20 Action Movies From The 21st Century That Didn't Actually Suck
11. Ong-Bak (2003)
The breakthrough movie of Thai action star Tony Jaa was a breath of fresh air in the martial arts genre during a time when Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-inspired wire-fu was still all the rage. With CGI, stunt doubles and wire-work an alien concept to the production, Ong-Bak delivered a hard-hitting and hugely entertaining fight flick.
Any emerging martial artist that scores a hit movie is instantly labeled as 'the new Bruce Lee/Jackie Chan/Jet Li/delete where applicable', but Jaa's Muay Thai background provided something more - the fight sequences have a unique aesthetic as the actor combines incredible athleticism with some bone-crunching strikes that look even more painful when shown again in slow-motion.
Obviously the plot and characters are the least important part of the movie, but enemy of spell-check Petchtai Wongkamlao nonetheless provides great comic foil to Jaa's stoic hero. In fact, Ong-Bak is essentially nothing more than a series of increasingly-escalating fight sequences tied loosely together by a flimsy story, but when the fight sequences are this good and the star is willing to to set his legs on fire for the purpose of kicking someone in the face, who cares?