Born Japanom/Tatchakorn Yeerum, Tony Jaa is credited with contributing to the mainstream appeal of Muay Thai and Muay Boran and is one of the greatest stuntman and martial arts movie stars of the current generation first receiving attention after starring in the Thai martial arts cult hit Ong-Bak in 2003. Together with the highly regarded Muay Thai Stunt team formerly lead by Jaa's late mentor Panna Rittikrai, Jaa has repeatedly proven his talent both as a performer and choreographer of his own hard-hitting action sequences. So here are 12 of my favorite Tony Jaa fight scenes.
#12. Paradox (2017)
In the last decade Tony Jaa has become an occasional guest in Hong Kong action films most recently with the crime comedy Detective Chinatown 3. His trek into Hong Kong movies first began in the SPL series which brings us to the first fight scene on the list. Paradox is the third SPL film but has no relation to the previous films besides being another twist-filled crime thriller. A Hong Kong cop played by Louis Koo travels to Thailand to investigate the disappearance of his daughter later joining forces with a local Chinese Cop played by Wu Yue and his Thai partner played by none other than Tony Jaa. Their search leads them to a scuffle with some members of an organ trafficking gang headed by American martial arts actor Chris Collins.
(spoiler alert) Tony Jaa has what is basically an extended cameo and killed in a strangely elaborate death scene that almost undermines his character's tragic demise being knocked off a building in a possibly more shocking character death than Donnie Yen in the original SPL. But before that he's able to show off his unique skillset of run-and-gun parkour, arsenal of acrobatic kicks, and endless elbows against the heavily underappreciated Chris Collins. An ex-marine and practitioner of Wing Chun among a wide variety of other martial arts, a background which opened up his opportunity in appearing as a military Karate instructor in Ip Man 4. Aside from Collins is another actor from the Ip Man 4 cast Wu Yue whose national championship-level Wushu talents translate well onto film fighting though in Paradox he goes for a more practical and modern but occasionally fairly flashy combat style. A far cry from the more traditional and flowery Tai Chi he demonstrated in Ip Man 4.
There's less wire-aided and more grounded action than SPL 2 but nothing as innovative as the original SPL. It's fairly standard contemporary HK action yet still expertly choreographed by Sammo Hung who returns from the first film but only off-camera as the action director netting him the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Action Choreography thanks in part to some help from assistant martial arts director Jimmy Hung Tin-Cheung. The film also won best Sound Design as well as enabling Louis Koo's dramatic skills to earn him both the Hong Kong and Asian Film Award for Best Actor, a HK star who had never before been officially awarded for his acting chops. Jaa may have not have been given much on-screen time to shine but his co-stars clearly compensated for that and this fight sequence is only a taste of what would come throughout the remainder of the film.
#11. Spirited Killer (1994)
Also titled Plook Mun Kuen Ma Kah 4 (yes, it's actually the 4th film in a series), Jaa's own mentor Panna Rittikrai is the eponymous "spirited killer", a vengeful forest entity under the control of a voodoo priest that mindlessly attacks and kills anyone who enters their jungle territory including a group of treasure hunters comprised of various stuntmen from Rittikrai's own Muay Thai Stunt squad. The most talented of which is Tony Jaa who has an even briefer appearance than in Paradox where he also dies faster than he lived. Jaa's literally short-lived time on-screen in Spirited Killer could be retroactively considered a cameo though it was long before Jaa's claim to fame in the early 2000s'.
Jaa and Rittikrai are renowned for their Taekwondo and Thai martial arts but this fight scene from Spirited Killer is really all Wushu from the swordplay to the unarmed combat. It was only during the 90s' during which we could fully appreciate the screen fighting capabilities of the younger Panna Rittikrai battling what would be his future prime protege. After a considerable lineup of 80s'/90s' Thai action films, Hard Gun and Mission Hunter 2 being two others that gave Tony Jaa some minor roles in, the 21st century would later see Rittikrai choose to step behind the camera as choreographer. Before that stage of his career however he brought us this forest fight from Spirited Killer, a small sample of a martial arts cinematic revolution in the making and kind of a prototype to the Chinese-Thai martial art hybridization that would define Ong-Bak 2. And if you watched the English dub video shown above then you would surely enjoy the hilariously corny dialogue which only adds to the cheesy 1990s' sound effects and overall campiness of the movie.
#10. Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (2018)
Not long after the conclusion of the SPL series, Tony Jaa continued his periodic visits to the land of Hong Kong cinema in Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy. A spin-off of the Donnie Yen led Ip Man series starring Max Zhang Jin reprising his role as one-time Wing Chun rival Cheung Tin-Chi who has left behind his ambitions of becoming Hong Kong's top martial artist and instead decided to work as a hand-to-hand hitman for the local triads. When attempting to also leave behind that life as a martial mercenary, his former employer burns down Cheung's newly opened grocery store and sends the triad's top enforcer played by Tony Jaa. Besides the briefest of bouts in the opening scene of the film the two cross fists again later on.
Jaa's fedora walks the fine line between being badass but also a little silly yet it's still the classic Jaa in his familiar fighting form pulling off his Muay Thai/Muay Boran moves mixed with his off-the-wall Taekwondo high kicks. Though his style is given a slightly more unique look by adding in a combination of knife hand strikes. An unusual but interesting addition to his conventional cinematic combat. The only unnecessary change to Jaa's martial aesthetic is the choreographic crime of putting him on wires for an awkward backflip kick which is one reason why this fight scene isn't higher on the list. Wirework is more the strong suit of Max Zhang having been a veteran of several wuxia films but it's simply a waste of Jaa's acrobatic talents. This may be due to the movie having been directed by the king of kung fu choreography Yuen Woo-Ping who even when crafting more grounded fight sequences just cannot resist incorporating at least some small amount of wire-fu. Nonetheless with his brother Yuen Shun-Yi as action choreographer leading his team of assistant action choreographers Chan Siu-Wah, Chen Chao, and Zhou Xiao-Fei, this second on-screen dual appearance by Tony Jaa and Max Zhang is a more evenly matched fight than their first movie meet-up in SPL 2 (to be mentioned again on a higher spot on this list) mostly succeeding in playing off the two's individual film fighting skills with Max Zhang at this point in the movie still trying to maintain a low profile by hiding his Wing Chun in favor of more conventional Kung Fu.
The simple setting makes for intriguing action geography as well with the store front acting as a nearly flat plane of combat allowing a side-to-side movement of the combatants as their bodies break through the building's glass windows while exchanging blows. One of Tony Jaa's stunt doubles Simon Kuke made what might as well have been an unofficial stand-in for Jaa in Ip Man 3 in an awesome elevator/staircase fight against Donnie Yen. Master Z finally brought Tony Jaa into the Ip Man cinematic universe and despite it not being with Donnie Yen himself per se (although both were cast in Jack Ma's martial arts short Gong Shou Dao and the Triple X sequel) it still gave martial arts movie fans a Muay Thai-Wing Chun crossover worth watching by letting him fight one of the foremost Hong Kong martial movie stars Max Zhang.
#9. Furious 7 (2015)
The Fast & Furious saga is one of the few modern action series out there that has somehow become exponentially more successful with each new installment abandoning its smaller scale street racing origins for the most over-the-top car-on-car madness that could possibly be conjured up for the silver screen. The other half of this unexpectedly winning formula is the choice to bring in every conceivable major action star of the current and last decade both within and beyond Hollywood. Tony Jaa is one such name by 2015 having virtually disappeared from Thai cinema and venturing into Hong Kong and American films. Jaa's Hollywood journey may technically have started as a stunt double for Robin Shou (Liu Kang) in 1995's Mortal Kombat but Furious 7 is what clearly provided him a longer and more welcome stay in American cinema throwing him into the cast of another Vin Diesel actioner XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, alongside Milla Jovovich in Monster Hunter, and soon the upcoming Expendables 4. Furious 7 picks up where the previous one left off with rogue assassin Deckard Shaw played by Jason Statham avenging his comatose brother from Fast & Furious 6 by hunting down each member of our main crew of protagonists. To find Shaw, the team must help a mysterious man played by Kurt Russell to stop a Nigerian terrorist from stealing a global tracking software. Jaa is, as you might expect, one of the terrorist's lead agents and as I often like to do in these lists this ranking will consist of two fight scenes for the price of one.
After our favorite family is paradropped onto a convoy traveling through a mountain pass, the expected car-nage of vehicular warfare continues on the road while Brian O'Connor finds himself inside an armored bus and engages in a close-quarters fight with Tony Jaa. Jaa's elbows and knees are perfect for the tight spaces but his array of aerial kicks is more limited though he's still able to show off his signature front flip kick. Brian manages to hold his own against Jaa anyway (somehow). Much of the believability of this otherwise unbelievable match-up is because of the crisp choreographic craftsmanship of premiere Hollywood fight/stunt coordinator Jeff Imada as well as fight coordinator John Koyama and action coordinator David Ismalone. Paul's two brothers Caleb and Cody Walker as well as actor John Brotherton acted as body doubles providing their physical skills for the film's fights and were certainly not "too slow" to keep up with a movie martial artist of Jaa's calibre. Their faces of which were replaced by digital recreations of Paul's face thanks to the computer-generated magic of Weta Digital, Peter Jackson's famous digital studio responsible for Lord of the Rings character Gollum and Planet of the Apes hero Caesar. Facial CGI aside, no CGI was in fact used for Paul Walker's stuntman leaping off the bus as it flew off the cliffside performed entirely by Paul's fearless stunt double Phil Culotta, a feat that Tony Jaa himself would probably be pretty impressed by.
Following this cliffside clash, the two have a rematch inside a factory where Jaa is given more room to display his acrobatic and parkour prowess showing off some of his older trademark techniques like the cartwheel kick and even a new trick altogether walking backwards up a wall and transitioning into...you guessed it, a front flip kick. The setting is utilized in choreographically clever ways with the two grappling while taking a sleigh ride down a staircase atop a broken metal door and the action filmed without the close-up quick cut style of their initial bus fight. The Fast & Furious series is undoubtedly one of Universal Pictures' flagship franchises and Furious 7 in particular was a massive money-maker as the series' most profitable film yet. Such stellar success owes a great deal to director James Wan made more impressive by it being his first foray into pure action after previously establishing him as a master of horror with film series like Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring. Furious 7 was only the beginning as he honed his action direction further with Aquaman allowing the fight sequences to breathe even more than ever before in several wide long takes. And of course it all started with Furious 7 casting one of the 2010s' biggest martial arts superstars Tony Jaa in his Hollywood debut as a key ingredient in an action spectacle that truly pays tribute to the memory of the late Paul Walker.
#8. Skin Trade (2014)
A year before Jaa's arrival in Hollywood blockbuster territory was technically his first major American movie role in Skin Trade possibly overlooked mostly because of its low-budget direct-to-video status. Tony Jaa is a Thai detective working undercover to investigate a human trafficking ring operated by a Serbian crime boss played by Ron Perlman who is also being pursued by a New Jersey detective played by Dolph Lundgren. A plot which was inspired by Lundgren having read a news story about a group of girls trafficked from Mexico into the US who all died after being exposed to extreme heat and lack of oxygen when left inside a truck at the border. Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa were originally to co-star in a Thai Western called A Man Will Rise before it was thrown into production hell after alleged disputes between Jaa and the film's production company. In return for allowing Lundgren a part in the unfinished film, Lundgren gave Jaa a role in Skin Trade. As his first English-language film, Jaa previously had little to no English speaking ability and needed rigorous tutoring just to reach casual competence. His linguistic training was likely much more grueling than the action itself and it certainly paid off keeping his foot in the door of Hollywood cinema for future films.
The second-to-last part of the film sees Tony Jaa battle it out with martial arts movie contemporary Michael Jai White. Jaa is as athletic as usual executing 540 kicks and out maneuvering the oddly lumbering and inflexible Michael Jai White taking the fight to the top and back to the bottom of a set of stairs before out-running and out-parkouring MJW in a 2-part side-view one shot through a small shack. Anyone who's familiar with Michael Jai White knows how shockingly fast and flexible he can be for his size especially in arguably his grandest cinematic martial arts exhibition Blood and Bone. Yet in Skin Trade he's strangely slow and stiff which could be because of his tight suit and/or the fact that his intimidatingly greater stature next to Tony Jaa meant his seemingly superhuman physicality had to be toned down to make him a more fair opponent for Jaa as well as to more reasonably highlight Jaa's own gifted athleticism. Or it could be because of a lack of time spent on the fight scene creating certain choreographic constraints.
While the fight sequence between Jaa and Dolph Lundgren had the luxury of much greater preparation time including a couple months of pre-planning, a few weeks of rehearsal, and a whole week to shoot the scene, the 1-on-1 between Tony Jaa and Michael Jai White was reportedly choreographed in only about 10 minutes according to White with only a select number of days given to rehearse and all of it completed in just 3 takes. Regardless of the minimal number of hours allotted to film the fight, action and stunt choreographer Dian Hristov who was one of Dolph Lundgren's stunt doubles in The Expendables series, was able to handle the crunch time enough to put together a fight sequence of Muay Thai vs. Michael Jai. The film fighting chemistry between the two may have even landed Tony Jaa a weird but fun cameo in MJW's later film Never Back Down: No Surrender. They never fought on-screen in Triple Threat but we can imagine that hypothetical fight scene may have turned out something like this all once again in small part to choreography by Dian Hristov a member of the Bulgarian-based Alpha Stunt Team and stunt coordinator for a number of big-budget American movies like The Hitman's Bodyguard, 300: Rise of an Empire, and Olympus Has Fallen.
#7. SPL 2: A Time For Consequences (2015)
An in-name only sequel to 2005's SPL aka Kill Zone, SPL 2 was initially intended to be a prequel chronicling the events that led to Sammo Hung's character's becoming the triad boss that we saw him as in the first film. Instead, that premise was abandoned for a totally unrelated plot where Tony Jaa makes his Hong Kong film debut and co-stars with HK heavyweight Wu Jing returning from the first film but portraying an entirely different character; a cop who goes undercover to infiltrate a criminal organization that engages in illegal organ trafficking. When Wu Jing's brother becomes the target of one of these black market organ transplants and attempts to save him he finds himself trapped in a Thai prison supervised by a warden played by Max Zhang and Tony Jaa as one of his guards. You can never have too much Tony Jaa so I'm including another 2 fight scenes bundled into one ranking for a more complete appreciation of Jaa's skills.
Wu Jing tries breaking free and clashes with Tony Jaa in a fast and fierce Kung Fu vs. Muay Thai match-up that has the two flailing fists, countering kicks, and ground-pounding as Max Zhang curiously watches in the background until Jaa sends Wu Jing shattering through a window with a flying knee. As if this close-quarters confrontation weren't enough, these two martial arts colleagues become allies when it's revealed that Wu Jing had in fact voluntarily donated his bone marrow to the leukemia-stricken daughter of Tony Jaa. Jaa and Jing prove their choreographic chemistry by taking out a room full of organized crime members and finally double team their mutual adversary. Max Zhang is one hell of a final boss as he wire-kicks the shit out his two opponents and is perhaps one of the few on-screen enemies who can brush off Tony Jaa's body-breaking elbows and knees as if they're soft slaps to the face.
Though the crime drama twist-filled narrative can be seen as making SPL 2 a spiritual sequel to its predecessor, the action certainly does not. The stylized realism of the previous installment is replaced with the more conventional choreographic style of Hong Kong martial arts action crafted by the highly experienced hands of former member and one-time head of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team Nicky Chung Chi-Li as well as assistant martial arts directors Christopher Chan Sai-Tang and Su Lin-Gao. The predominantly wireless action of both Jackie Chan's stunt team and the very first SPL is ignored in favor of the wire-wushu of Wu Jing and Max Zhang. But better them than Tony Jaa as his two Hong Kong co-stars are already well regarded for their wire-fu and so it doesn't come off as jarring. In spite of the less grounded combat this final fight is still well worth the watch as the classical music evokes an epic almost shakespearian atmosphere combined with the surreal experience of seeing Tony Jaa and Wu Jing, two martial arts superstars from different regions of Asia, together in the same film.
#6. Triple Threat (2019)
Speaking of putting together super-talented movie martial artists from completely different Asian countries, Triple Threat comes in as the 6th fight on the list assembling the biggest martial arts action ensemble in decades. Tony Jaa is one of three "threats" that comprise the titular "triple threat". The second being Tiger Chen both of whom inadvertently free an extremely dangerous terrorist played by Scott Adkins in a village massacre that results in the death of the wife of Iko Uwais, the third action star making up the eponymous "triple threat". After all three learn of the mercenary group truly responsible for their misfortune, they set out to take them out while at the same time Iko Uwais pretends to join Scott Adkins' team as sort of a double agent. Michael Jai White is one of the main antagonists but because he had previously fought Tony Jaa in Skin Trade, the movie instead wastes no time in pitting all of its other cast members in every other never-before-seen combination.
Besides a brief bout between the most iconic Southeast Asian cinematic fighters, Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais, the most tantalizing of the movie's pair-ups is of course between martial arts cohorts Tony Jaa and Scott Adkins who after years of not ever having been seen in the same film are now finally brought side-by-side on-screen. The two had always shared mutual admiration of each other's phenomenal screen fighting abilities and it was as much a dream come true for them as it was for us fans to let them do what they do best in a no holds barred face-off. Iko Uwais pops in mid-way to create a short 2-on-1 but the duo are out-kicked by Adkins' terrific trademark Taekwondo until Tony Jaa employs some deceptive legwork and his own aerial taekwondo maneuvers to even up the fight prompting a desperate Scott Adkins to whip out a knife. Less noticeable but equally important is the visual shift from the cool blue/grey colors of the first segment of the fight to the fiery orange aesthetic of the second stage almost symbolizing the burning intensity of Jaa's full-blown fury as though the beginning of the duel was merely a warm-up.
Tim Man is the martial mastermind of this meet up of two martial megastars being well acquainted with the flashy yet gritty approach to combat that Tony Jaa and Scott Adkins are both recognized for having worked with Scott Adkins in particular numerous times in the past. Along with a helping hand by assistant fight choreographer Eric Cullet, Triple Threat's keen focus on the melee mayhem is also due to it being directed by Jesse V. Johnson who has become one of the leading B-movie action directors of our time having frequently collaborated with both Scott Adkins and Tim Man. As you'll know in later spots on the list both Jaa and Adkins have had much more intense and creatively crafted fight sequences in their own solo films but Triple Threat delivers the expected high calibre fight scene from two modern legendary screen fighters incorporating each of their distinctive fighting styles and many of the signature moves from their past work. It's only a shame that Adkins never got to use his most iconic technique the Guyver kick which interestingly enough was used by Tony Jaa years earlier in Ong-Bak (more on that later). As a friend of mine once told me, just imagine if we had seen Tony Jaa and Scott Adkins both Guyver kicking each other at the same time. It could've been one of the most unreal freeze frames in martial arts cinematic history.
#5. Tom-Yum-Goong 2 (2013)
In this sequel to the Tony Jaa classic also directed by Prachya Pinkaew, Jaa reprises his role as a humble Thai villager whose elephant is stolen (once again) by a terrorist organization run by a man played by rap legend and Wu-Tang Clan star RZA who has been observing Tony Jaa's martial prowess and plans to coerce him into assassinating a prominent political figure. Jeeja Yanin who had by then been established as Tony Jaa's female counterpart also stars alongside him as one of two nieces of a man who is killed by RZA's men.
Jaa eventually confronts some of RZA's henchmen including his No. 2 fighter played by the very underrated Marrese Crump who also served as the film's fight choreographer taking over for Tony Jaa and their mutual mentor Panna Rittikrai from the first Tom-Yum-Goong. Proclaimed as the only American protege of Panna Rittikrai, Crump is a very versatile martial artist blending the Muay Thai and Muay Boran of Jaa's own style with some Capoeira and even fragments of Filipino Kali to make a similar yet unique on-screen opponent. Sort of like if Capoeira maestre Lateef Crowder from the first Tom-Yum-Goong movie implemented more Thai martial arts into his combat form. Since then, Crump's resume has gradually risen from being Dave Bautista's personal trainer to Chadwick Boseman's martial arts instructor on the set of Black Panther. He even stunt doubled for the RZA in the Man With The Iron Fists films. With a combination of lightning fast boxing, off-the-floor Capoeira kicks, and a bit of a prison-based street fighting art called 52 Hands Marrese Crump keeps Tony Jaa on his toes.
Unfortunately their first fight is cut short by a sedative dart thrown by Jeeja Yanin who still believes Jaa had killed her uncle. So as I've done many times before we'll have to also add Jaa and Crump's rematch as part of this spot on the list which goes from the upper floor of a subway down to the train tracks themselves. Much of the movie's fight sequences are somewhat ruined by the unnecessary use of computerized special effects and wirework, the two exact elements that Tony Jaa has worked so well without. The worst and cheesiest example being the lightsaber sound effects used when Jaa and Crump are exposed to some electrically charged water transforming Tony Jaa into a living Thai taser. Someone must've taken Jaa's "electrifying" screen presence a little too literally. But ignoring all of these ridiculous details, Tony Jaa and Marrese Crump's two fights are the best the film has to offer giving enough of Jaa's typical acrobatic yet bone-shattering hits against the Muay-Marrese Crump-Capoeira of the then newcomer to the Thai Stunt team. Marrese Crump would in fact later switch sides as one of Jaa's team-mates in the Nicolas Cage film Jiu-Jitsu and it's all partially because of Crump's relatively minor yet personally pivotal breakout performance in Tom-Yum-Goong 2.
#4. Ong-Bak 3 (2010)
At #4 we have the last of the Ong-Bak trilogy which not only stars Tony Jaa but was also directed, written, and produced by him. A triple behind-the-scenes role that was also shared by his mentor Panna Rittikrai. Meant to be the second half of a single film in which Ong-Bak 2 would've been the first half, Tony Jaa returns as the same Thai warrior from the previous film where the movie opens with Jaa imprisoned and tortured by a tyrannical king. Most of this list and the vast majority of Tony Jaa's action is composed of his bare-handed beatdowns but for the 4th ranking I'm going with Ong-Bak 3's prison pit one-against-all. The rest of the film involves Jaa recovering from his sadistic imprisonment and merging a form of traditional Thai dance into his martial arsenal to create a new internal Thai fighting style. As intriguing as that made-for-movie martial art is throughout the latter segments of the film, this opening sequence is far more entertaining and just as creative.
Jaa whips around his own prison chains and wraps them around his forearms like gauntlets blocking the incoming attacks from the prison guards and countering with powerful hammer fists. Jaa also showcases some sensational staff work as well as the acrobatic evasive and offensive maneuvers that we've come to know and love from him before being overwhelmed by the sheer number of soldiers surrounding him. Sadly this is the film after which Tony Jaa had a falling out with his long-time directorial collaborator Prachya Pinkaew causing Jaa to take a break from the movie industry and spend a temporary period of time devoting himself to the monastic lifestyle of a monk. As underwhelming as this final installment of the Ong-Bak series is, there is at least one awesome fight scene to enjoy choreographed by Tony Jaa himself and assistant fight choreographer Dawid Szatarski. I personally recall reading about how shortly after Ong-Bak 2 came out that Ong-Bak 3 planned to leave Jaa's character with almost permanently broken bones and joints forcing him to invent a fictional martial art that would enable him to attack and defend without the use of functioning limbs like some sort of pugilistic pudding. Unfortunately that level of ambitious imagination was left on the cutting room floor but at the very least this stick fight proved again that Jaa is obviously as skilled of a weapon wielder as he is a hand-to-hand combatant.
#3. Ong-Bak 2 (2008)
Described as a "standalone prequel" to the 2003 Thai classic, Ong-Bak 2 has Jaa as an entirely different character living in Thailand centuries before the events of the first Ong-Bak. Troubled production due to disputes between Jaa and director Prachya Pinakew as well as the production company Sahamongkol Film purportedly held back adequate funds to complete the film. As a result, Jaa took over as the film's director and called in his mentor Panna Rittikrai to co-direct as a last resort to finish the movie. The final product as stated earlier was really part 1 of a single film that would only narratively conclude in Ong-Bak 3. Stuck in a life of slavery after his royal family is slaughtered by a traitorous military commander, Jaa is eventually liberated by the leader of a clan of combat experts hailing from all corners of Asia. From them he masters a myriad of martial arts to avenge his noble bloodline and claim his rightful place on the throne.
Among the diverse fighting forms he acquires is a drunken variant of Tiger Silat which he uses to subdue the slavers that tried feeding him alive to a crocodile. The exotic mix of martial styles doesn't just end there however when Jaa returns to the village headquarters of his fellow martial artists and finds it completely abandoned before being attacked by the very assassins that saved and trained him as a young boy bringing us to the 3rd best Tony Jaa fight scene on this list. Ong-Bak 2 may not be as choreographically innovative as its predecessor but innovation is certainly a key descriptor for the movie's fight sequences and particularly the final fight itself. Tony Jaa leaps onto, kicks off, and weaponizes an actual adult elephant to take out his masked assailants. Yet it's the excellently wide array of weapon work that makes this finale stand out among the rest of Jaa's cinematic projects exhibiting everything from Thailand's own dual wielding krabi krabong, which Jaa demonstrates with his sword and scabbard, all the way to Wushu, a diverse collection of Chinese arts that Jaa had not displayed since Spirited Killer way back in the 90s' and featured all the way back on the bottom of this list.
This Muay Wushu or Thai Wushu (whatever you wanna call it) is a testament to Tony Jaa's extraordinary talent in both armed and unarmed combat exemplified by his skillful handling of a variety of traditional Chinese weapons be it the elegant doubled edged jian blade, the spinning smash of the meteor hammer or the swirling smack of the three-section staff. One segment of the 14-minute long fight scene is even focused solely on open-handed fighting in a 2-on-1 where Jaa combines his ferocious Malaysian Tiger Silat with the intricate almost Kung-Fu-like traditional hand and elbow techniques of Muay Boran against a Thai hand-to-hand combatant and a Tiger Kung Fu practitioner played by a pre-fame Tim Man. Jaa did double duty as performer and head action choreographer with assistance from martial arts choreographer Chevin Achariyachai to expertly weave together an extravaganza of a multitude of Asian martial arts showing audiences everywhere that Tony Jaa is a true multi-martial artist.
#2. Tom-Yum-Goong (2005)
In the world of martial arts cinema there are two things you never do; 1 is that you do not kill John Wick's dog. The 2nd is that you do not steal Tony Jaa's elephant. Lest you incur the wrath of Jaa and the martial mayhem that follows in his wake. Ong-Bak 2 is more a spiritual prequel to Ong-Bak except it exemplifies Jaa's innate talent for masterfully wielding any weapon or utilizing any fighting style regardless of their region of origin. Tom-Yum-Goong, aka The Protector in the US and Warrior King in the UK, is a more pure spiritual successor to Ong-Bak directed by Prachya Pinakew maintaining the modernity of both its setting and the martial arts on display. Just like the Thai dish that the movie is weirdly named after, Tom-Yum-Goong is peppered with Jaa's parkour proclivities and seasoned with spectacular stunts in a non-stop fight fest that is nearly as revolutionary in its action ingenuity as is his breakout film Ong-Bak. Tony Jaa elbows, knees, and round kicks his way through legions of generic bad guys and extreme sports enthusiasts taking him through a temple raided by a Wushu swordsman and Capoeira combatant as well as a spiraling staircase of henchmen which he climbs and Muay Thais his way up in the second most iconic one take fight sequence ever filmed.
But the film's most mesmerizing and memorable martial arts fight is in the final act when he discovers that one of the two elephants he had set out to reclaim has been turned into an ornamental skeleton. The only thing worse than stealing Tony Jaa's elephant is killing his elephant. Jaa's character is actually the descendant of a lineage of Thai royal guard who watch over the King's personal war elephants and witnessing the desecrated remains of the mother elephant sends Jaa into a manic martial state. Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai, the choreographic geniuses behind the action, invented a completely new version of Muay Thai called Muay Kotchasan or "Elephant Fist". A grappling style that imitates the movements of the elephant with one's arms functioning as the elephant's trunk. A bone-crunchingly brutal form of combat that is blended with Jaa's special Thai-kwondo leaving an entire room full of guards (including a cameo by one-time Jackie Chan kicking specialist bad guy Ron Smoorenberg) with broken joints and snapped limbs with some of the most over-the-top extremity-breaking sound effects ever heard echoing throughout. I'd normally consider this and the next scene as two separate fight scenes but their combined creativity is too brilliant when compiling a Tony Jaa top 12 so for that purpose I'm categorizing both as a single sequence.
Jaa is fortunately but only briefly reunited with his second much younger elephant though not before being given a rematch with the enormous strongman who defeated him earlier in the burning Buddhist temple played by martial arts movie Goliath and former WWE wrestler Nathan Jones. Joining him is a whip-wielding transsexual triad boss played by ballerina and modern dance expert Xing Jin as well as three more massive men portrayed by bodybuilders Heinz Ollesch, Philip George Pfister, and Rene Minkwitz. In another moment of choreographic creativity, Tony Jaa somewhat reverse engineers his own Muay Kotchasan to take down the enormous western wrestlers as he would actual elephants on the battlefield bringing down his big-boned opponents by utilizing the even bigger bones of his beloved elephant's legs like giant tonfas. But to put down these giants for good, he finally tears apart their tendons with sharpened fragments of elephant bone. Ong-Bak may have broke new ground in how Muay Thai can be cinematically expressed and how real stuntwork can be revived and revolutionized but Tom-Yum-Goong arguably goes even further by creating completely new martial arts concepts altogether.
#1. Ong-Bak (2003)
This entire list could've easily been filled only with fight scenes from Tom-Yum-Goong, Ong-Bak 2, and especially the very first Ong-Bak. In fact, only ranking the fight scenes from Ong-Bak and Tom-Yum-Goong would satisfy most Jaa fans and would be more than an objectively valid top 12. But to have a more consummate admiration of his filmography would require me to have actually mentioned in detail some of his post-Ong-Bak trilogy work just to more completely understand his career trajectory. That is why choosing only a single fight scene from Ong-Bak for the otherwise obvious #1 entry is so exceedingly difficult. Prachya Pinkaew's original Ong-Bak marked Thailand on the map of global martial arts cinema jam-packed with Jaa-style parkour and sick-ass stunts that reminded the waning Hong Kong action industry to step up their game. Jaa plays a Muay Thai master who is tasked by his village with tracking down the stolen head of a Buddha statue named "Ong-Bak" taking him to Bangkok.
Out of the several Jaa-dropping fights which includes the one where Tony Jaa cleaves a man's bike helmet with nothing but his knee as well as bashing and burning people whilst his feet are on fire, I narrowed down the top fights from this movie to the club clash towards the first act and the climactic battle in the final moments of the film. If the club brawl was an introduction to Tony Jaa's Muay Thai madness, the film's last fight scene is its show-stopping finale that will make you begging for an encore. Jaa and his character's cousin played by Thai comedian Mum Jokmok pursue the thieves into a large mountain cave. The fight sequence starts off with some light weapon work going from staff swings to krabi krabong double sticks to traditional Thai tonfas against saber wielding foes. Jaa then unleashes an arsenal of every acrobatic kick in existence including the Guyver Kick which Scott Adkins was so impressed by that he decided to use it himself in his film debut Special Forces. Mixing Muay Thai and Taekwondo into what can be called Muay Thai-kwondo, with a a bit of gymnastics for added flair, Tony Jaa made his very own unique martial style. We've all seen 540 kicks but you've probably never seen 540 punches and 540 elbows until having watched Ong-Bak for the first time.
To further augment his 540 fury and insane martial arts skillset in Ong-Bak, Tony Jaa had undergone 4 years of training in Muay Boran, the ancient precursor to Muay Thai. More specifically a branch of Muay Boran called Muay Korat indicated by the type of hand wraps worn by his character. This much older Thai art gave Tony Jaa's already remarkable knack for knees and unending elbows an even wider selection of exotic techniques to draw from with the most bizarre example being slamming his arms inwards like the ears of an elephant. This comes particularly in handy to defeat the steroid-injecting Thai boxer that Jaa was coerced into throwing an earlier match against. Now no longer holding back, the two trade round kicks to each other's bodies and legs in a straight Muay Thai match until the drug-enhanced henchman is beaten into submission. Choreographing this beautiful brutality is the incomparable student-teacher team of Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai who do away with any and all traces of wirework or CGI for the authentic stunt expertise of their elite stuntmen and most of all Jaa himself who is doubled by no one. Ong-Bak is the definition of hard-hitting action as the film consisted of more or less full contact strikes actually requiring some stuntmen to wear weird wigs to safely take impacts to their heads. I could go on and on about this movie and it's final fight scene but suffice it to say that this is the quintessential Tony Jaa fight sequence during his absolute physical prime.
Now that your "Jaa" has been left on the floor by this list's spectacular fight scenes let me know if you agreed with my ranking or feel free to elbow me in the forehead if you don't. Do you think Tom-Yum-Goong is actually superior to Ong-Bak? Comment down below and be sure to subscribe to this website so you'll be notified via email for the next article. Next time we cover someone who is a fan and colleague of Tony Jaa. He's already been in this and a past article. Who is it? Why it's Scott Adkins of course.
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