Jump to content

What are your top 5 or 10 best Muay Thai movies

Joseph Arthur De Gonzo
 Share

Recommended Posts

Joseph Arthur De Gonzo Fellow Traveler

Joseph Arthur De Gonzo

Posted
Posted

Hey there so I have not watch a lot of Muay Thai movies since Ong Bak and I am kind of in the mood to watch some movies with Muay Thai practitioners. Can you list your top 5 or top 10?

This can include documentaries, I have not seen much well done documentaries about Muay Thai, besides the one on the two girls. 

I guess I could with general martial arts movies or with boxing movies but besides the Ong Bak I can't make a list. 

Thanks. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Posted
Posted

There are not really that many Muay Thai movies, and even fewer good ones! Even movies that purport to include Muay Thai, like a fighter with that style, often don't fight in that style. We recently watched this all-female Fight Club, Kung Fu mash had a "Muay Thai" representative, but almost no Muay Thai (this was the trailer, the "Muay Thai" fighter not depicted):

There seems to be basically only ONE truly outstanding Muay Thai movie, that being Ong Bak (it captured an ideology of Muay Thai), even the sequels didn't do as much. Ong Bak just had an essentialism about Muay Thai history, its rural connections, a critique of Bangkok society that was profoundly simple. Nothing like it.

The director of Ong Bak's Chocolate hardly included Muay Thai moves in his well-received Chocolate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrVvRkDxBaM

 

It's kind of amazing that there has been no new Muay Thai great action flick, as almost all of Hollywood has appropriated Muay Thai for its heroes and villains. You can hardly watch a Hollywood fight scene and not see a Muay Thai teep, or reverse elbow.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Joseph Arthur De Gonzo Fellow Traveler

Joseph Arthur De Gonzo

Posted
  • Author
Posted

There are not really that many Muay Thai movies, and even fewer good ones! Even movies that purport to include Muay Thai, like a fighter with that style, often don't fight in that style. We recently watched this all-female Fight Club, Kung Fu mash had a "Muay Thai" representative, but almost no Muay Thai (this was the trailer, the "Muay Thai" fighter not depicted):

There seems to be basically only ONE truly outstanding Muay Thai movie, that being Ong Bak (it captured an ideology of Muay Thai), even the sequels didn't do as much. Ong Bak just had an essentialism about Muay Thai history, its rural connections, a critique of Bangkok society that was profoundly simple. Nothing like it.

The director of Ong Bak's Chocolate hardly included Muay Thai moves in his well-received Chocolate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrVvRkDxBaM

 

It's kind of amazing that there has been no new Muay Thai great action flick, as almost all of Hollywood has appropriated Muay Thai for its heroes and villains. You can hardly watch a Hollywood fight scene and not see a Muay Thai teep, or reverse elbow.

Just saw Muay Thai Chaya yesterday. 

Although it's more Muay Boran and i found that the style of the fights and fighters are a bit odd, I think it was pretty good and also included traditional and modern setting for the sport. Have you seen it?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Posted
Posted

Just saw Muay Thai Chaya yesterday. 

Although it's more Muay Boran and i found that the style of the fights and fighters are a bit odd, I think it was pretty good and also included traditional and modern setting for the sport. Have you seen it?

 

Yeah, we watched that a long time ago. The star of the film was training at Kru Lek's Muay Chaiya gym in Bangkok when we visited there. I can't say the movie made much of an impression on me though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nina Nutting Nong

Nina Nutting

Posted
Posted

There is also the movie 'Beautiful Boxer' life story of Parinya Charoenphol, a famous trans woman, Muay Thai fighter, actress and model. She was portrayed by male kickboxer Asanee Suwan.

 

Its a really good movie and gives an insight into life at a muay thai camp and life in Thailand etc...here is the trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6orM84owB7M

 

Edited to say-ahhh I've seen Emma put it on her blog. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu Mentor

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

Posted
Posted

There is also the movie 'Beautiful Boxer' life story of Parinya Charoenphol, a famous trans woman, Muay Thai fighter, actress and model. She was portrayed by male kickboxer Asanee Suwan.

 

That was a very good movie, one of the first and most inspiring. Ironically enough, we didn't realize that the gym portrayed in that movie was Lanna Muay Thai, Sylvie's gym for a long time. We only really realized it over time. Nong Toom even cornered for Sylvie in one of her first big promotion fights:

Sylvie-von-Duuglas-Nong-Toom-Muay-Thai-W

 

I love this photo. Nong Toom has a very strange sadness about her, or at least she did when in this promotion (she fought too). It is captured in this moment.

Interestingly enough, probably Sylvie's best friend at the gym is Angie, a trans-fighter who idolizes Nong Toom. Sylvie is almost a kind of living connection between the two.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Most Recent Topics

  • Latest Comments

    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Journaling - Readings, Muay Thai, Concepts and Articulations

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      This is my wild guess about the possible future of ONE with the rumored loss of both big investors and Amazon Prime: My take...I suspect it will morph into a significantly contracted phase that is something the Thai gov will support as part of its Soft Power commitments which will somewhat balance out the loss of big investors. There may even be rule changes to bend a bit closer to trad elements (maybe glove changes? maybe a touch more clinch?); guessing there will be a significant downgrade of top end pay and bonus rates, and probably significant cuts into the all-important marketing budget too. It will fall more in line with Entertainment offerings like Thai Fight and RWS. The challenge is the struggle over the shrinking Thai talent pool, which is also no longer producing transcendent talents like Superlek and Nong-O, and how it will compete against other Entertainment promotions without big top end pay and bonuses (I believe RWS revenues were reported as much as 6x ONE's in Thailand). It may have difficulty continuing to snipe the high level names produced by other promotions. It still has a well-built-out, massive digital media footprint in a very small info ecosystem and that proven strategy, and has secured a place in the Thai combat sport imagination, two very big assets.
    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Journaling - Readings, Muay Thai, Concepts and Articulations

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      It's pretty amazing that ONE has under contract the woman who at least as an argument for being the greatest female Muay Thai fighter of all time -- but hasn't fought a "real" full rules Muay Thai fight for maybe 7 years now -- and they don't even have her fighting their version of "Muay Thai", or have her face their own very qualified female Muay Thai champion...who is having trouble finding opponents. Phetjee Jaa was a VERY good, multi-skilled, every distance Muay Thai fighter before she became an amateur boxer, and then an Entertainment Thai Fight fighter...now in the service of Kickboxing. Properly, Phetjee Jaa should be representing female Muay Thai to the world. It was her true art, that which she was raised in...until she ran out of opponents. Female Muay Thai has historically missed out through her absence. She's not really a Kickboxer, though she can handle the sport and ruleset. She's a Muay Thai fighter. 
    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Journaling - Readings, Muay Thai, Concepts and Articulations

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      Was thinking about a commenter telling another redittor that they were "elitist" for not liking ONE FC, and preferring trad Muay Thai, the absolute irony of them thinking that a new globalized version of the traditional form of the sport (a sport which has been practiced and fought by the working poor throughout Thailand for at least a century, in some ways MADE by the rural nakmuay), a new commodity version which has been invented by hi-so wealthy, "elite" Thais, wealthy sons who went to school in very expensive schools in the United States, a new sport modeled in the Thai high-brow love of MMA (MMA is a Thai hi-so taste in Thailand, because originally you needed a satellite dish to watch it, so only rich young people watched it back in the day), so completely born of Thai elite taste making, and then funded massively, to the tune of more than a Half a BILLION dollars, by wealthy Arab investment and other very elite Venture Capital investment groups, some of the most powerful investment sources in the world...all of that, absolutely about as elitist as you can get, reinventing the traditional sport, inverting pretty much all of its values, in the image of wealth itself, so that affluent tourists and consumers will buy it...but, if you don't like it...you are elitist. The whole thing is about as posh as you can get.

  • The Latest From Open Topics Forum

    • dazak
      Muay Thai Suppliers (Shorts Wraps T-Shirts)

      By dazak · Posted

      Hi all, Does anyone know of any suppliers for blanks (Plain items to design and print a logo on) that are a good quality? Or put me in the right direction? thanks all  
    • RyanAWag
      Poot Lorlek vs Posai Sittiboonlert

      By RyanAWag · Posted

      The first fight between Poot Lorlek and Posai Sittiboonlert was recently uploaded to youtube. Posai is one of the earliest great Muay Khao fighters and influential to Dieselnoi, but there's very little footage of him. Poot is one of the GOATs and one of Posai's best wins, it's really cool to see how Posai's style looked against another elite fighter.
    • FuckedElbow-Muay
      Muay-Thai training camps-Europe??

      By FuckedElbow-Muay · Posted

      Yeah, this is certainly possible. Thanks! I just like the idea of a training camp pre-fight because of focus and getting more "locked in".. Do you know of any high level gyms in europe you would recommend? 
    • SJC74
      Muay-Thai training camps-Europe??

      By SJC74 · Posted

      You could just pick a high-level gym in a European city, just live and train there for however long you want (a month?). Lots of gyms have morning and evening classes.
    • FuckedElbow-Muay
      Muay-Thai training camps-Europe??

      By FuckedElbow-Muay · Posted

      Hi, i have a general question concerning Muay-Thai training camps, are there any serious ones in Europe at all? I know there are some for kickboxing in the Netherlands, but that's not interesting to me or what i aim for. I have found some regarding Muay-Thai in google searches, but what iv'e found seem to be only "retreats" with Muay-Thai on a level compareable to fitness-boxing, yoga or mindfullness.. So what i look for, but can't seem to find anywhere, are camps similar to those in Thailand. Grueling, high-intensity workouts with trainers who have actually fought and don't just do this as a hobby/fitness regime. A place where you can actually grow, improve technique and build strength and gas-tank with high intensity, not a vacation... No hate whatsoever to those who do fitness-boxing and attend retreats like these, i just find it VERY ODD that there ain't any training camps like those in Thailand out there, or perhaps i haven't looked good enough?..  Appericiate all responses, thank you! 

  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      1.4k
    • Total Posts
      11.5k

Footer title

This content can be configured within your theme settings in your ACP. You can add any HTML including images, paragraphs and lists.

Footer title

This is an example of a list.

Footer title

This content can be configured within your theme settings in your ACP. You can add any HTML including images, paragraphs and lists.

Footer title

This content can be configured within your theme settings in your ACP. You can add any HTML including images, paragraphs and lists.

×
×
  • Create New...