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March 27, 2006
GET TONY JAA A MANAGER, STAT!
Tony Jaa may turn out to have the fastest rise and fall of any major talent to hit Asian screens in the last few years. ONG BAK got everyone to sit up and take notice, but it drastically under-performed in the US. TOM YUM GOONG was generally considered a so-so film (okay, okay - a really bad film) with great action scenes, which is a pretty fair assessment. It also saw the producers ditch Europa, who had lavished great care on ONG BAK, for the promise of a higher payday at another sales agent. It was scooped up by the Weinstein Company who seem to have no plans for its release.
Now, the Weinstein Company has picked up ONG BAK 2, which is slated to begin production in the fall, from Sahamongkolfilm and it looks like choreographer Panna Rittikrai, Tony Jaa's mentor, is set to direct.
All the previous major action stars brought something new to the table: Bruce Lee brought anger, Jackie brought comedy, Jet Li brought Chinese nationalism. So far Tony Jaa hasn't brought much more than the ability to knee someone in the forehead. Which is impressive, but without something extra I see him getting squeezed dry and put out to pasture.
March 27, 2006 at 09:55 AM in News | Permalink
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"ONG BAK got everyone to sit up and take notice, but it drastically under-performed in the US."
According to both the *IMDB* and *Box Office Mojo*, *Ong Bak* made over $4.5M in its US release, which is a little under 1/3 of its global takings of around $15M. That doesn't seem so bad.
Posted by: jic | Mar 27, 2006 12:12:23 PM
If you're dumb enough to sell your next movie to the same people who haven't done anything with your last movie, people who have a long and established track record of doing this to lots of other filmmakers who are much more well-established than you are, then frankly, you deserve whatever you get. Tonyjaa.org has a US release date of December 31 for TOM YUM GOONG. No year is specified.
Posted by: Rhythm-X | Mar 27, 2006 1:46:44 PM
Oh, and for all the care Europa lavished on ONG BAK, exactly zero of their changes were any sort of improvement on the original. Dumbed down subtitles with no "Dirty Balls"? Really horrible new music that manages to be worse than the blah score it replaced (and I have been fond of some of the other Euro Hip-Hop scores in Besson productions)? Cuts to some scenes that make some scenes that weren't cut make no sense? I can't blame them for ditching Europa Corp., but ditching them for the Weinsteins is like jumping from the frying pan into a thermonuclear explosion.
Posted by: Rhythm-X | Mar 27, 2006 1:55:09 PM
Ong-Bak 2? So presumably we'll be getting the same plot churned out for a third time. I wonder who'll be the evil, depraved foreigners this time: first the Burmese in Ong-Bak, then the Chinese and Whitey in TYG; maybe some Muslims this time, or the Japs? Tony Jaa is surely contributing to a well-defined streak of Thai nationalism just as much as Jet Li did for China.
Perhaps more interestingly, though, some people see him as bringing a rare working-class-hero quality to his films which you don't get in Thai films very often. His appeal to poor, small-town Thai people is often cited as a big reason for his films' domestic earning power.
Posted by: Rob | Mar 27, 2006 8:37:54 PM
One reason is enough for me to love Tony Jaa... and it's his knee caps of fury!
Posted by: wyejon | Mar 28, 2006 3:04:23 AM
Actually, I (and critics like Stephen Teo) think Bruce Lee brought a pronounced streak of Chinese nationalism to martial arts films long before Jet Li did (and it was more Tsui Hark than Jet Li, although probably not in the minds of the paying audience). And "nationalism" sounds a little sinister, too - it seems more like "national/ethnic pride" to me. I never felt threatened as a whitey by the anti-colonialist vendetta of the "Once Upon a Time in China" series.
Very interesting comments on Tony Jaa's small-town poor boy appeal. I think he is just plain going to need to make better movies (well, and make better distribution deals for them) if he wants to have a career beyond a limited period of "local hero" status. After about the 20th time he smashed someone's noggin with his knee or elbow in "Ong Bak," I started to get bored, as the movie had nothing else to distinguish it (in contrast to OUATIC or "Fist of Fury"). Jaa certainly doesn't have the personal charisma of Lee or Li, and even fans will admit the story is "so what" stuff. Even the action choreography was pretty unimaginative and repetitive, apart from the early chase scenes. I found the climactic fight scene just grim and unpleasant, frankly, which I don't think was the intention.
Grady's pointed out before, though, that as far as career management goes, it's probably Jaa's handlers who are the problem.
Posted by: Michael Wells | Mar 28, 2006 6:48:07 AM
Chinese nationalism isn't the right word for what Jet Li did, but even as early as SHAOLIN TEMPLE there was something about him that seemed to be about Chinese pride. His movies were very concerned with Chinese traditions and trying to make this stuffy old stuff like Shaolin Temple and wu shu appealing to young kids.
Tony Jaa was really well-served by Europa. I know not everyone is happy about the changes in the movie itself, but Europa really did yeoman's duty in raising Jaa's profile, introducing him to the right people, and most importantly hooking up ONG BAK with Magnolia in the US. Magnolia promoted the hell out of the film, brought Jaa over a couple of times to promote it in person, reached out hard to the urban audience, ran TV spots and did everything they could to put this movie on peoples' radars. For all that effort, ONG BAK didn't even break the $10 million barrier in the US. (I'm saying $10 because I've heard all kinds of numbers so I'm playing it safe).
Compared to what Magnolia spent on publicity and prints, ONG BAK didn't just underperform in theaters: it did a nosedive. However, they've probably more than made their money back on video and with TV sales so there's no need to send them your loose change. But the gap between what ONG BAK made, and what it was expected to make, was pretty gruesome.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Mar 28, 2006 11:20:17 AM
I live in a cosmopolitan city in the U.S. - with a big Asian community - and I don't recall seeing any promotion for Ong-Bak when it was released. Not a single TV spot and the tiniest most lamest vague newspaper ad. At minimum, they could've used a midsize newspaper ad. listing all the positive reviews - and there were a plethora of them mind you - which the movie received from critics. I have many friends whom are martial arts film fanatics and none of them was even aware of this movie when it was released!
Posted by: cinephile | Mar 28, 2006 12:20:59 PM
Really. It hit Anchorage, which is market #161 in America, got some decent ad coverage here too. I was crushed more people didn't go see it, which is most likely why I'm going to have to watch a chopped region 1 direct-to-DVD release when it EVENTUALLY comes out.
Posted by: Max K. | Mar 28, 2006 4:56:16 PM
anti-colonialist vendetta! oatic is amazingly mild-mannered, and intently pc with all its good white characters, that you would call it vendetta is hilarious.
though i admit i'm somewhat curious as to exactly which movies you "as a whitey" felt threatened by. do give us some insight into the whitey mind.
Posted by: curious | Mar 28, 2006 5:02:39 PM
yep, no way is jet li an easy case of "chinese nationalism", especially when that would dip at least somewhat into the propaganda machine, power network, etc. etc. that a typical jet li movie doesn't have the time to afford.
Li's charisma, as it's easily inflated relative to humble "non-descripts" like Jaa (but oh-so-handsome!), is really all about middle-of-road, PC every-man/boy.
Jaa arguably has the buddhist/spiritual angle down, but it ain't gonna ride in Christian Nation. Zero resonance there except "eastern mysticism."
"The Other" that breaks the Chinese soul (tsk tsk) is more pronounced in Bruce Lee, which strangely isn't much turn-off for his legends of multi-racial fans now. Maybe because Lee's raw power overwhelms any rhetoric/plot to deliver action.
Posted by: edmame | Mar 28, 2006 10:57:11 PM
yep, no way is jet li an easy case of "chinese nationalism", especially when that would dip at least somewhat into the propaganda machine, power network, etc. etc. that a typical jet li movie doesn't have the time to afford.
Li's charisma, as it's easily inflated relative to humble "non-descripts" like Jaa (but oh-so-handsome!), is really all about middle-of-road, PC every-man/boy.
Jaa arguably has the buddhist/spiritual angle down, but it ain't gonna ride in Christian Nation. Zero resonance there except "eastern mysticism."
"The Other" that breaks the Chinese soul (tsk tsk) is more pronounced in Bruce Lee, which strangely isn't much turn-off for his legends of multi-racial fans now. Maybe because Lee's raw power overwhelms any rhetoric/plot to deliver action.
Posted by: edmame | Mar 28, 2006 10:57:38 PM
Jet Li and Tsui Hark's OUATIC series were an attempt to update Chinese history and pit Li, as a strong Chinese man embodying traditional Chinese/Confucian values, against a sea of troubles, one of which were Western forces in China. Except for that priest wearing hiking boots, the Westerners in OUATIC are Republic serial villains, organizing the kidnapping of Chinese women for their pleasure dens and plotting to trick Chinese men into slavery. They order the massacre of civillians and frustrate Jet Li at every turn with their glued-on sideburns and poor dubbing. But, despite making the Western whitey the bad guy (and, arguably, a lot of Anglos were carving up China like a Thanksgiving turkey at the time) there's never a sense of racism and the nationalism stays warm and fuzzy and doesn't devolve into a moronic "My country is better than your country," screed.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Mar 29, 2006 5:06:13 AM
To: "Curious" - Just saw your comments/question. I think you've slightly misconstrued my comments. Grady has helpfully summed up how I feel about the OUATIC movies (the first three at least). I will say that I've read comments by other "whiteys" or "gweilos" or whatever who've described these movies as xenophobic, which I think is inaccurate and unfair, for reasons Grady has covered.
I came out of a screening of OUATIC 1 and a guy on the sidewalk who was a martial arts and HK movie neophyte was slackjawed at how "political" and "cynical" it was (although he seemed to have liked it). I guess that compared to what a non-enthusiast might expect of a "chopsocky" flick, it is, but I did a bit of a double take hearing him. I'd come to expect such content from Tsui Hark and kung fu cinema in general.
Posted by: Michael Wells | Mar 29, 2006 12:57:18 PM
As anti-western as OUATIC 1 might be (and heck, it sure as heck ain't pro-western), its sequel spent a good deal of time warming up to western people and practices and made the xenophobic Chinese the bad dudes.
Kinda like how Magnum Force makes for a weird sequel, thematically, to Dirty Harry.
Posted by: Max K. | Mar 30, 2006 12:50:04 AM
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