Not spicy enough
Wise Kwai
The Nation October 25, 2013 1:00 am
Despite 3D and non-stop action, Tony Jaa's latest 'Tom-Yum-Goong 2' lacks sizzle
WITH AN OVERLY complicated plot, "Tom-Yum-Goong 2", the much-anticipated new action flick from martial-arts star Thatchakorn "Tony Jaa" Yeerum, has turned out to be a rather bland concoction.
This is despite it being in 3D and pretty much non-stop action that crams in other martial-arts stars, including Yanin "Jeeja" Vismistananda and America's Marrese Crump, plus hip-hop musician RZA and Thai singer-actress Rhatha "Yaya Ying" Pho-ngam.
It fares better than Jaa's previous feature, "Ong-Bak 3", but is not as strong as his major studio breakout, 2003's "Ong-Bak" and 2005's "Tom-Yum-Goong".
Even more disappointing, it might possibly be the last Thai film Jaa makes. "Tom-Yum-Goong 2" comes out amidst a feud between Jaa and his studio, Sahamongkol Film International, and its powerful boss, Somsak "Sia Jiang" Techaratanaprasert. He is upset that Jaa is now working in Hollywood, making a "Fast and Furious" sequel and teaching Vin Diesel muay thai.
The first "Tom-Yum-Goong" took Jaa to Australia as he chased gangsters who'd stolen his baby elephant. The relatively simple plot was an aim to broaden Jaa's international appeal, setting up fights for him around Sydney landmarks.
"Tom-Yum-Goong 2" stays in Thailand and again has Jaa's character Kham losing his elephant Khon. But it keeps the international flavour, with such foreign fighters as Crump and RZA, plus David Ismalone ("Mad Dog" from "Ong-Bak") and Kazu Patrick Tang ("Raging Phoenix").
The set-up for the plot is laboured, showing a snooze-worthy montage of news headlines about a war in fictional far-away lands. For some reason, Thailand is chosen as the location for the signing of a peace treaty.
And somehow, this will involve Kham's elephant being stolen by the foreigner criminal mastermind portrayed by RZA. He leads a small army of martial-arts warriors, each with a number tattoo to indicate how good they are. Among them are the lethally brutal No 2 (Crump) and the fierce Twenty (Rhatha), whose tattoo is spelled out across her cleavage.
Thankfully, it only takes 15 minutes or so for Kham to start running around, searching for his elephant, which was initially taken by the crooked owner of an elephant camp. But then that guy turns up dead, and Kham is standing over his body when the man's nieces show up - Jeeja and another actress, Teerada Kittisiriprasert. They are supposed to be twins, but apart from their pixie-bob hairstyles and clothing, they look nothing alike. Still, it's pretty confusing trying to follow the "Chocolate" star Jeeja as she throws down against Jaa for the first time.
Arriving with the twins is a motorcycle gang. They chase Kham up a flight of stairs and onto a building's roof. This is the best fight sequence of the movie, with the noisy bikes ****zing all around as Kham ducks and dodges them all with acrobatic ease. One smashes through a skylight and the camera angle quickly shifts above it to catch the bike and glass shards spiralling out of the screen in 3D.
More nifty camera work comes from a point-of-view shot of Kham jumping from the roof to a balcony on another building.
Kham eventually commandeers one of the bikes and leads the hundreds motorcycling miscreants on a chase through alleys and down an elevated motorway. He also takes a crazy ride on top of a drift-racing car.
And too soon, with an oil tanker explosion, it's all over.
The action spills into a shipyard where Kham and the Pixie Sisters get the hurt put on them by the imposing No 2.
While Kham is pursued by RZA's gang of toughs, and is eventually captured and branded as No 1, he's also a fugitive from a squad of Interpol officers who include Kham's old friend from Sydney, Sergeant Mark (Petchthai "Mum Jokmok" Wongkamlao). He helps buy Kham some time to track down the elephant.
From the first encounter with Crump, the fights all tend to blur together, taking place in such locations as dark warehouses and subway tunnels. For the most part, they are framed too tightly and move too fast to make any sense of.
One fun bit has Jaa and Crump fighting on an electrified railway line. In a move that defies the laws of physics, they both dip their feet in water and stand on the rails. As their fists swing they make the same sounds as lightsabres from "Star Wars".
Director Prachya Pinkaew and Jaa's mentoring martial-arts guru Panna Rittikrai clearly had a ball coming up with all kinds of ways to have fists, feet, heads, elbows, weapons and elephant trunks zoom out of the screen in 3D. But despite their efforts, the fights in "Tom-Yum-Goong 2" lack the sizzle and originality of their earlier efforts in "Ong-Bak" and "Tom-Yum-Goong".
On the plus side is Jaa, whose dour onscreen demeanour seems to have softened with marriage, fatherhood and maturity. Compared to his earlier films, he appears more at ease and natural. Perhaps Hollywood is where he'll create his happiest memories.