My elephant is fight

The Movie: The Protector, directed by Prachya Pinkaew
Recommendation: Me
Reason: Hey, Ong Bak was fun, right?

Ong Bak was great. It was an eye opener, as martial arts movies go. My jaw dropped so many times while I was watching that movie, I was practically catching flies. I slavered over The Protector, having seen a preview scene featuring the fight with Lateef Crowder, the Capoeira fighter. Watching Tony Jaa fly across the screen and knee some guy in the face was to be the high point of my night.

The movie didn't quite live up to the one fight I'd seen. The editing was shoddy, the camerawork pretty lame. The martial arts choreography was alright, but definitely did not live up to the promise of Ong Bak. Tony Jaa kneed a whole lot more people in the face in that movie. So, without living up to the over-the-top face-imploding action of Dude, Where's My Buddha?, what did The Protector have left?

Your answer may be plot. Ong Bak was a little light on that, in favor of more cartilage crunching and diving through barbed wire. The Protector, being a little lacking in those departments, could have attempted plot, or acting, or possibly not being pretty lame. It succeeded only at being pretty lame. Overall, it was just...not quite right. There was very little plot, with minimal coherency. Oldboy, even the beginning, made more sense.

-40/365 down, 325/365 to go