After the events of the previous 'Ong Bak' film Tien has been captured by the evil Lord Rajasena. Rajasena orders his brutal execution; he is savagely beaten but before he is actually killed an order arrives from the king demanding Tien's release. He is taken back to his village where he gradually recovers from his injuries, which are both mental and physical. Meanwhile Rajasena, who has been cursed and appears to be going insane seeks the help of Bhuti Sangkha to lift the curse… instead Bhuti takes Rajasena's head and takes his place as local ruler… only he is more evil. Eventually when Tien has recovered he faces Bhuti.This, the conclusion to the 'Ong Bak' trilogy, gets off to a pretty good start as we see Tien getting beaten; impressively fighting back then getting beaten again. The problem is after this things are both messy and rather slow. The scenes showing Tien's recovery take far too long, especially given that the film is quite short, and the plot involving Bhuti is somewhat confused… it would have been better if the conclusion was a fight between Tien and Rajasena. When we aren't watching Tien recover there are some decent fight scenes; one even provides so good laughs when a comic relief character gets involved. There is certainly far too much mysticism; this is especially true of the finale where it appears that that Tien rewinds time after the woman he loves is killed and he gets a spear in the chest while the Bhuti talks in a voice that makes him sound like the Goa'uld in 'Star Gate SG1'. Overall this was a bit disappointing after the two previous films, which I really enjoyed… perhaps it would have been better had I watched it closer to watching part two.These comments are based on watching the film in Thai with English subtitles.

Can anyone tell me what is actually going on in this film?? Firstly, and this is key, the fight sequences are top notch and I come to expect nothing less from Tony Jaa. Having seen the prequels to this film (Ong Bak in particular is fantastic) and Warrior King this doesn't quite live up to first Ong Bak but it has a good go. There is no question that Jaa's physical prowess is phenomenal, a serious Jackie Chan if you will. Jaa's directorial style in places is snappy with some interesting tricks. Lots of long tracking shots in the fights really help to prove that there are no Wires, CGI and certainly no stunt men. Secondly, and this is the problem, the film is a classic case of style over content. The storyline has more holes than a string vest and what bits you can understand are silly, out of context and flat out odd. I have watched this twice and I feel no more clued up. Can anyone explain the man with the wicker basket on his head?To sum up - this is one of those films that you will want to fast forward until there is a fight which means it will take you about 20 minutes in total to watch this film. Great fighting but not much else. If you want to watch a fantastic martial arts film in the last 5 years then when you have skipped to the fights in this, go out and get yourself RAID and RAID 2: Berandal, then you will have to opportunity to watch two modern classics of the martial arts era!!

After watching this film I went back and read my user comment for Ong Bak 2, just to remind myself what I thought of it. What I found was that I had praised the action but said almost every other aspect was weaker than it should have been; it is a user comment I could pretty much copy/paste here and just right the word "very" anytime I see the words "weak" or "poor". In short Ong Bak 3 is a massive disappointment across the board, but amazingly doesn't even really have the action sequences to make the casual viewer forgive it.Let's start with the plot just to get it out of the way – which is coincidentally just how the film treats the plot, an inconvenience to be gotten out of the way with the minimal amount of fuss. As a result we get something so thin that I cannot even be bothered to describe it but suffice to say you will not care about any of it. Of course a lack of plot in a film that we all came to in order to see people kicked into the air is not a real issue, but unfortunately the plot vacuum is delivered slowly and with a constant mystical air of worthiness that it cannot make work and does not need or deserve.The lack of plotting means we do not care about the characters and of course the cast have little to work with in that regard. In fairness, I did watch a dubbed version so it is hard to gauge the performances, but on the other hand at times there was so little dialogue that I forgot it was dubbed (although the American dubbing is 1980's-tastic in its cheesiness). Jaa remains unable to do much as an actor except the physical, he has a presence in that way but nothing else. Comic-relief Wongkamlao doesn't seem to fit in the film but is put in there anyway and is poor. The bad guys are generally weak and indeed the crow-king character is just silly without any real sense of threat or presence (a couple of good moves though).Speaking of moves, this film's biggest disappointment is that the fight sequences are so very dull. The large set-pieces are all about locations and numbers but in terms of Jaa and the other leads, there are almost no moves or sequences that made me gasp or thrilled me. This is a problem since this is the point of this type of film. Instead we get fights that are mostly "OK" but nothing more than this; they don't cover for the poor plot and they certainly don't make up for long "training" sequences that feel like they are there purely to fill time (which of course they are).One could argue that viewers of Ong Bak 3 should know what they are getting, but I don't buy that. The potential to make a great film with someone as physically able as Jaa is still there and yet again it is wasted. The plot is non-existent, the characters likewise and too many of the scenes just feel like they are there to fill time. The action is workmanlike in the main and this is the biggest problems – Jaa has amazed me in the past, here he simply bored me and I yet again look at his film and wonder what his career aspirations are and why his people aren't trying to get him into films much better than this one.

First, I have been a rabid fan of Tony Jaa since the first Ong Bak, and I've watched every one of his films since then. I told every action film buff that I know that here is the successor to Bruce, Jet, and Jackie. It's fascinating to watch this highly physical, full contact method of filming fight scenes. Combining his martial arts expertise with his natural athleticism is something to watch! BUT, I get the fact that he wants to make films that entertain his Thai fans so we get doses of history and religion that are completely meaningless to anyone except those audiences (I don't mean to insult anyone). I've read that he's expressed a desire to be a worldwide film star and he must realize that the more views of local-interest-only that he incorporates in his movies, the more people he's going to leave behind. He is increasing in this area rather than maintaining a fine balance, which he did in the first Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong. I could not sit through Ong Bak 3. After an hour of incredible boredom I shut it down. I knew that there would be some big-time fighting to end the film but I no longer cared. I believe that Tony is going to have to choose between maintaining his comfort zone, working with all the same familiar people in every film, or taking a chance and doing a movie where he doesn't control everything. Bruce started it, Jackie and Jet make films all over the world, and Tony is going to have to follow if he wants to grow. I believe that he has the ability and presence to be one of the greats, and I hope he takes the chance.