I Bare Witness to this Historical Event!

No, it's not the day when Burberry decided to use checkers for its brand trademark.

I am a girl. No, that's an understatement. I am a girl's girl. I can watch Friends repeatedly over pizza, and I like clothes, drama series and hot guys. Basically I am like you, and if you're not this girl then I'd bet you know one of these girls in your lifetime. Yes, I am that.

Now let me tell you about this HISTORICAL EVENT of mine. I live with a father and two brothers, which means that in our DVD collection at home there is a good mixture of romance comedies and kick ass action movies. One day a few years ago the men in the house watched a martial arts film. Yikes, a martial arts film. I took no notice of the movie and carried on with my life. Now I have just graduated and unimployed. I spend my days drifting around the house, looking through photo albums, sorting out the tupperware in the cabinets (yes, I was that bored people) and re-watching all those collection of my movies. At some point there was nothing left to do. Literally nothing left to do. I had washed all the bathrooms in the house. I had woken up, ate, slept, ate and slept again, but the boredom was like a huge blade poking at my pelvis. I looked around. Hmm, those action movies dusting away in the drawers don't look too bad...

I watched Ong Bak, a Thai movie by a male subject I have never heard before, Tony Jaa. And dayum! Martial arts movies have not been this good since, I daresay ever! Of course, I have yet to watch any Bruce Lee movies, but dude, who is this Tony Jaa person?? Helped by the mighty power of Google, I discovered that this guy, this Tony Jaa, this head-kicking-chest-elbowing-mind-boggling-punch-swinging man is actually the rising star of this generation's brand of martial arts actors, specialising in Muay Thai which is a form of Thaland martial arts.

I couldn't get enough, so in the same day I managed to watch all three of Tony Jaa's existing movies;
1. Ong Bak
2. Ong Bak 2
3. The Protector (aka Tom Yum Goong)
Okay, now where do I start with this guy? Oh, and he's not cute, by the way. Not to my taste I mean. But he makes it up by kicking lots of asses in style! He uses no computer or CGI tricks, and no strings. All those flying right on top of people's heads and elbowing their skulls were real! And that ripped physique as a result of practicing martial arts all his life - let's just say it makes Robert Pattinson look like a sissy and all those men buffing up in gyms look like amateurs.

All the storylines pretty much sucked. In the protector, for instance, Tony Jaa loves his elephants. Bad guys steal his elephants. Tony Jaa finds them and breaks their faces (very important lesson here, folks. Don't fuck with this guy's elephants!). Then for the fun of it Tony Jaa beats the shitload out of those bad guys. Cliche, cliche. In one of those movies there were even no subtitles, so I didn't understand a single doing of Thailand language in there. But seriously, who cares? This guy appears on screen and I can actually, yes this is true, feel the adrenaline rushing through me, just because I am excited to see him kick some ass. I watched the whole movie without subtitles, and still by the end of it I felt exhausted just by watching him show Spiderman, 'This is how we do it baby. CGI and computer tricks are only for wusses'.



And so, I have witnessed the historical event of the birth and rise of the next martial arts star who will do Asian proud. You heard it here first. And I am now fully converted from the girl who watches the Shopaholic to anxiously waiting for the next Tony Jaa film (Ong Bak 3, coming on Dec 2009. See? That's another clue. If they keep making sequel after sequel, you know what that means. It has to be good). And here's some advice. Even if you hate martial arts movies, and have no interest in some action packed films, give it a try. Come on, girls. It's not all about the shopping bags.