The Rise and Fall of Tony Jaa || What really happened to Tony Jaa?

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In this video we discuss the rise and fall of Tony Jaa. Tony Jaa (Ong Bak, The Protector) burst onto the scene in 2004 and was hailed as the martial arts movie savior; however, as quickly as his fame reached extreme heights and caught Hollywood's attention, things would quickly crash down. Find out why in this video!

When Tony Jaa first exploded onto the scene in 2004’s Ong Bak, he seemed destined to become the worlds savior of martial arts films. This fresh new face brought a jolt of energy back into a genre populated by aging stars such as Jackie Chan, Van Damme and Steven Seagal.
Ong Bak was a massive success in it’s home country of Thailand, but more importantly around the globe. Martial Arts Great Donnie Yen even stated that Tony Jaa had beaten Hong Kong at their own game and even acknowledged that Ong Bak was a motivating force to do better in his own work.
With all this attention, Tony Jaa was deemed and “overnight success”; however, this acclaim of overnight success completely ignored the fact that Jaa was not actually a newcomer at all, as his first notable screen credits came in 1992, 1994, and 1996 on few low budget Thai Productions. Soon after, in 1997, he was part of a much bigger production working as Robin Shous stunt double in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Jaa’s overnight success was actually a result of working hard and toiling around in near obscurity for over a decade.

The truth is that the idea of being an overnight success is a myth. It’s a carefully crafted narrative, which we conveniently buy into as a form of wish fulfillment. Anyone who has achieved anything great in life has tirelessly put in the work, the time and energy for years, sometimes decades before ever getting noticed. And that big break, “Luck” what some may call, is really just the result of preparation finally meeting opportunity.
Although we all want to feel special and extraordinary in some way, the fact is most people have enormous ability and potential, so there’s nothing wrong with being “ordinary”; what’s more important is to have extraordinary discipline, drive and work ethic in order to achieve any level of greatness.

Tony Jaa certainly has all the martial arts talent in the world; however, that is never enough; especially since the martial arts boom eventually faded in the 1990s. Add to that, one of the appeals that Tony Jaa has is that he can do all his owns stunts, without wires and CGI; however, major studios want their stars, especially their leads to avoid injury at all costs, so what actually seems like a big benefit for the performer to have is actually detrimental for a major movie studio if they were to use that stars abilities in full. These days a martial artist would probably have a hard time trying to break boundaries in their movie, with the studio consistently worrying about them and their investment.
Also, since the UFC entered the mainstream in 2006, it made mixed martial arts fighting a common sight. In the end, this made martial arts movies suffer, as the magic and appeal martial arts movies once provided throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s quickly evaporated.

Going back to 2004, the original Ong Bak grossed roughly 2 and a half million dollars at the Thai box office, and pulled in another 17 million internationally; and just like that, Tony Jaa, the newcomer seemed to be the biggest name in martial arts movies. Bigger and better things would soon follow with The Protector, which scored another chart-topping performance in Thailand where it grossed nearly four and a half million, and then another 23 million internationally.
Though critics were not too kind to the film or Jaa’s acting performance, it seemed his star was sealed and the big Hollywood offers began to roll in; After months of speculation as to what his next project would be, word began to circulate that Jaa’s relationship with Prachya Pinkaew, the director of Ong Bak, had broken down over Jaa’s insistence that he didn’t need the director anymore and wanted to direct himself. The studio ended up handing Tony Jaa his biggest budget yet in order to make his directorial debut with the prequel film Ong Bak 2.

The film ended up becoming a nightmare on several levels. Jaa ended up having a complete meltdown on set and simply disappeared for 2 months, causing the film to fall behind schedule. When Jaa returned to work he found his director’s role was taken away and handed to his mentor Panna Rittikrai. The budget got out of control and the studio made the last-minute decision to do rewrites and split the film into 2 in the hopes of recovering their massive cost over runs. Having 2 films instead of 1 gave them a much better chance of recouping their investment, but it ended up being at the expense of Tony Jaa’s career.
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Tony jaa is an amazing actor. It is a shame he isn't present as much but I'm glad that he didn't get sucked in and corrupted by Hollywood

mattnobrega
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Bro, The Protector goes hard af. That long one-shot scene where he's going up the stairs, doing the craziest shit imaginable for like 5 minutes, thats easily one of the most impressive martial arts scenes ever filmed.

crom
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Tony Jaa instantly became a martial arts movie star when Onk Bak came out. No-one has ever achieved that level in fighting sequences back then and ever since. Of course, he had the best director to enable this breakthrough, but that doesn't change anything. The guy's a specimen of an athlete and a legend. Period.

quantiquefilms
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First time I watched Ong Bak I was in awe. I watched it over and over then I saw The Protector and I was blown away.

vegandmac
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I first saw Ong Bak as a kid around 2008/2009 and I can tell you that Ong bak was a film that lived its moments in everything and everyone all around. I really wish I could go back in time and relive that fresh sensation. A really outstanding martial arts/action film in modern times...
a great deal of admiration for Mr. Tony Jaa

KGBeast.
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Brooo i went through a massive Tony Jaa phase . . i grew up on JCVD and all the action stars but i leaned all the way into martial arts and this guy is the king in my eyes.

gamedrop
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I was won over with Ong Bak and haven't lost sight of him since. We need a Magnificent Seven type movie with Tony, Iko, Joe Taslim, Andrew Koji, MJW, Scott Adkins, Donnie Yen. Let's get it going

slipperyjohnson
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God bless him, no matter what happens to him, he is adorable, a Michael Jackson in martial movie. I will never forget him. Long live Tony JAA

livingstoneavila
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Tony Jaa is still #1 for me. Nothing will top The Protector.

DukeNukemTheKing
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What we all saw in Ong Bak and The Protector was something really powerful, like when Bruce Lee did Enter The Dragon, maybe even bigger. Tony could be biggest action star ever. His skill is unmatched. Too bad things didnt work out that way

zoranbl
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The language barrier was a big reason. A lot of his English-language roles had little dialogue. I think the most that he spoke in English was in Skin Trade with Dolph Lundgren. Even in Triple Threat, his English dialogue was sporadic at the most.

Compare that to Donnie Yen. Before he started winning the west over with Ip Man, he was doing fight choreography for movies like Blade II and Highlander Endgame, and for the German show, Das Puma. By the time Hollywood started calling again for Donnie Yen, not only was he given dialogue-rich roles for franchises like Star Wars, XXX, and John Wick, but he was able to voice crucial creative decisions for the characters he played. Donnie Yen as a native English speaker (he was born and raised in Boston) was able to gradually voice his stake in Hollywood more than Tony Jaa could.

Diggy
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Jaa's skills and style in Ong Bak were exceptional. He was the next big thing hands down.

FilmolovacDule
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I remember reading an interview in which Tony Jaa mentioned many action stars as his inspiration like bruce lee, jet li, and Jackie chan

xyz-pfyz
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Every martial art action star has his decade just like Tony Jaa. Unfortunately, Hollywood and the audience don't want any more action stars. But mainstream Hollywood stars perform the martial art choreography themselves. When Scott Adkins and Jackie Chan say he's fit, he has to be extremely fit.

greecostyler
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I’ll never forget seeing Tony Jaa live. I was doing Muay Thai at the time and there was screening of Ong-Bak at the San Francisco Japantown movie theater. I had already watched it but I had to watch it on the big screen and went with a coworker/training buddy. When Tony Jaa and his crew showed up on stage the theater went wild. When he performed the stunts he did in Ong-Bak live, I lost it. I had no idea he did all that without wires. I can’t remember if I knew he was going to be before hand, but I’ll always remember him jumping on and running across the shoulders of his stuntmen like it was hopscotch.

cobot
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Man I became a Big fan of Muay Thai when I first saw my man Paco from Bloodsport and when Ong Bak came out I watched it like 100x Tony jaa is a Beast

TheOnlyGHOST
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I absolutely loved the first Ong Bak. Amazing movie! And Scott Adkins, amazing guy! Wish I could find more movies with him.

eriklindkvist
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Love that you touched on JCVDs acting in Lionheart. He really stepped it up a level by this time, and it shows. He deserves credit for that. Great film.

mattdrago
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One of the greatest action fight scenes I’ve ever seen

ashleydominiak
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Back in the early 2000’s when video stores was still a thing I stumbled across Ong Bak and rented it. Loved it so much I never returned it and got charged like $50. I was okay with it. One of my favorite martial arts movie of all time.

OutsideTheRopes