Ong-bak

I watched this film last night. It made me laugh quite a lot.

I don't think this was intended by the film makers.

I like martial art films, especially the new, spectacular breed, because I love the gymnastic and acrobatic elements of the moves. Same reason I thought District 13, which is full of super-cool parkour moves, was the best thing since marmite toast.

But watching Ong-bak last night - the main storyline of which centres around the theft and recovery of the head of a buddha statue - I reflected on the usefulness of some of these moves in a real fight situation.

The chase sequence, for example. When jumping through a small space, surely it would be easier to go feet OR head first, rather than folding neatly into a pike position at some effort and risk of headbashing to slide through with feet and hands together.

Not according to this young gent.

I've never quite understood, either, the necessity of somersaulting your way onto someone's head/back/squashy parts. It requires considerably more bounce and effort and is less precise than simply walloping him one because you take your eyes off the target.

I can sort of understand why you might want to do split somersaults because they're quite unpredictable and you get to kick someone with first one leg then the other with the additional speed and momentum from the rotation of the somersault. But the same thing could be achieved with less effort and probably producing more power from a handspring walk out or a backflip walkout - plus it's a bit more stable.

It's also about time someone pointed out that somersaulting in a straight or split position dramatically slows the speed of the move, making tucked somersaults far quicker. Although I suppose a straight-back somersault looks more impressive.

And finally, why exactly, when confronted with a series of steps, would you somersault from one to the next - rather than just jumping? Can someone tell me what the advantage is there?

That said, I hope no-one sees the flawed logic behind all this dramatic choreography. It looks much cooler that way.

More on that story later.

Tags: ong-bak, gymnastics, cool shit, somersaults