It’s the fourth round and I’m finally picking a martial arts legend that hasn’t even been touched yet.
It’s Tony Jaa in:
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior - Fight Club Scene
Thai martial arts actor Tony Jaa finally breaks into this draft. Normally, long scenes like these tend to drag on and bore me but there was nothing boring about this.
Here, a bulked up foreigner who represents basically every stereotype of a douchebag tourist is beating the crap out of everybody in the club. In the background, we see Ting (Tony Jaa) slowly approach the ring looking to get his stolen money and the Ong Bak statue’s head back by being the last man standing in this extended battle.
If he wasn’t Thai, Tony would be as well-known by the world (if not more so) than the likes of Donnie Yen and Jackie Chan. In terms of sheer athleticism, he surpasses both.
Current Team
Ip Man (2007) - Ip Man vs. Ten black belts
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) - Yu Shu Lien vs. Yu Jiaolong
Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (2000) - Spike Spiegel vs. Vincent Volaju
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) - Fight club scene
This guy looks like a lame wrestling jobber more than anything and maybe he was one.
I’v never seen this before, Tony Jaa has a very distinct and unique way of moving, although perhaps it’s just because I’m not used to seeing Muy Thai. This was a good scene, I enjoyed the guy whose gimmick was to attack using every object within reach.
I think he was a bodybuilder at one point. Though it sounds like he could be a pro wrestler.
EDIT: Nope. Former Muay Thai light heavyweight champion who now runs a gym in Australia
Tony is a different beast. He didn’t know that the other HK actors are on wires when jumping/flying from place to place. A lot of the stunts he does in other scenes that look like they’re on wires are often him doing it for real.
He also trains in Muay Boran, a predecessor of Muay Thai, that included more ground work and was designed for use by the military in the early 20th century. That could explain his movement.
@tabbaker I’m only pinging you because you’re such a thoughtful person and I want you to have time to think about your pick while Nick is making theirs
So I have a scene where they fight with swords and one where they fight with guns and one where they fight with fists, but not one where the fight is with objects that happen to be in the room.
I also last took a scene where the fighter was drunk and fought better when drunk. Just instincts and improvisation and winging it until he won.
This time I’m going to take a scene where the fighter also takes on multiple bad guys, but this fighter has OCD and has the vision to see how a fight will go down and predicts the fight down to the second before the fight and then times it to see how accurate he was. A methodical, well-trained badass fighter.
That’s not the best fight scene in the movie, I posted that gif because AT LAST I can post the GOAT fight scene of the entire draft. Lemme drink this coffee and I’ll brb.