Ong-Bak (18)

Let’s not muck around: you’ve never seen anything like Tony Jaa. Think Bruce Lee’s class, Jet Li’s crunch and Jackie Chan’s flex. Then double it. With no CGI, no wires, no stunt-doubles and no pretences, Ong-Bak is a stripped-down, greased-up, teeth-rattling showcase of full-contact Muay Thai boxing (all elbows, knees and pain) and its star’s astonishing gymnastic face-smashing. In fact, the only thing that comes close to watching Jaa fight is watching him flee: through barbed-wire coils, between sheet glass corridors, over shambling cyclists and under moving trucks. Slamming a fresh gasp out of a tired genre, it storms past the clichéd plot with a breathtaking display of grace and power, a sheer delight in the balleticism of the human body not seen since Buster Keaton. But then, Keaton never set his legs on fire and started taking out opponents like a human Catherine wheel.

DVD Extras:

As the terrific 76-minute Making Of reveals, Ong-Bak looks painful because it was. We see a long-haired Jaa decimating an army of stuntmen in `rehearsals', tearing a tendon in his ankle (replayed three times, naturally), wigging out as the crew pour too much fuel on his legs for the fire-fight and accidentally KO-ing an unlucky extra. Elsewhere, there's a mind-bendingly informative yak-track from Asian-cinema expert Bey Logan, talky cut scenes, interviews with Jaa and three Western stunt-fighters, plus an Ong-Bak On-Tour featurette that sees Jaa pulling off more outrageous flips and kicks for the crowd. Finally, The Art Of Muay Thai hits the gym, where fighters and trainers amp up the martial art's aceness. Don't sweat it, fellas - - we're sold.

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