This weekend I saw "The Protector," or, as I like to call it, "How to Break 297 Arms and Other Body Parts in 297 Different Ways."
Now, until I was standing at the box office staring at a picture of Tony Jaa, I thought this movie was the new Scorsese film, "The Departed," which I believe is the remake of the Hong Kong movie "Infernal Affairs." It's not.
What "The Protector" is is a thinly veiled remake of "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior," except this go-round Tony Jaa is protecting an elephant instead of a Buddha head named Ong-Bak.
Same story line otherwise: Dirty men steal a prized village possession, causing Old Man Village Head to charge Tony Jaa with its safe recovery and return to the village.
I wonder if Thai films — specifically Tony Jaa films — search for the most obscure item, worthy of death and dismemberment to those who seek it, to recover. I fully expect the next Jaa movie to involve his quest to find the sacred vegetable sieve in order for the villagers to rinse their garden cucumbers again.
Either way, Jaa makes watching action movies fun again, from the minute he sets off on foot to faraway lands. And it really doesn't matter that he looks like he's always just finished a marathon through the desert. If he can do stunts without wire harnesses and CGI, he deserves to be greasy and sweaty at all times.
Thinking back, though, I can't quite remember how he got from a Thai village that uses elephants for transportation to Sydney, Australia. Hmm. Those would be some bloodied feet if he walked and swam across coral reefs ...
Since Quentin Tarantino presented this movie, I suspect the gore and bloodshed was amplified from its original intention. Think Kill Bill, specifically that scene with the schoolgirl and the chain, except without all the special effects and twice the queasy factor.
At one point, Jaa takes overdrive to a whole new gear by breaking the arms (and other body parts you never knew you had) of at least 40 idiots who just keep coming after him. The crunch-break noise, repeated over and over and over and over and over, was much like that of stepping on a stack of Pringles. I intend to start working on my own low-budget sound effects after an impromptu stop at the Quickie Mart.
Oh, and yes, I did have to close my eyes for a brief minute or two when the tendon slicing of the beefcakes began. Doesn't help that we'd just finished dinner at the hibachi grill, where slicing and dicing is an artform, much like Muay Thai in general. Hmm, and our hibachi chef was named Tony, now that I think of it. Seriously. He threw shrimp at inappropriate places that were not my mouth, too, but that's a different blog.
So, point is: Tony Jaa is a stud. I'll watch the same damn movie plot 50 times if I can watch him practically fly and kick people through doors all day. "The Protector" is standard Jaa fare, but I gotta say, I give it two big elephant bones strapped to my forearms. Well worth the adrenaline rush.
