The Protector

The Protector
Studio: The Weinstein Company
Rated: R
Cast: Tony Jaa, Petchthai Wongkamlao, Bongkot Kongmalai, Jin Xing, Johnny Nguyen
Director: Prachya Pinkaew
WorkNameSort: Protector, The
Our Rating: 4.00
With The Protector, 30-year-old martial-arts mastermind Tony Jaa bests his own sensational Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, the 2003 film that brought the fearless fighter Western recognition. He’s established himself as the heir to the self-parodic Jackie Chan, who cameos in The Protector as if officially passing the torch. Like Ong-Bak, The Protector‘s inciting incident is rooted in Thai spirituality. Also like his previous film, Jaa is on a mission: to recover his elephants ‘ an animal that symbolizes and grants royal power to those who ride it ‘ from a sexy crime kingpin who also happens to be in bed with the corrupt police. Try as the screenwriters might (there are four of them) to inject weighty, mythological significance into the story, we only watch Jaa’s movies for the holy-shit moments, which The Protector provides in abundance. Jaa’s immaculately choreographed combat ballets feature him pummeling dozens (hundreds?) of faceless heavies, with and without props. This is not to discount Prachya Pinkaew’s audacious direction; he shoots the standout sequence as a single fluid tracking shot that’s as dazzling as the eye-popping stunts performed by Jaa. Forget Snakes on a Plane ‘ the gloriously over-the-top Protector is some of the most viscerally entertaining fluff of the year. (R)

This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.