By Fred Topel | Image property of The Weinstein Company.
The Protector Poster
When Tony Jaa storms through a scene unleashing his knees and elbows on the bad guys, there’s no doubt he could kill someone. Since it’s just a movie, you can’t go around killing the extras, so everything is choreographed safely. This actually makes things more painful for Jaa.
Tony Jaa Talks The Protector
“It’s more of a mutual hurtness from the one who gets kicked and myself, but nobody goes to the hospital,” said Jaa. “No fatal accidents. Only just bruises and bumps. Because the actors are wearing safety guards under their shirts so a lot of times when I kick them, I have to do another take and I kick them again, sometimes doing that repeatedly hurts too.”
Jaa strove to create new moves for The Protector, so we don’t just watch the same old choreography from his previous film, Ong Bak. “This movie is actually based on a move from Muay Thai combination with the elephant,” said Jaa through his studio provided translator. “It’s kind of like catch, throw and break. This is one of the themes that I use in the movie.”
In the film, Jaa must retrieve an elephant kidnapped from his village, so he devised many moves that reflect the elephant style. “ “In the movie The Protector, the move of the elephant where they use the hands, so then I used the other move when I used the foot to represent the tusk pulling down people, and then using the trunk compared with the leg.”
As long as Jaa practices Muay Thai and makes movies, he will always look for new and inventive moves. “I always think about new moves and studying almost unlimited to me. So I’m constantly thinking of new moves for my next movie all the time. It really comes naturally for me because martial arts is what I do. Over time with practice with stuntmen, sometimes it just comes naturally. Like this move should come later and this comes with an elbow or a knee, while training with stuntmen.”
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