Viewers seem to absolutely hate this third film in the series. It certainly isn't great, but I didn't think it was terrible, and if you sat through the second one, which ends on a cliffhanger, you'll definitely want to see this one. The story is incoherent, but so was the second one. Jaa, having been captured, is tortured to near death. He's saved in some confusing way. The big problem with this one is that there's a long section in the middle where Jaa's being healed and then trained. The martial arts sequences are entirely absent for much of the film, and obviously that's the only reason anyone showed up. Thankfully, when they do re-enter the movie, they're awesome enough where it almost makes up for the boring parts. Honestly, one can be perfectly happy sticking with the first Ong-Bak and The Protector. The plots of those two films amounted to "Hey, the bad guys stole something from me, now I'm going to go get it (while kicking the ass of everyone who gets in my way), whether or not my pants are on fire." Ong-Bak 2 & 3, which Jaa directed, wrote and choreographed (he's most successful in the latter aspect), have a mytho-historic epic plot line that is as confusing as it is unnecessary.
Ong Bak 3
(2010)
Okay, so it's not too great, but is it really worse than the second one?
3 April 2011