Ong Bak - The Art of the Chase Scene

0:00 The year is 2003 and your martial arts obsessed

0:03 buddy hands you a DVD with the title Tony

0:08 made by a small Thai production featuring an unknown face as the lead.

0:13 Hey kid, what's your name?

0:15 Tony J.

0:16 Destined to become an action legend.

0:18 He was now the new kid on the block fighting in a style

0:20 you had never seen before called the mystical art of Muay Thai.

0:24 You don't know it yet, but the next 108 minutes will set a new standard

0:28 for what you think martial arts movies should be like.

0:34 Bak felt more raw and real than any martial arts film before.

0:38 The fights in other martial arts movies

0:40 felt more like an intricate dance or choreography.

0:43 But inbach, it felt like the punches really hit.

0:47 Partly because they did.

0:49 And in my case, as a beginner parkour athlete,

0:53 one scene particularly stood out from THE REST.

0:57 GET HIM.

0:59 THE foot chase scene through Bangkok's alleys was on a level

1:02 that I had only seen from Jackie Chan before,

1:05 but with its own unique flavor.

1:07 Back then, I couldn't quite understand what made it so special.

1:11 But 20 years later, and having shot some chase scenes myself,

1:15 so he's the bad guy.

1:16 Okay.

1:16 I have a good idea now about all the small decisions that help

1:19 this scene stand the test [music] of time because since many Hollywood chase

1:24 scenes have come and gone with arguably great stunt work but none

1:29 of them managed to make their action feel as impressive as Tony [music] J.

1:33 Listen, you must be wondering why aren't you?

1:38 Huh?

1:39 I'm Jason Paul and this is Angbach and the art of the chase scene.

1:44 Obviously, [music] one big factor is that the action inbach is real.

1:48 No CGI and not even any wire work.

1:51 Of course, this required intense amounts of training

1:54 and dedication on the side of the stuntmen.

1:56 Tony Jar was inspired by Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee when he was 10 years old.

2:01 [music] And then he started training by himself until he met Pana Ritikai,

2:05 then known as the indie king of action.

2:08 Pana himself, inspired by the action legends,

2:11 was making low-budget fight movies that were mainly

2:14 popular with people living in the Thai countryside.

2:17 Pana saw the talent in Tony and guided him through his training until he

2:21 eventually became one of Pana's stunt men

2:24 where he mentored him through many stunt roles.

2:27 Eventually, the opportunity for Unbach landed on Pana's table and with Tony J,

2:32 he had the perfect guy to take over the lead and the stunt.

2:35 They then carefully crafted the action scenes to show off what Tony could do.

2:40 In a normal production,

2:42 the action is scripted and then the stuntmen are cast to perform each stunt.

2:47 Often many different stuntmen come together to bring one hero alive.

2:52 But in this case, I think Pana did it the other way around.

2:55 Your body, not bomb, bomb city, not your body.

3:06 is uh he already had an amazing well-rounded stuntman

3:11 and deeply knew everything Tony J could do.

3:15 So Pana and Tony designed each stunt to show off the variety of Tony's skills.

3:20 And because they didn't use any wire work,

3:22 Tony could then travel the world to promote the film

3:24 and [music] perform his stunts in front of live audiences.

3:29 But this alone isn't what makes Angbach special.

3:32 Many movies these days have great stunts performed without wires or CGI.

3:37 Of course, great action is the main ingredient,

3:39 but many films then manage to ruin the action

3:42 with shaky film making or terrible editing decisions.

3:46 And even if you look at a good example of a parkour sequence like Kingsman,

3:50 where the action is clearly real and filmed beautifully,

3:55 it just doesn't quite hit the same way that the action does inbach.

3:59 And I think it's because the action looks [music] too easy.

4:02 Logically, we understand this is difficult.

4:06 But why does it feel so much more impressive in Nongbach?

4:10 Pana does a few really smart things so we

4:12 the audience can appreciate how hard Tony's action truly is,

4:16 even if we have no background in martial arts, parkour, or gymnastics.

4:21 So, the question is, how do you make a stunt feel difficult?

4:25 Well, for starters, how about giving the hero a sidekick who is totally

4:28 average and then make him do the same stunts as the main character?

4:33 I guess it's better than nothing.

4:35 Not just does that make for some great comedy,

4:37 it also makes it easy for the audience to see themselves in that scene.

4:46 Hana also chooses Tony's obstacles with intent.

4:49 He does this by using everyday objects like tables, cars, and even children.

4:55 This makes it easy for us to understand how far and high Tony is jumping.

4:59 Because we are familiar with the size of these objects,

5:02 everybody around the world can imagine how difficult pulling off this jump is.

5:06 Compare this to Tony jumping over random wire in Triple X.

5:09 It's really hard to tell how high he actually is.

5:12 And the tight framing doesn't help either.

5:15 Next is how Pana sets up the action.

5:17 He gives us some foreplay.

5:19 First, he shows you the obstacle, giving you a moment to think.

5:23 It's almost like he presents you with a small problem to solve.

5:27 And after giving you some time to think about it,

5:28 he then shows Tony's genius solution,

5:31 which is of course much better than anything you would have come up with.

5:35 Modern cinema usually doesn't set up the obstacle.

5:38 The moment we see the obstacle is when the hero is already flying over it.

5:43 This means our brains switch off and we never get

5:45 that reward of seeing the problem first and the solution after.

5:50 And in the case of Marvel's Daredevil,

5:52 we don't even ever see the obstacle in this scene.

5:54 [laughter] It's ridiculous.

5:56 Hollywood does this to keep up the pace of the scene.

5:59 But if the action is truly unique and smart, a little foreplay goes a long way.

6:04 Another way PA helps us understand how difficult the action

6:07 is is by showing it to us start to finish twice,

6:11 three times, sometimes even four times,

6:14 often throwing some slow-mo in there, too.

6:16 I can see why you would think in the editing room that repeating

6:19 the same move over and over again would make it more boring.

6:22 But if the stunt is great, the opposite is true.

6:25 And when Pana doesn't cut to a second angle,

6:27 he'll simply have Tony do the same stunt back to back.

6:30 That way, we still get to see it two times.

6:32 In most chase scenes these days,

6:34 I'm lucky if I get to see a stunt played out start to finish once.

6:39 But in actuality, when the movement is technical,

6:42 the audience needs that repetition to really appreciate what happened.

6:46 Another beautiful example of how Pana sets up his stunts is when

6:49 he has Tony walk on his opponent's shoulders like Jesus does on water.

6:53 And this happens towards the end of the chase.

6:55 Now, this kind of stunt hadn't been done before,

6:57 and chances are the audience wouldn't be able to truly

7:00 appreciate it without a proper introduction to the concept.

7:03 So, what PA does is he plants the seed

7:06 for this moment early in the scene through a similar stunt.

7:09 And last, but not least, what makes Tony's tricks believable and enjoyable

7:13 is that there's always something motivating his stunt.

7:17 Of course, we all know that the flips cascading

7:20 down the scaffolding would never happen in a real fight,

7:24 but having the bad guys swing a club at him while obviously timing

7:27 it with his takeoff gives us just enough motivation to suspend a disbelief.

7:33 And in modern cinema,

7:34 [music] usually there's not enough motivation for interesting action,

7:38 so it just becomes repetitive.

7:40 Like here we have the hero literally jump the same type of gap

7:43 in the same way multiple times in a row and it just

7:46 becomes boring to watch or the hero is using unnecessarily [music] technical

7:51 tricks to overcome a simple obstacle which also at least for me takes

7:56 away from the magic and I'm not saying that the action in [music]

7:59 these chase scenes is not difficult but if the set design film

8:03 making and editing make it hard for the audience to [music] understand

8:07 how difficult a stunt truly is it's never going to feel as impressive.

8:11 And [music] that's a bit sad because I know a lot of stuntmen

8:14 and I can see how technical the tricks are in these movies.

8:18 So I wish the audience could see them

8:20 in a way that really make the action shine.

8:22 I think Pana put it well when he said,

8:24 "I believe in the psychology of movie watching that when

8:27 the audience realizes that the stunt work is real,

8:30 that they're not special effects whatsoever.

8:32 [music] They'll regard it not only as spectacle,

8:36 but as something more high impact, more exciting,

8:39 more scary." And don't we want to feel scared [music]

8:42 for a hero while he's being chased or is in a fight?

8:45 If you haven't seen Unbach, please give it a watch.

8:47 It is an absolute masterpiece.

8:49 I mean, action-wise, let's let's not talk about the story.

8:54 I'll get you for this.

8:57 And if you always curious to learn some parkour yourself, I don't know, for fun,

9:01 or you just want to be prepared for the next

9:03 [music] time you have to outrun some bad guys,

9:06 remember that I have a beginner course that will

9:08 teach you the basics of parkour from zero, no matter your fitness level.

9:12 It's called The Perfect Takeoff and takes you through all the different

9:16 types of movements found in parkour in [music] about 10 days.

9:19 You can find the link to it in the description and the top comment.