The Protector (R), directed by PrachyaPinkaew, is playing at Culver Ridge 16, Henrietta 18,
Webster 12, Tinseltown, Greece Ridge 12, and Eastview 13 | Rochester
Dance On Camera Festival shows September 15-21 at Little Theatres | International Documentary Association’s
2006 DocuWeek Showcase shows September 16-17 at
Little Theatres |
Get your hands off my elephant!
Do you dig video games but secretly resent their interactive
demands, having to push so many stupid buttons in the correct order? If you’d
rather just relax and watch your guy take on all comers than be forced to
orchestrate the pixelated mayhem, then pry yourself
out of that you-shaped divot in the sofa and revel in The Protector, the latest
bone-breaking ballet from Thai martial-arts sensation Tony Jaa.
The rest of you, however, will want to stay the hell put.
The Protector‘s
gossamer plot finds our hero Cam (Jaa) on the trail
of gangsters who have stolen a pair of his family’s beloved elephants and
brought them to Sydney
for reasons having to do with both the mythical power of kings and pachyderm parmigiana. What follows is a cartoony
collection of violent set pieces — some relentlessly dull, others downright
thrilling — in which Cam beats the stuffing
out of the goons standing between him and his elephants. Jaa’s
particular brand of fighting is known as Muay Thai,
and he and director PrachyaPinkaew
stage the on-screen action without employing the wires or computer-generated
imagery so prevalent in many of today’s martial-arts films. The lack of
assisted grace, however, doesn’t detract from the obvious athleticism and
finesse necessary to master the discipline.
One battle takes place in some generic warehouse where Cam’s adversaries wield fluorescent light bulbs and
attack him on bikes, ATVs, and rollerblades. Another goes down in a fiery
Buddhist temple in which Cam faces opponents practicing a medley of fighting
styles (i.e., capoeira) in about six inches of water.
But the highlight of The Protector is
an astonishing single take that has Cam making
his way up four stories’ worth of spiral staircase, thwacking and clobbering
all the henchmen in his path. It’s easy to get so engrossed in the action that
you don’t realize you’re watching an unbroken shot, and you can see the
exhaustion overtake Jaa as he reaches the top floor.
It’s fortunate that martial-arts films have never really
been about the story, because The
Protector‘s script is unintentionally laughable, brought to life by awful
and strangely intermittent dubbing. The Hot Topic-clad villains twirl invisible
mustaches, though Madame Rose (played with evil delight by transsexual
ballerina Jin Xing) makes for an interesting foe. Pinkaew
makes the puzzling decision to saturate the colors and bleed the emulsions in
his film stock, and the run-of-the-mill score by the usually reliable The RZA
is not one of his better creations.
Jaa, who burst onto American
screens last year with cult hit Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior, seems to have two expressions — pained and
confused — and his director wisely plays to his clock-cleaning strengths.
It’s this weak presence that will limit Jaa as he
attempts to match the stateside achievements of his agile predecessors in Asian
cinema. He lacks the self-deprecating goofiness of Jackie Chan, the soulful
intensity of Jet Li, and the kinetic ingenuity of new mega-star Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle), but with both Chan and
Li vowing to hang up their fists and feet to become serious thespians, maybe
there’s room for Jaa. He’s reportedly expressed a
desire to be cast in the upcoming Indiana Jones film, so I will express my
desire that he take an acting class. And soon.
Beginning Friday, September 15, the Little Theatre plays
host to the Rochester Dance On Camera
Festival, a week-long event showcasing short films and videos, both fiction
and documentary, about the art of movement in its myriad forms. Highlights of
the festival include Carnival of Rhythm,
featuring a rarely seen performance from 1941 by the renowned Katherine Dunham;
Been Rich All My Life, a portrait of
five women who danced in clubs during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s; and Oatka Trail, the screen adaptation of Garth
Fagan’s 1979 opus. Go to www.dancefilms.org/Touring-Rochester.html for more
information, including ticket prices as well as a list of films and screening
times.
This weekend also finds the Little
presenting the International Documentary
Association’s 2006 DocuWeek Showcase, which
highlights a selection of short and feature-length films all aspiring to Oscar
nominations next year. Only seven other theaters in the country have been asked
to take part in DocuWeek, and among the films
screening at the Little are So Much So
Fast, in which a man chronicles his life after being diagnosed with a
debilitating neurological disorder; and An
Unreasonable Man, a look at the life and work of Ralph Nader. Visit the
Little Theatre’s website at www.little-theatre.com for further details.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.
