Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (Thai: ​องค์บาก​; IPA: [ɔːŋbaːk]), also known in the United States as Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior is a 2003 Thai action film. It was directed by Prachya Pinkaew, featured stunt choreography by Panna Rittikrai and starred Tony Jaa. Ong-Bak proved to be Jaa's breakout film, with the actor hailed internationally as the next major martial-arts star. Jaa went on to star in Tom-Yum-Goong (called The Protector in the US and Warrior King in the UK) and is directing a sequel to Ong-Bak, Ong-Bak 2.

The scene opens in Ban Nong Pradu, a peaceful rural village in northeastern Thailand. A group of villagers, covered in white mud, are standing by an immense Bodhi tree, looking up to the top where a flag flaps in the gentle breeze. With a great yell, they all run toward the tree and begin to climb, knocking others away. Men fall to the ground with a thud, bouncing off branches as they go. One climber comes out on top. It is Ting, the village's best athlete and fighter. He grabs the flag, ties it around his neck and descends, deftly avoiding the other climbers.

Ting is established as a reverent, respectful young man, and is anointed as such by the village's monk, in a ceremony at the community's humble little temple that night. Though extremely skilled in muay Thai, as he demonstrates for his "Uncle Mao" (indeed, it is literally "Uncle Drunk" in Thai), he has made a vow that he will not use it to harm another person for any personal monetary gain.

It is a poor village. All it has is an ancient Buddha image, named Ong-Bak. During the night, Ting's drunken Uncle Mao stumbles into the temple to discover something bad going on. He awakes the next morning to find the Buddha statue's head missing. The villagers all despair of the bad luck that will befall them if the Buddha's head is not returned. Ting speaks up and says he will recover it at all costs.

The villagers all chip in, giving up treasured baht and hoarded trinkets to pay for Ting's way to Bangkok, where he is to meet his ne'er-do-well cousin Humlae and get help in tracking down the men who stole Ong-Bak's head.

In the city, we find that Humlae has dyed his hair blond and renamed himself George, since his village name, "Humlae", also means "Dirty Balls". He and his friend, Muay Lek, are street-bike racing hustlers who have fallen in with a bad crowd of yaba dealers.

Humlae is at first reluctant to help Ting, but when he sees the small fortune in coins that Ting has collected from his village, Humlae takes an immediate interest. And, when Ting is in the bathroom, Humlae grabs the sack and heads for a bar on Khaosan Road where an illegal boxing match is going on. Ting tracks Humlae down, but instead of getting his money back, he ends up fighting and being named the new champion after one high knee smash waylays the old champ.
Ting (Tony Jaa) is ready for another showdown.
Ting (Tony Jaa) is ready for another showdown.

This makes Ting an enemy of Komtuan, a gray-haired, wheelchair-bound crimelord who needs an electrolarynx to speak. He's been watching the fight from his private room, and losing money because Ting keeps beating his fighters.

Meanwhile, back in Ting's village, there is bad luck indeed. The ground is dusty and full of cracks and all that's left in the village well is muddy water. They need the Buddha's head back for the drought to end and good luck to return to the village.

George keeps working shady deals, with he and Muay Lek working a scam at a baccarat game in an illegal casino. Eventually, the scams catch up with him, and the drug dealer shows up to give George a beating. Ting ignores George's cries for help, but when the drug dealer starts smacking Muay Lek around, Ting takes care of things. But then the drug dealer's friends and the cheated casino boss show up and a footchase through the alleys ensues, with Ting showing off his acrobatic skill as he walks over crowds, jumps through a barbed-wire hoop, leaps over a rack of sharp tools, cartwheels through a narrow space between two panes of glass, doing a gymnastics move over a wok of hot oil, and jumping up and down scaffoldings. Meanwhile, George is being chased by several gangsters as well. After encountering a hot chili powder stand, he takes a handful of it, and sticks right into the gangsters' eyes. He then runs into a dead end where Ting helps him escape in exchange for George's assistance in helping Ting find Don.

That night, there is another fight at the bar. Ting is egged on by Big Bear, a vulgar Australian fighter. At first, Big Bear attempts to provoke a fight with Ting by insulting Thai people. But after Big Bear beats another Thai man and assaults a waitress, Ting takes up the fight and easily beats the hulking man. He then must fight Toshiro, a very fast and flexible Japanese fighter. His final opponent Mad Dog, another farang, who favors the use of such objects as chairs, tables, electrical wires and even a refrigerator to punch and smash his opponents with. The fight takes them up to Komtuan's private booth. Komtuan hands Mad Dog a knife, but Ting simply kicks Mad Dog out of the viewing booth's glass right back onto the battle area. An African man steps into the ring to throw a coin at Ting's feet and at the same time, he gives Ting a thumbs up. This starts loud cheering from everyone who's just seen the fight go on. And everyone from everywhere throws coins at Ting, much to the delight of George and Muay Lek.

Muay Lek, meanwhile, has been struggling to keep her older sister Ngek from using drugs. Ngek has fallen in with a small time crook named Don. On the bed, Ngek, following her sister's advice, says she wants to quit drugs, Don, in his anger violently suffocates her and stuffs her mouth with drugs. Muay Lek shows up at Don's apartment with George and Ting to find her struggling sister overdosed and near death. George and Ting take off and chase the boyfriend in tuk-tuks, with several of Don's men joining in. The tuk-tuks take to an elevated expressway, and the scene climaxes with many tuk-tuks driving off the edge of an unfinished portion of the highway.

Ting follows the bad guys and ends up at the port and in the Chao Phraya River, where he discovers a cache of stolen Buddha images. This leads back to the gangster Komtuan, who makes Ting fight one of his bodyguards who has been treating himself with drugs, making him full of rage and impervious to pain. The following day, George, Ting and Muay Lek are kidnapped by Komtuan's henchmen. After Komtuan leaves and orders the henchmen to kill the 3, Ting attacks the man with the assistance of George. As one of the gangsters mounts his motorcycle, we see Ting come out of nowhere with fire on his legs, his knees colliding with the gangster's helmet.

Ting and George follows the gangster into a cave in a mountain, where the head of a giant Buddha image is being chiseled away. There is a final showdown, with Ting fighting off all of Komtuan's henchmen with George, who tries his hardest to fight them, but is still beaten badly. Komtuan's bodyguard injects himself with several shots of drugs at one time and attacks Ting. The bodyguard is defeated and seemingly killed by Ting. Komtuan then shoots Ting and attempts to crush Ong-Bak's head with a sledgehammer. George covers Ong-Bak's head with his body, taking the beatings from the sledgehammer to save Ong-Bak's head. At that moment, the giant Buddha head falls over, crushing Komtuan to death while George almost rolls away from its path, but he is unfortunately crushed underneath. Although crushed from the head, Ting and Muay hear his last wish, for Muay Lek to graduate school and for Ting to look after her.

The head of the Ong-Bak Buddha statue is restored in the temple of Ting's village. Ting, now ordained as a monk with shaven head and white robes, arrives into the village in a procession on an elephant's back while the villagers and Muay Lek celebrate his ordination.

 

Source: wikipedia.org