.MOVIE LISTINGS | MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO Tusk Tusk Thai star Tony Jaa wants his elephants back. Now. BY JASON BLAIR THE PROTECTOR (TOM YUNG GOONG): Directed by Prachya Pinkaew. Written by Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, Napalee, Piyaros Thongdee and Joe Wannapin. Story by Prachya Pinkaew. Cinematography, Nuttawut Kittikun. Music by The RZA. Starring Tony Jaa. Weinstein Company, 2006. R. 84 minutes. The Protector isn't a movie as much as a vehicle for introducing the world to Tony Jaa. A star in his native Thailand since Ong-bak (2003), Jaa is a master of Muay Thai kickboxing, a fighting style in which knees and shins are as important as hands and elbows. The Protector highlights Jaa's unique abilities, but it arrives here 25 minutes shorter than the Thai version, presumably to save audiences the hassle of a plot. Depending on your point of view, The Protector is either a long teaser for kickboxing or a short attempt at an action picture. Either way, despite some dazzling fight sequences, it doesn't work as an actual film. The plot of The Protector, or what remains of it anyway, is standard-issue revenge picture. Jaa plays Kham, a shy type with a soft spot for elephants. But when Kham's father is killed and his two elephants are stolen by a brutal Australian crime syndicate — talk about your oxymorons — Kham chops and kicks his way to Sydney to recover his wrinkly pets. It's not going to be easy: The bad guys in The Protector emerge with zombie-like repetition, only to be summarily dispatched by the slightly-built Kham. In one scene, I counted more than twenty of Kham's opponents writhing in pain at his feet, bones broken and noses bleeding. Jaa deserves better. The new edits, intended to keep the film lean, instead make The Protector almost wholly unintelligible. Chases climax with almost no buildup. Major characters die before they're introduced. What remains in the film has all the nutritional value of a music video. It doesn't help that The Protector is one long lesson from the Star Trek school of overacting — replete with silent crying, exaggerated reactions and long looks of consternation — or that the English overdubs have the production quality of that mix tape that's out in your garage near the hammers. It's a shame, because the wireless fight scenes are some of the best ever filmed. This isn't Jackie Chan's chop socky or Jet Li's graceful wire fu. These are bruising, brilliantly realistic fights. You get sore just watching them. You'll be asking yourself "How did they do that?" more than once, especially after the unedited, single-take fight sequence that lasts for over four minutes. Still, all that fighting without mercy gives The Protector the depth of the average porn movie, with about as much care given to story and plot. This won't be the last we see of Tony Jaa, but let's hope it's the last time we see him like this.
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