Movies: Ong Bak 3

A red herring, sadly enough. What originally looked like an attempt to pick up where Bruce Lee left off when Game of Death was cut short — a philosophical martial-arts movie — has turned out to be nothing much at all. 3 continues where 2 left off, with the hero (Tony Jaa) being nearly broken by his captors but eventually rehabilitating himself via Buddhist mind training. He eventually faces off against his diabolical nemesis (Tony Jaa, again) but only after too few fight scenes and too much plotless weirdness that doesn’t add up to much. The connection with the first film is established, but only in a very backhanded way. It’s frustrating how little of this turned out to be worth the wait, even though there are some individual fights that show Jaa can still dish out (and take) a punch like few others alive right now. Maybe next time he’ll do it in the context of a story worth caring about.