Ong Bak 3 Review: You’ll Want 90 Minutes of Your Life Back…

The only thing worse than Ong Bak 3 is watching Ong Bak 3 again. In order to write this review a rewatch became necessary just so I could understand what the hell was going on in this movie.

How bad is it? It’s so bad that it caused me to experience nightmares when I slept. Yes, no joke. My nightmare consisted of me watching this god forsaken movie again.

It Can’t Be That Bad…. Can It?

Ong Bak 3 continues right where Ong Bak 2 left off.  Tien (Tony Jaa) has been captured by the evil tyrant Chernang (Sorapong Chatree), who killed Tien’s family in front of his eyes in the previous movie. Of course you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t see the previous movie so all you have to go on is a quick flashback in the beginning of the movie that barely explains what is going on to set the audience up for the final film in the trilogy.

I swear if I didn’t know any better I had a feeling this movie was channeling The Passion of The Christ and The Ten Commandments. The movie starts off with Chernang ordering that Tien have every bone in his body broken (in a crucifixion type position)  so we receive about five minutes of Tony Jaa getting tortured. Blood and crunching bones galore!

Tien’s friends come to help save him, but Evil Crow Dude (Dan Chupong) (he summons crows, looks like one, and has an overlaid demon voice) stops all of them from saving Tien. Chernang offers Evil Crow Dude a reward and a position to be his bodyguard, but is refused. Evil Crow Dude instead offers to help Chernang get rid of his curse, which he acquired in the previous movie by murdering the previous king.

As Tien lays in a near death state awaiting to be executed a messenger arrives with a royal decree to take him away. Chernang is pissed, but abides by the message. Tien is then ushered away to a village where he encased in healing salves. He then goes through a “rebirth” where all the evil in him is taken away as his body recovers.

Tien is then revived, but in a broken state. His bones are crushed, misplaced, and he doesn’t have proper usage of his joints. Tien goes off into the jungle to meditate and start his recovery.

No joke, Tien stretches and snaps his bones back into place. It has to be one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t heal his joints, which Tien realizes is healed through the art of dancing. Yes… Dancing. One seven minute dance scene and our Muy-Thai fighter has his body back to normal.

Next comes a montage scene where Jaa either has a beard or doesn’t have a beard. I didn’t understand the purpose of jumping back and forth in time so much with the beard. They could have just kept it linear like every other montage. Either way at the end of the montage Jaa is channeling what I would call a kick-ass Moses including beard, staff, and robes.

Around the same time as our lovely montage, Chernang goes nuts with his curse and seeks out help from Evil Crow Dude. The thing is, sometime between killing Tien’s friends and Chernang seeking his help, Evil Crow Dude decided he wants to be king so he kills Chernang and his escort.

At this point Evil Crow Dude realizes he killed the one person that gave this movie any reason to exist. He then decides to kidnap the villagers that healed Tien and uses his evil magic to eclipse the world into darkness.

This then sets up the showdown between Evil Crow Dude and Tien.

Story Sounds Lame, But Maybe The Fight Scenes Are Awesome?

If you just want to watch Ong Bak 3 for the action sequences you’ll still be disappointed. They exist only in the first 10 and final 20 minutes of the movie. One of them isn’t even real. That’s right, Tein is so powerful he can see into the future like that one Nicholas Cage movie and see where his future will lead him.

The only fight scene that I did enjoy was the fake one, which takes place around and on the backs of three elephants.

The rest of the time the movie spends majority of its time going through Tien’s rebirth process, which is BORING.

Final Thoughts

I was curious when none of my theaters were playing Ong Bak 3. It was only then that I realized the movie has been available on-demand since December. Funny word… “On-Demand.” Especially in the case of this movie, which no one should demand.

Run from this movie people. Save yourself the time, money, and the utter confusion you get from trying to figure out what happens in the movie. This is a movie where the village idiot has more lines than the star of the movie. This is a movie that explains absolutely nothing to you. This is a movie that even studios that make parodies wouldn’t touch.

Stare at a wall for 90 minutes. I guarantee it’ll be more fun.

Final Grade – F