The highlight of last weekend was going to see the long-anticipated release of Thai action star Tony Jaa’s follow-up to Ong-Bak entitled “Tom Yum Goong”. Tom Yum Goong translates loosely as shrimp soup, though to call Tony Jaa a shrimp would likely result in a split skull and several broken limbs, and those coming from his legion of loyal local fans.

The movie has nothing to do with shrimp, and everything to do with elephants – elephants who have been kidnapped and shipped to Australia to be abused and eaten. Apparently us aussies are no longer satisfied with eating kangaroo and crocodile, and have turned to eating all manner of exotic creatures instead.

Without giving too much away, the film starts well, falters in the middle, then explodes at the end. It lacks the polish you’d expect from a big budget hollywood or Hong Kong action fim, but as Thailand’s 2nd most expensive movie ever, its definitely a step-up from Ong-bak and headed in the right direction. The fight scenes are truly jaw-dropping, especially when you take into account that Khun Tony is famous for not using wires, trampolines and special effects in his stunts and fight scenes. What you see on film he can do in real life.

YMOTG tries out for Tony Jaa’s next film called
“Beat the shit out of the foreign wimp”

The only drawback to the film, which will no doubt gain big exposure on the world stage is that it unfortunately serves to perpetuate the stereotype that westerners misguidedly have about Thai women. In almost every scene that is set in Australia and involves Thai women, the girls are all drug-addled, enslaved prostitutes. And the only other major “female” character that isn’t a prostitute is…you guessed it – a katoey.

While the movie will undoubtedly and deservedly propel Tony Jaa onto bigger and brighter things (if he doesn’t become the new Bruce Lee I’ll run naked through the streets of Silom Soi 4) the film does nothing for the image of Thai women living overseas. As someone who one day would like to bring his Thai woman home, it saddens me that Thai’s themselves don’t seem to mind dispensing the view amongst westerners that all Thai women (especially those living abroad) are prostitutes.

All that aside, it’s a flawed yet largely enjoyable film thats worth seeing just for the action scenes alone. Be sure to watch out for what is possibly the longest single-edit fight scene in modern cinematic history. Two thirds of the way through the film we follow Tony up and down five floors of a building, battling various nefarious enemies in a scene that lasts over four minutes and was shot in one long single take with no edits. Apparently it took four days of shooting the scene over and over before they got it right. Amazing stuff! I’m off to sign up for Mauy Thai lessons now…