I was lucky enough to see Ong Bak Muay Thai Warrior at Midnight Madness and Tony Jaa kicking the hell out of people with his legs on fire at the Uptown Theatre on a screen tens of carol's high.  I'm looking forward to seeing Tony Jaa's return to Midnight Madness with Ong Bak 2: The Beginning at Ryerson tonight, which he directed, did the action choreography for and dances in. (Yay, Khon!) And I'm happy to close out the Gentlemen of Asskickery with Tony Jaa / Thatchakorn Yeerum (nee Panom Yeerum).

Tony Jaa is a student of Panna Rittikrai and started out on Panna's Muay Thai Stunt team.  He played a villainous supporting role in Spirited Killer and was a stunt double in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation before Prachya Pinkaew cast him for Ong Bak Muay Thai Warrior making him the most popular action star in Thailand, though some say Dan Chupong is the next big thing. Maybe we'll see in Ong Bak 3.

And Tony Jaa played Hanuman the Monkey King at the ceremonies for the 1st Asian Martial Arts Games in August, 2009.

Here's footage of Tony Jaa practicing for Ong Bak Muay Thai Warrior. There's some hopped up choral music, too.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning ends TIFF tonight Saturday September 19 at 11:59pm - RYERSON

And my respect to all you people who got up to catch the 9:45am screening. You're hardcore.

Leading up to tonight's Midnight Madness screening of Ong Bak 2:  The Beginning, I've been posting profiles of some Gentlemen of Asskickery. But with Bitch Slap at Midnight Madness this year, it's time to return to the Ladies of Asskickery.  As my blog colleagues have mentioned. Zoë Bell did the fight choreography and was the stunt double for all three women in Bitch Slap.  Bell was the stunt double for Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess and Uma Thurman's stunt double in the Kill Bill movies. Along with stunt woman/stunt coordinator Jeannie Epper (Wonder Woman), Bell was one of the subjects of the fantastic documentary, Double Dare.  And she starred in and performed her own stunts in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death web series.

Here's a little look at her in action:

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning screens tonight at TIFF: Saturday September 19, 11:59pm - RYERSON. 

Ken'ichi Matsuyama's back at the festival starring in another live-action manga adaption. Last year, Matsuyama starred in one of my favorite MM movies ever, Detroit Metal City based on the eponymous manga.  And he's also starred as L in the live action adaptation of Death Note.  And this year he stars in an adaption of Sanpei Shirato's  Kamui Gaiden, in which he plays a ninja fleeing his ninja clan--and it's screening in the daytime (in fact, today and Saturday morning.

How crazy is that the madness has infected the festival to the point that not only is a viking film playing the non-Madness program, a ninja film is? At this rate, I look forward to Sonny Chiba's presenting some of his favorite films in Dialogues program.  After all, he's not only a ninjitsu master, he's a guest professor in film studies at Kyoto University of Art and Design.

Let's have a little Gentleman of Asskickery moment with Sonny Chiba:

Kamui Gaiden's final screening at TIFF is on: Saturday September 19, 09:45AM - AMC 3

"Already a winged fiend was at his throat and there was no time to draw and fire his other pistol.  Kane saw, in a maze of thrashing wings, a devilish, semi-human face--he felt those wings battering at him--he felt cruel talons sink deep into his breast; then he was dragged off his feet and felt empty space beneath him.

The winged man had wrapped his limbs about the Englishman's legs, and the talons he had driven into Kane's breast muscles held like fanged vises.  The wolf-like fangs drove at Kane's throat but the Puritan gripped the bony throat and thrust back the grisly head, while with his right hand he strove to draw his dirk.  The bird-man was mounting slowly and a fleeting glance showed Kane that they were already high above the trees.  The Englishman did not hope to survive this battle in the sky, for even if he slew his foe, he would be dashed to death in the fall.  But with the innate ferocity of the fighting Anglo-Saxon he set himself grimly to take his captor with him."

(Robert E. Howard. The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane. New York: Ballantine, 1998: 291)

(image via The Pulp Reader)

Solomon Kane screens at TIFF on: Wednesday, Sept. 16 11:59PM - RYERSON / Thursday Sept. 17 3:15 PM - SCOTIABANK 1

I could watch Bitch Slap's opening title slaps all day long--actresses from the silent era to weepy era Joan Crawford to glorious technicolor slapping away.

But Bitch Slap isn't silent or weepy. It's shot in the lurid color of exploitation cinema. The red's a little too red, but not quite out of control.  The whole movie has that under control feel, but really, I don't mind. It's a well-made, well-structured film and I was thoroughly entertained. If it were pure shake that moneymaker id, I'm not sure it would be as fun because for every Russ Meyer there's a thousand crappy filmmakers hoping cleavage is enough. And I appreciate writer Eric Gruendemann and writer/director Rick Jacobson's approach to cleavage.  Somehow they and the actors manage to make the sexy ladyness simultaneously hot for those looking for hot and hilarious for those who are looking for hilarious. We can all sit happily together in the theater. I doubt that's easy. 

And I really appreciate America Olivo's tweakin' insanity as Camero, the thief and underground fighter. She was transcendentally over the top.  It kinda reminded me of Bruce Campbell at his most manic. 

Last chance to see Bitch Slap at TIFF on: Wednesday September 16, 3:15 SCOTIABANK THEATRE 3

How about getting ready for Solomon Kane with some pulpy, pulpy dialog like, “A strong man is needed to combat Satan here! Therefore I go, who have defied him many a time!” 

Hell, how about a whole section from "The Castle of Devil":

Kane sighed. "It has fallen upon me, now and again in my sojourns through the world, to ease various evil men of their lives.  I have a feeling that it will prove thus with the Baron."

"Name of two devils!" swore Silent in amazement.  "You speak as if you were a judge on a bench and Baron Von Staler bound helpless before you, instead of being as it is--you but one blade and the Baron surrounded by men-at-arms."

"The right is on my side," said Kane somberly.  "And right is mightier than a thousand men-at-arms.  But why all this talk?  I have not yet seen the Baron, and who am I to pass judgment unseen.  Mayhap the Baron is a righteous man." More...

Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai have another film at the festival this year. Vengeance, starring Johnny Hallyday and Anthony Wong Chau-Sang as hitmen seeking revenge for the death of Hallyday's family. But Hallyday and Wong have something more in common outside the movie.  They're both musicians.

Hallyday is a rock star in France who became famous in the 1960s.  Anthony Wong is a little more punk rock.  They might not throw down in the film, but I can arrange a musical throwdown right here.

Ladies and gentleman, click the links for Johnny Hallyday in a 1960s scopitone and Anthony Wong, with maybe a little Xavier Jamaux influence.

Vengeance screens at TIFF on:  Tuesday September 15 09:15PM - RYERSON / Thursday September 17, 3:30PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 3.

Before Kull and Bran Mak Morn and Conan, there was Solomon Kane, Howard's first adventuring swordsman. Swordsman and puritan. I love that Howard would even think of something like that. While other puritans are busy writing sermons like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” or persecuting and being persecuted, Solomon Kane is out buckling his swash or blowing the smoke off his flintlocks in a suspiciously papist sash. Faced with dying and violated white girls, the arrow of Kane's wrath trembles on the string, but he's not interested in the carnal world.

It's just God's will, ma'am.

In the stories, his wandering and killing are simply extensions of God's will and there isn't much of Kane's inner life. He is constant. And so, more than once, Solomon Kane travels to an Africa with the racialized portrayals and patois typical of the time, but with an almost Lovecraftian twist in The Black God and a secret vampire kingdom. I expect in the movie there will be less racial sketchiness.  I also expect there will be a more complex and explicit motivation for Kane's wandering and more self-examination, which is good for a movie.

But I'm awful fond of the stolid, single-minded Solomon Kane in Weird Tales.

(Solomon Kane drawing by Joel Priddy, creator of The Preposterous Voyages of Ironhide Tom and "The Amazing Life of Onion Jack").

Solomon Kane screens at TIFF on:  Wednesday, Sept. 16 11:59PM - RYERSON / Thursday Sept. 17 3:15 PM - SCOTIABANK 1

Dan Chupong / Deaw Chupong Changprung is uncredited in Ong Bak 2: The Beginning but he's the guy on the elephant in that poster with Tony Jaa.  And in 6 years, he's gone from his first screen credit as "bodyguard #4" in Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior to co-starring in Ong Bak 3.  (Yes, Ong Bak 2 has already opened and Ong Bak 3 is in production in Thailand).  Like Tony Jaa, he started out a member of Panna Rittikrai's Muay Thai Stunt team taking extra parts and after his bit part in Ong Bak has been the lead in Dynamite Warrior (Khon Fai Bin / Konfaibin / Tabunfire) and the 2004 remake of Panna Rittikrai's Born to Fight as well as being featured in Sahamongkol's gargantuan 2008 costume epic/fantasy, Queens of Langkasuka.

His style isn't necessarily as graceful as Tony Jaa's but he's powerful, fast and entertaining to watch while he breaks bad guys' bones and  keeps ramming his knees into their organs.

Here he is in the fight that opens Dynamite Warrior:

 I fear his deadly knees!

Just to get in the mood for historicall asskickery, here's a still from the same film and a poster of his character from Queens of Langkasuka.

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning screens at TIFF on: Saturday September 19, 9:45am -SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2 / Saturday September 19, 11:59pm - RYERSON.

So last year with Chocolate star Jija Yannin making her debut at Midnight Madness, I did a little series, "Ladies of Asskickery," posting clips of Cheng Pei-Pei, Sue Shiomi / Shihomi Etsuko and Angela Mao Ying. With Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning set to kick all ass at TIFF, it's time to look at some Gentlemen of Asskickery.

Panna Rittikrai is probably best known to most Madness fans as Tony Jaa's guru and the martial arts choreographer for  Ong-Bak:  Muay Thai Warrior, Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector) and the co-director of Ong Bak 2: The Beginning, but he's also made over 50 movies in the 1980s and 1990s with his Muay Thai Stunt Team. And he didn't do it in Bangkok. Influenced by Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, he moved back to Khon Kaen making zero budget movies built around what the human body can do. Well, what Panna Rittikrai, Tony Jaa and Dan Chupong can do.

 "You've probably never heard of my movies....They are popular among taxi drivers and som tam vendors and security guards and Isaan coolies. My loyalest fans are folk people in the far-out tambons, where they lay out mattresses on the ground and drink moonshine whisky while watching my outdoor movies."

So here's Panna Rittikrai training in Muay Thai Stunt's first film Kerd Ma Lui/ Born to Fight (1982). (Also written, directed by and starrying Panna Rittikrai and recently remade with Muay Thai Stunt member, Dan Chupong). Recognize any influences? 

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning screens at TIFF on: Saturday September 19, 9:45am -SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2 / Saturday September 19, 11:59pm - RYERSON.

Ong Bak 2 has no connection whatsoever to Ong Bak aside from it starring Tony Jaa. So if you haven't seen Ong Bak yet, you can wait until TIFF is over to rent it.

[REC]2's a slightly stranger case. [REC]2 takes place fifteen minutes after the end of [REC], so it's ideal if you've seen the original film but if you haven't... Have you seen Quarantine? Quarantine is an American remake of [REC] (and a pretty faithful one at that) so if you've seen it, you're set. Be the envy of all your Quarantine-loving friends and find out what happens next. Hint: A badass SWAT team with big guns enter the building to evict the building's remaining tenants.

[Rec]2 screenings:

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning screenings: 

The audience was pretty sparse, almost entirely guys spacing themselves singly apart in the dark, not even contending for the acoustic sweet spot. We sat in a pack in the theater's center. There was a little rustling in the audience around us and I had my first inkling that we were making those lone guys uncomfortable. More...