Tom yum goong 2

Tony, Tony, Tony… What have you been up to? First you entice us with your crazy stunts in Ong Bak and follow up with knockout Tom Yum Goong but then you’ve really fallen off the radar. The guy literally blasted onto the screen from nowhere and became an instant star in the martial arts world. With Jackie Chan and Jet Li aging and Donnie Yen producing material of inconsistent quality, action fans were hungry for a worthy successor. We thought that person may have been Tony Jaa and it still might be.

Fans of Jaa will know that he had been previously tied into the worst 10-year movie contract ever heard of by Sahamongkol Film International. The contract prevented him from doing any film other than the ones they wanted. Jaa had something of a breakdown and there were even stories that Jaa left the sets of the Ong Bak sequels to go and become a monk in a monastery. The 10 years expired and the guy is now back on the big screen – but wait! He signed on again with the same damn production company and they are once again being complete morons! Following recent news that Jaa had signed on to star in the next Fast & Furious movie, Sahamongkol Film once again threatened legal action against Jaa stating that he’d broken his contract by taking on work without their permission. For us lucky movie fans, it looks like Jaa is going ahead with Fast 7 despite this, as well as Hong Kong movie SPL 2 with Wu Jing! Excellent news indeed!

Jaa’s movies have always been simple movies reminiscent of Van Damme movies from yesteryear. They have a lot of heart and a lot of ass kicking. In the original Tom Yum Goong (AKA The Protector), Jaa’s elephants get kidnapped and brought over to Australia. Jaa goes over and gets them back. Simple! The movie was pretty badass, featuring an amazing one take sequence as Jaa makes his way to the top of a building, taking down loads of bad guys on the way.