Tony Jaa is one of the action greats that I foresee as one of the future’s big martial arts action stars. And according to some, the future is already here.
He’s played the lead role in just two movies so far in his young career, but Panom Yeerum — or Tony Jaa, as international audiences know him — has quickly become Thailand’s biggest movie star and may be one of the world’s biggest martial arts stars of his day.
While it would be premature to group Jaa in the same category as his idols Bruce Lee,
Jackie Chan and Jet Li, at the rate he is going, some believe he could someday earn a place alongside these greats.
The article focuses a lot on the history of the Martial Arts cinema and the recent attention that Thai style kickboxing is getting.
It looks like we will get to see an awful lot of this style of martial arts, and I for one see nothing wrong with that.
I think it is about time for a Martial Arts revival. Gone are the days of martial arts action blowouts brought to us by the likes of Jean Claude VanDamme and Steven Segal. Oh sure we still have Jackie Chan, but his rapid fire release of films seems to have slowed significantly, and fall into a different category than the martial arts champs of the 80s and early 90s.
We need some sensless action movies with incredible stunts and strong leads. Jaa fits that bill and he is not their only export. If we have to tap the Thai national sport to accomplish this, then I say Hollywood needs more culture.
Bring on the Thai!
