Tony Jaa's career is a crying shame.
(I realized this is longer than your average post, but it's something I had to get out of my system)
Now don't get me wrong. Most of what Tony Jaa has done has been awesome, and are considered to be modern martial arts classics. But he just turned 37, and what has he done in the last 10 years?
Ong Bak 3 in 2010, Ong bak 2 in 2008, Tom Yum Goong in 2005, and Ong Bak in 2003.
That's it.
What the @#!*% happened??? Jackie Chan in his prime averaged 2-3 movies per year. A bit less for Jet Li, but he would still do at least 1-2 movies per year, pretty much all the time.
So what gives? Is it too much to ask for him to come out with one movie a year, maybe even skipping a year here and there? And yes I know they are apparently filming Tom Yum Goong 2 (speaking of which, are his movies ever going to have a title other than 'Ong Bak' or 'Tom Yum Goong'?) but that's besides the point.
The point is, this guy was going to be the next Jackie Chan. Yes, I know he doesn't have his charisma or his sense of humor....but he definitely could compare with his fighting and acrobatic skills. He was 27 when he made Ong Bak 1. The next decade was the perfect time to crank out some quality martial arts movies. He did two other good movies (Ong Bak 3 was crap), and that's it. So a grand total of 3 movies that are good. @#!*% , Bruce Lee did more that that in 3 years.
And don't get me started on his becoming a monk in 2010. Yeah I know some of you will say 'Let him do what he wants, it's his life', and to that I have two things to say: 1) He can become a monk when he retires. To make Ong Bak 1+2 and The Protector, then just vanish off the face of the earth, is just being a big tease and is completely unfair to the fans. 2)It still doesn't excuse the last (mostly) wasted 10 years, especially since he's still making movies apparently. The fact is, before he became a monk, he could have easily done 2-3 movies in addition to what he's already done.
And some say: quality over quantity. I fully agree. But there are limits. He doesn't have to do 2-3 movies a year. If he did a good movie every 2 years, I'd be fine with that. But he hasn't. His last good movie was 5 years ago, and before that 8 years.
I'm just so disappointed at all that could have been with this guy. It's true that it's not too late to still make some movies, but he'll be 40 in 3 years, and he won't be able to do what he could do in the past. It's just sad.... Maybe they'll do a better job with Iko Uwais (The Raid). His career seems to be doing pretty good so far. And what do you know, in 4 years he'll have done....3 movies!