14. Ong Bak The Takedown
When the head of a statue sacred to a village is stolen, a young martial artist (Tony Jaa) goes to the big city and finds himself taking on the underworld to retrieve it. How do you introduce an actor to the audience? How do you do that and introduce them to Muay Thai? The answer for the Ong Bak crew was to get Tony Jaa to knock a guy out, instantly, with one kick across the chest after the guy had been roaring and bigging himself up for ages. Instant knock-down, instant welcome.