Words don't really do Tony Jaa justice. You've got to see him, which is why on a Tuesday afternoon in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room, Southeast Asia's biggest action star is being charged by five members of his Muay Thai Stunt team. The compact 29-year-old twirls, somersaults, and shoots his feet higher than his head. In seconds, the
Jaa is hoping that the collective jaw of U.S. audiences will drop at Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, too. Those hopes are well grounded: his high-kicking debut has smashed box office records in his native Thailand, and proven that the discipline of Muay Thai -- or Thai boxing -- is as potent as Bruce Lee's Jeet Kwan Do or Jackie Chan's clowning. With Jaa doing his own stunts to wincing effect, Ong-Bak announces the arrival of a new force in action movies - one who doesn't mind getting hurt now and then. VH1 asked him to list his fist-throwing inspirations. Bruce Lee I was crazy about him. I tried to emulate his high jump. I tried to get my back muscles to look like his. He has this way of acting that looks like a cat, and I would try to do that. My favorite Bruce Lee movie is The Way of the Dragon. We were rice farmers, so my mom would tell me I would have to finish farming a certain part of the rice farm before I could go play, and then we could go play movies. Sometimes we would play like we were showing those movies. We would cut paper dolls and act like we were showing movies on the screen and have people come and do voiceovers for the characters in the movie. Jackie Chan Bruce Lee is a serious person, whereas Jackie Chan has that comedic element in him. Jackie Chan used everything around him as a weapon. When there would be ceremonies in the town -- weddings, funerals, religious holidays -- they would show Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies outdoors on a giant sheet. Even if it was 10 kilometers away from my village, I would go out of my way to watch these films. At Panna Ritthikrai He's the first person to do action films in Thailand and the first person to create a stunt team in Thailand. He was the star of 1981's Born to Fight, which was really the first movie where Thai people were absolutely shocked to see stuntmen put their life on the line. Challenging death is the key point of that movie. Panna wanted people to see the dedication and the manpower it took to put the movie together. In terms of plot, it was more of a combination of all martial arts movies. It was a movie that inspired me and allowed me to meet Ong-Bak's director Prachya Pinkaew - he was also inspired by it. I told my father that I wanted to go meet Panna, but he was kind of wary because he didn't know Panna. At the time, my father told me to finish school and he wanted me to study further and become a priest. I told my father that if he didn't take me, I would kill myself. I was able to study with him and he coordinated the stunts on Ong-Bak. Jet Li The beautiful movements that Jet Li makes come from his martial art of wushu -- it's from Mainland China. When you see it, you see how he has a seriousness about him. It's the quietness of the character that makes him different. Tony Jaa When I'm in Thailand, I usually like to go watch movies at the mall, but I can't really go anymore, because I get mobbed for autographs and people come and say "hi" to me. Before Ong-Bak, the Thai youth weren't really interested in Muay Thai. They would go study other films in martial arts like tae kwon do and karate, where the outfits were cooler and the kicks were cool. But now that Ong-Bak has come out, people have shown more of an interest in Muay Thai. There are actually three types of Muay Thai. The Muay Thai you see in Ong-Bak is a Muay Thai boran which was used in wartime. It's more dangerous and you actually see the flow of the movements involved carried out more thoroughly than in the other form, which is a stage Muay Thai. Then there is amateur Muay Thai. |
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