On Ong-Bak

Having finished watching the Thai film Ong-Bak a few days ago and being rather enthralled at the fight scenes, discussion soon came around to the uneasiness and confusion that we felt at the beginning of the film. Essentially, our problem lay with the introduction of the characters and their relationship to one another, it did not seem readily apparent or sufficiently explained why these characters went where they did. However, one of our writers, the ever studious Bassano del Grappa, used this as an opportunity to remind us of the cultural biases and presuppositions loaded in something as simple as a Thai fight movie. Recalling the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, who analyzed folk tales throughout the world, certain types of stories always have certain elements, the hero, the friend, etc, though how these elements appear may vary slightly from culture to culture. In a fight movie, you typically have the hero, the girl, the mentor, the villain, and the friend. Instead of establishing these relationships relative to the martial arts, Ong-Bak uses other themes such as village kinships and networks of gambling. We still don't really feel that we understand the movie's introduction, but we do enjoy that it has given something to think about.