In the 21st century no martial artist has electrified audiences on the big screen more than Tony Jaa, whose debut in ‘Ong Bak’ in 2003 became an instant classic in the genre.
In his youth Jaa would mimic other martial arts superstars like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li in his father’s paddy fields in Thailand, not knowing that one day he too would considered one of the greats alongside his heroes.
What they [Chan, Lee and Li] did was so beautiful, so heroic that I wanted to do it too, Jaa said in a 2004 interview with Time Magazine. “I practiced until I could do the move exactly as I had seen the masters do it.”
By the age of 10, Jaa was training in Muay Thai and at 15 he began studying at the Physical Education College in Khon Kaen while learning other disciplines like Taekwondo, Muay Boran, Wushu, Judo and Akido alongside swordplay and gymnastics.
I was definitely different from other teenagers, Jaa said in an interview with aboutfilm.com. I would spend more of my time training and meditating rather than going out to clubs and partying. I would train for about eight hours a day.
From there he began to pursue a career as a stuntman, spending no less than 14 years working tirelessly behind the scenes in the movie business while waiting for his big break.
Eventually his hard work paid off when a short film of him perfoming martial arts found it’s way into the hands of producer / director Prachya Pinkaew who saw star potential in Jaa.
That led to Jaa being cast as the lead in a new movie from Pinkaew called ‘Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior’.
As with one of his idols, Jackie Chan, Jaa performed all his own jaw-dropping, painstakingly choreographed stunts in the movie and he didn’t use wires despite that being common practice at the time.
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Jaa’s incredible, acrobatic stunt work and visceral Muay Thai fight scenes proved to be an explosive combination that was an instant hit with movie-goers around the world and made him a star.
Jaa has since starred in a number of other martial arts films, including two sequels to ‘Ong Bak’, but shocked fans in 2010 with the announcement that he was retiring to become a Buddhist monk.
However, he’s since returned to the movie business and is now making his mark in Hollwood, recently starring in ‘Furius 7’ and the upcoming ‘XXX’ sequel alongside Vin Diesel.
