Ong Bak 3 (2010)

Counting crows

Ong Bak 3 was the last in the “trilogy” and easily the worst. It picked up where the second film left off, stalling out for over an hour before any real action took place. It also took the story in a different supernatural direction with a new villain.

Tien suffers cruelty after cruelty as Rajasena’s prisoner. He’s inexplicably saved and brought to Bua for healing. Coincidentally, his old friend Pim is there. In order to save Tien and reduce his bad karma from a previous life, the village creates an Ong Bak for merits. Tien slowly, very, very, slowly recovers and learns a new martial arts style based on Khon dancing. Meanwhile, the Crow Ghost is driving Rajasena insane with bizarre hallucinations so that he might seize power.

This movie was different in tone and style than Ong Bak 2. The first 20 minutes focused on Tien’s torture which was quite brutal. It went on way too long. While I don’t mind learning about Buddhism in a different genre of film, I really don’t want to spend a half hour watching Tien rehabilitating and learning to control his mind. Seventy minutes into a ninety-minute movie is too long a wait to see Tony show his stuff. With the exception of a fight during a vision, the rest were underwhelming. The acting was also much worse in this film. The Crow Ghost’s supernatural abilities were out of synch with OB2’s more realistic approach to revenge.

Rumor has it that Ong Bak 2 was over budget and too long so they made two films out of it. There was no reason this couldn’t have been one film by trimming the flashbacks in OB2 and drastically reducing the excruciating torture scenes and long-winded training montage in OB3. To say I’m disappointed in this film would be an understatement after enjoying OB2.

13 March 2025

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