Ong Bak 3 (2011)

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

After the events of the previous 'Ong Bak' film Tien has been captured by the evil Lord Rajasena. Rajasena orders his brutal execution; he is savagely beaten but before he is actually killed an order arrives from the king demanding Tien's release. He is taken back to his village where he gradually recovers from his injuries, which are both mental and physical. Meanwhile Rajasena, who has been cursed and appears to be going insane seeks the help of Bhuti Sangkha to lift the curse… instead Bhuti takes Rajasena's head and takes his place as local ruler… only he is more evil. Eventually when Tien has recovered he faces Bhuti.This, the conclusion to the 'Ong Bak' trilogy, gets off to a pretty good start as we see Tien getting beaten; impressively fighting back then getting beaten again. The problem is after this things are both messy and rather slow. The scenes showing Tien's recovery take far too long, especially given that the film is quite short, and the plot involving Bhuti is somewhat confused… it would have been better if the conclusion was a fight between Tien and Rajasena. When we aren't watching Tien recover there are some decent fight scenes; one even provides so good laughs when a comic relief character gets involved. There is certainly far too much mysticism; this is especially true of the finale where it appears that that Tien rewinds time after the woman he loves is killed and he gets a spear in the chest while the Bhuti talks in a voice that makes him sound like the Goa'uld in 'Star Gate SG1'. Overall this was a bit disappointing after the two previous films, which I really enjoyed… perhaps it would have been better had I watched it closer to watching part two.These comments are based on watching the film in Thai with English subtitles.

So this is basically a sequel to "Ong Bak 2" which wasn't a good movie. This one is way more slow with it's pacing in a very irrelevant manner. It's like the makers forgot they are making a martial arts movie or something. I know they planned for the 3rd installment while making the 2nd. But if they combined 2 and 3 and cut out all the bull crap scenes it would have probably been a good movie. Instead they probably wanted to fill in the running time because it has to be at least an hour and 30 minutes long. So they filled it with boring and dragged out stuff. You have to actually sit through more than an hour of rubbish to get to some fight sequences. Even the cover on the DVD is a lie. Most of the running time of this flick is taken up with the recovery of Tien(Tony Jaa), meditation, dancing and curses and it's so darn dragged out and boring. It's just not a good story for one movie. What is irritating is how the main villain Rajasena gets cut off that was kinda built up from the 2nd movie and some irrelevant character named Bhuti that came out of nowhere takes his spot. When Tien built his vengeance for that other villain Rajasena and doesn't doesn't even know much about this Bhuti. If he faced Rajasena at the end at least Tien's actions would have been a bit more meaningful. Just skip to the last fight scene cause that is the only thing that is worth seeing in this movie. Petchtai Wongkamlao is also in this and he was very slightly comedic and irrelevant like he was in "Ong Bak 2" but at least he was slightly comedic although he didn't make me laugh or nothing.4.5/10

I take it you have all watched Ong Bak and Ong Bak 2 before and are wondering if this film is on par with the first two; if you haven't, let me clue you in.The first two films in this series have been hailed by many (not everyone, but many) as outstanding martial-arts films, mostly due to the athletic prowess of Toni Jaa, but also because of the purity of the style - in fact, there is little beyond martial arts kick-ass-ness in these films.So, question remains, is Ong Bak 3 as good as its predecessors? Well .. yes. It's still good.But where the first two films had purity, this last instalment has to much random weirdness going on, in short it's got too much film for the quantity of kick-ass it has. If you watch any Ong Bak film, you're certainly not going for the plot, but for the fists and kicks.And let's be frank, Ong Bak 3 delivers in spades; just, not quite as relentlessly as the first two.My final vote on this pretty good action film - 7/10, but *only* for those who love the genre.

First, I have been a rabid fan of Tony Jaa since the first Ong Bak, and I've watched every one of his films since then. I told every action film buff that I know that here is the successor to Bruce, Jet, and Jackie. It's fascinating to watch this highly physical, full contact method of filming fight scenes. Combining his martial arts expertise with his natural athleticism is something to watch! BUT, I get the fact that he wants to make films that entertain his Thai fans so we get doses of history and religion that are completely meaningless to anyone except those audiences (I don't mean to insult anyone). I've read that he's expressed a desire to be a worldwide film star and he must realize that the more views of local-interest-only that he incorporates in his movies, the more people he's going to leave behind. He is increasing in this area rather than maintaining a fine balance, which he did in the first Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong. I could not sit through Ong Bak 3. After an hour of incredible boredom I shut it down. I knew that there would be some big-time fighting to end the film but I no longer cared. I believe that Tony is going to have to choose between maintaining his comfort zone, working with all the same familiar people in every film, or taking a chance and doing a movie where he doesn't control everything. Bruce started it, Jackie and Jet make films all over the world, and Tony is going to have to follow if he wants to grow. I believe that he has the ability and presence to be one of the greats, and I hope he takes the chance.