is of Jean-Claude stark ass naked. This after a scene in which Van Damme meditates while doing an elevated split between two chairs in his underwear. The creme de la creme of latent gayness? The resolution in which a victorious Van Damme visits his injured comrade in the hospital. He's won the tournament and avenged his friend's defeat. He's got the girl at his side. He looks deep into the eyes of... his ravaged buddy. "I love you, man," says Jean-Claude. They hug. The girl stands off to the side wondering why she never filed her Kumite story.

I've not even mentioned Forest Whitaker as an FBI agent chasing Van Damme. Oh yeah, Van Damme is an AWOL soldier forbidden from fighting in the Kumite (because, see, EVERYBODY knows what the Kumite is, even United States Army officers.) For some reason, Whitaker and his elder partner want desperately to bring Van Damme back, but only they know why. And after all is said and done, they're waiting at the airport for Jean-Claude, who hasn't shown up. They curse his wily ways. Then Jean-Claude emerges from the plane with a smirk, "Hey, what took you guys so long?" And this point I uttered, "Oh, my God, this is retarded!" But it wasn't finished yet. Oh, no, Gloriously Bad Movies are bad to the last drop.

See, Jean-Claude turns and sees Janice waiting on the tarmac. She brings a fist into her open palm and bows like a fighter. "Did that just happen?" I asked myself. Jean-Claude returns the gesture. The music is coming up. I'm grinning from ear to ear at this silliness and I say to myself, "Please, Dear God, end with a freeze frame. This movie needs to end with a freeze frame." And just as I'm saying this -- BOOM! -- the image of Jean-Claude's bow goes still. The closing credits roll.

Glorious.