Action! If there’s one word associated with cinema, the tension of movie sets, and the focus of attention, it’s this one. Action is very often at the heart of popular cinema: Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock hands in Safety Last! (1923), Cary Grant threatened and strafed by a plane in North by Northwest (1959), Franka Potente gasping for air in Run Lola Run (1998)... Westerns, swashbuckler films, martial arts or adventure flicks, thrillers, all these genres rely on action—sometimes frenetic, sometimes meticulously measured.
From movies by Sergei Eisenstein to Gilles Carle, from John Ford to John Boorman and Werner Herzog, via Paul Verhoeven, Kathryn Bigelow, Park Chan-wook, Érik Canuel, and Nicolas Winding Refn, this series will take you through the full range of emotions, from laughter to thrills, from fear to satisfaction.
The peaceful village of Nong Pradu is in mourning following the theft of the head of the Buddha that its residents revere. Ting, a Muay Thai expert, is sent to Bangkok to recover the precious sacred relic. A memorable performance by Tony Jaa: real stunts, no stunt double, no wires, no VFX.
Prachya Pinkaew
Prachya Pinkaew is a Thai director, screenwriter, and producer. He began his career as an art director, then worked on commercials and music videos before directing his first films in the early 1990s. Riding the wave of the Thai film renaissance, he founded his own production company in 1997 and produced several films that were successful domestically. Despite this, he secretly dreamed of becoming the leading figure and master of martial arts cinema. He put his plan into action after meeting Panna Rittikrai, an actor in nearly 50 films of the genre, who introduced him to his best student: Tony Jaa. Thus began the filming of Ong-Bak, which would become a massive global success, even becoming one of the most famous Thai film of all time. He also collaborated with Tony Jaa on the two films in The Protector series (2005, 2013).
