The Northern Light

As kung-fu movie fans sadly await Jet Li's announced final film ("Fearless"), along comes muay thai expert Tony Jaa to swipe for the mantle of premiere Hollywood martial artist, a legacy that stretches back to the immortal Bruce Lee. Jaa has the moves to go far, but if he ever wants to be considered on par with greats like Lee, Li, and Jackie Chan, he has got to pick better movies to star in than the dreadful "The Protector."

The plot, if you can call a few rushed and uncompelling scenes thrust between jaw-dropping fight sequences a plot, revolves around Kham (Jaa, "Ong Bok: The Thai Warrior"), a young man in a family of elephant herders. When poachers kill a mother elephant, Kham begins training so he can protect her baby himself. Years later, when the very same poachers kill Kham's dad and steal the young elephant and its father, Kham must travel to Australia to prevent the pilfered pachyderms from ending up in the evil restaurant of an organized crime family.

Jaa, who also shared fight-choreographer duties, tries to make up for the stinker of a story with some of the most inventive and impressive combat scenes ever filmed. Sadly, it's doubtful they will be fully appreciated by anyone other than other martial artists and kung-fu movie connoisseurs. While it's true nobody goes to a chop-saki movie for the story, basic storytelling elements such as character and tension are still essential for these fights to feel like they have anything of importance riding on them. Without a basic empathy for the hero's plight, the fight scenes in "The Protector" are not nearly as exciting as they should be.

There is not a decent actor to be found in "The Protector," making it even harder to like this movie. It is a sorry state of affairs when the movie's stars are outacted by a bunch of elephants. Newcomer Xing Jing plays archvillain Madame Rose with unconvincing cruelty. Former stuntman Johnny Nguyen throws some entertaining jump-kicks while attempting to give his underboss character an ultracool edge that comes off as bland and flat. Petchtai Wongkamlao, Jaa's buddy from "Ong Bak," fills almost the exact same role but isn't given nearly enough screen time to charm the audience like he did in the previous picture. And Jaa himself does almost nothing besides jump off walls and shout, "Where's my elephant?" in Thai.

The film, released last year in its native Thailand, follows some of the expected formula methods of the genre. For instance, the hero predictably works his way through a sea of flunkies to get to the bosses, one of which is the kung-fu movie standard giant grunting white guy, filled here by former WWE wrestler Nathan Jones.

In contrast to the formula elements are scenes of sheer weirdness. Director Prachya Pinkaew relies on strange visuals to keep the audience's interest, including a chord that when pulled summons a slew of thugs on roller blades and BMX bikes to attack Kham with fluorescent light tubes; a very muddy lap-dance from hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Pla (Thai actress Bongkoj Khongmalai); and massive elephant bones Kham lashes to his arms in the final fight.

"The Protector" will please certain, very specific viewers, namely those intrigued by the evolution of screen combat and those who enjoy movies that are so bad they have a certain ironic charm. Anyone not positive they fall into either of those categories will definitely want to avoid this movie.

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