Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning

Very, very flawed. The martial arts choreography is honestly some of the best of the decade, and enthralling. But the production itself seems to have been doomed from the outset, with obvious editing salvage and - at the end, when you start to care even an iota about what's going on - the rug is pulled out beneath you, and the whole thing falls on its ass. This literally has no narrative thread, no ending, and no reason to care about the awesome fights, which is a shame.

Yeah, it's flawed. I really enjoyed it though. Once again, Tony Jaa delivers with some incredible choreography.

Visually quite vibrant (and overly saturated), emotionally irrelevant, Ong-Bak 2 is a fighting film that might please die hard genre fans (or fans of Tony Jaa) but leaves the rest cold. The simple plot leaves plenty of room for action. Too bad the fighting sequences are seldom original and ineffectually enhanced by different techniques - ADD cuts, shaky camera and altering the shutter timing.

Great to watch if you appreciate the cultural aesthetics. Very good and brutal fight scenes. Story and characters get confusing.

Has a certain visual panache, thanks in part to a setting and culture rarely (if ever) seen on Western screens, and the fight choreography is staggering: creative, diverse, and excellently captured. The story, though … at best, it's forgotten and ignored. At worst, it's nonsensical. But when the lead speaks hardly three lines in the whole film, you know where the focus is—and there, the film delivers.

Lame ending, but pretty awesome action throughout despite the somewhat hackneyed story. It's like Conan meets Apocalypto but with kung fu and elephants. That's a good thing.

many people whining about crappy story and weapons etc, they are really just missing the point of a martial arts film whose soul focus is martial arts. this one is vastly superior too the first and third, for the reasons its supposed to be awesome, its amazing battles and stunts, period. that is all it is and it does it the best.

Obviously the fight scenes were awesome, but the story was painful. I honestly recommend just fast forwarding through any scene that doesn't involve ass-kickery or elephants.

Tony Jaa kicks plotlines in the face: part 2.

Most of the action was what you've come to expect from ass-kicking Tony Jaa. The rest of the film is quite a letdown, however. The story was predictable and weak (was there a need for the girl in the story?). The film doesn't try to bore you, it comes in under 2 hrs, but the fight scenes can only do so much. If you've seen the trailers, you have already witnessed the best parts of this film.

Wow. I did not expect the sequel to Ong Bak to be this bad. Not only are there no scenes that impress like the long staircase fight in the first movie, but save ONE fight scene, there's virtually no interesting choreography or fighting moves. Just Heroic Moments, mostly filmed in separate close-to-medium shots edited together. And the altered-speed fights look as bad as anything out of a 60s B-movie. I don't even know what the story was about and HE FIGHTS THE KIDS IN THE HALL CHICKEN LADY.

He kicks asses again but this time he uses not only Muay Thai. And the rest is of course just funny. Hell Jaa!

riding on the elephants backs - amazing scene

Boring. Keep Tony Jaa away from swords; he is useless with them. The story is shitty. You shouldn't notice how bad the story is in a film like is if the action is keeping its end of the bargain. Disappointingly, it isn't. The choreography and stunts are above-average, but not exceptional. This is a huge letdown after the first film, which had some of the most energetic action sequences and stunts since Jackie Chan's early films.

Essentially same song, second verse in a new setting; confusing and fairly rote plotting gives way to what we came for - Jaa engaging in some exceptionally well-choreographed and thrilling martial-arts mayhem which is when the film comes to life, but even at 90 minutes, there is a little too much here to sustain full interest.

The poor story really sets this lower than the original. Better off youtubing the best fight scenes.

Tony Jaa needs to stick to the ass-kicking, not directing.

I appreciated that the bad guys didn't go down after blows that would normally render them unconscious or dead in most action movies, but not in real life.

The final fight looks great. The rest is garbage. Tony Jaa is completely clueless as a director.

tony is real stuntman

They realized that the only reason anyone watches these movies is for the action and not the plot, so they decided to not have a plot. Seriously: There is no reason at all for these characters to be beating the hell out of each other. It would have worked too, if the action had been as awesome as before, but it's much worse. Still, it does have Tony Jaa in it, and he is awesome.

Having been pretty unimpressed with the first one, I didn't find anything new here. The fights are decent, but not quite as cool as I was led to believe, but the story and production just plain suck.

The shit.

Visually rich and colorful yet gritty and violent. The questionable story telling does detract from the films quality but its action sequences (specifically the Zui Quan scene and the final 15 minute fight sequences) are undeniably a thing of genius and beauty and showcases a lot more of Jaa's talents than his previous films.

Not as charming as the first, but still a good action film.

It's great to see Jaa in action again, and particularly since he's playing a warrior who's enthusiastic rather than reluctant. The fight scenes are predictably amazing, especially the manriki gusari. But some of the large-scale battles in the beginning are edited incoherently, and the soundtrack veers off into metal and techno near the end. The combat makes this an above-average martial arts movie, yet the way that it skips around in time made it less satisfying to me.

A real disappointment after the first Ong-Bak and The Protector. The plot didn't make a lot of sense to me, and the action scenes weren't up to par with Jaa's earlier works.

A lot of the action is good, especially the last half hour or so, but the script is such a mess that it's impossible honestly say it is actually good. I'll remember the seemingly random flashbacks as much as I remember the elephant fight.

Tony Jaa strays from the formula that made Ong-Bak 1 amazing: Kneeing people in the face. In this weapons-based martial arts flick, Tony Jaa's talents are all but wasted, and too many faces go un-kneed.

Deeply flawed, and only the final fight is really interesting. Wait, that's an understatement. The final fight is MINDBLOWINGLY RAD. Just a shame about all that came before.

Overall Enjoyment: 10/40, Plot/Themes: 5/20, Cinematography/Direction: 10/20, Acting/Writing: 5/20 A really big disappointment with not nearly enough fight scenes to make up for it and a terrible terrible ending.

I read a lot on blogosphere about how Prachya Pinkaew is a lousy director and how he isn't using Jaa to the full potential. Guess what-Tony Jaa is even worse director himself. He looks like a delusional Mowgli running though the jungle and slashing throats of the villains with his sword. Story was simple in Ong Bak or Protector, but it was coherent. In this film it jumps from one even to another with no apparent reason. MA choreagraphy is below average compared to sfuff Jaa did before.

The end fight was awesome.

"Ong Bak 2 is infused with an urgency and relentlessness that few contemporary action films have." - Simon Abrams

Average action flick with Mr.Muay Thai himself. Awesome final 20 minutes.the choreographie is great, but the best Tony Jaa movie is revenge of the warrior.

This is also a remarkably ugly film. It's all shot in dull sepia tones (I guess because it's set in the past?) and it makes the whole film awash in shades of muddy brown. Oddly, the whole film seems to have been shot in the high speeds needed to capture action even when no action is happening on screen, giving it a weirdly cheap shimmery look. There's more money spent here, but it doesn't end up making the film look better than it's ultra-cheap predecessor.

One of the thinnest stories out there. But jesus, some of the fight scenes is just written in heaven

thought the cinematography, fancy as it was, took away from the intensity or awesomeness of Tony Jaa's performance, seeing as it worked much butter in Ong Bak or The Protector, which both hat a more...base style of shooting.

It just ended inexplicably, but ending at all was a blessing with this one.

As with the first film in the series this is not about plot or originality. It's mainly about choreography and thai boxing - and in this aspect it's great. But it gets tiresome along the way.

Well I never thought I'd say this, but a film in which Tony Jaa goes ass-kicking left me a bit bored. Sure therre are some amazing stunts and some good fight scenes but it really ain't good enough.