Ting is a young man who lives in the small village of Nong Pradu in Thailand. Ting has been taught Muay Thai by a monk, who warns him not to use it, since it is a dangerous weapon. There is seven days until a special festival for the local deity, Ong-Bak, a festival that brings prosperity and good harvest to the village. Don, a man from Bangkok, approaches one of the old men of the village, the father of an absent villager named Humlae. Don wants this man to sell him a Buddha amulet that the man possesses, but he refuses, saying that he is keeping it for when his son Humlae becomes a monk.
Frustrated by this, Don decides to steal the head of Ong-Bak, and he escapes back to Bangkok with it. The villagers are distraught, since without Ong-Bak, they cannot hold the festival, and drought threatens them. Ting declares that he will go to Bangkok to retrieve Ong-Bak. The plan is for him to find Humlae and get him to help Ting. Humlae’s father gives Ting a letter for Humlae, and the entire village chips in as much money as they can to help Ting get to Bangkok.
Ting succeeds in tracking down Humlae, and discovers that the former village boy has gotten himself into hot waters as a result of his reckless life. Humlae and his sister Muay run various scams to try and win money through gambling, but Humlae owes money to a gang boss named Peng, who threatens to kill him if he can’t come up with it. Humlae does not want to help Ting, but when he discovers that Ting has money on him, he brings Ting back to his apartment. Here, he sneaks off with Ting’s money.
Ting follows Humlae to a local fight club, where Humlae loses all of the money betting on a fighter. Ting accidentally ends up in a fight with the winner and easily beats him, shocking everyone, but instead of accepting the prize money, he simply demands his own money back. Humlae tries to convince Ting to fight again so they can make money, but Ting declares that he doesn’t box for money. Humlae, angry, refuses to help Ting find Don.
The next day, Humlae and Muay end up in trouble, as Peng and his cronies catch up with them. Ting helps them escape, and Humlae agrees to help him find Don. Humlae takes Ting back to the fight club, where Don often hangs out. What they don’t know is that the crime lord who hired Don frequents the fight club as well, and bets on the fights with a rival. They succeed in roping Ting into fighting again, and Ting proceeds to defeat three opponents in a row. Seeing Don, he chases after him, but Don manages to escape.
The next day, however Ting and Humlae manage to track Don down, and a high speed chase ensues. In the process, Ting ends up in the bay, and discovers a huge stash of precious Buddha artefacts hidden under the surface of the water. These happen to belong to the crime lord, whose business is stealing and selling these artefacts. Ting reveals the horde to the police, who confiscate the stash. This enrages the boss, who is furious with Don for causing all this trouble simply for the worthless Ong-Bak head.
He hatches a plan, however. Kidnapping Humlae and Muay, the boss demands that Ting participate in a rope fight and lose so that the boss can win his money back from his betting partner. In return, he promises to return Ong-Bak. However, when Ting agrees and upholds his end of the bargain, the boss refuses to return the head. Ting and Humlae track the boss down to his cave hideout, and succeed in defeating the gang and retrieving Ong-Bak. However, Humlae is killed in the process, giving up his life to protect Ong-Bak from destruction.
A key element of this movie is the conversion of Humlae. Although we don’t get a lot of backstory on Humlae’s life, we learn that he grew up in Nong Pradu and that his father wants him to become a monk. Probably, Humlae ran away to Bangkok in order to avoid this, and he discards his religion for a life of crime and gambling. In doing this, he rejects both the village religion that formed him, but also his own father.
His father clearly misses him, and writes in his letter that he won’t even insist on Humlae becoming a monk anymore – he just wants to see his son. At first, Humlae is unmoved by his father’s plea, and doesn’t want to have any association with his old life. He goes now by the name of George, and is offended when Ting calls him Humlae of Nong Pradu. Humlae has built up for himself a new identity and he wants to cast aside his former identity. He is even ashamed of it.
However, in Ting, Humlae is able to see someone who is willing to risk everything for the sake of that life and religion that Humlae has rejected. At one point, Ting says explicitly that he will do anything to return Ong-Bak to his village, even if it means his own death. Along with the pleas of his father, this touches Humlae, who slowly begins to view Ong-Bak with the same reverence as Ting. Finally, of course, he himself becomes willing to give up his own life to prevent Ong-Bak from being destroyed. He transforms from being someone eager to shed his former identity to someone willing to die for that identity, as he shows when he declares, “I am Humlae of Nong Pradu!” He throws aside the fake mask that he had put on through his years in Bangkok, and returns to who he truly is.
On the opposite side of the matter is the crime lord, for whom money is the sole important thing. His disdain for Ong-Bak is obvious, as he keeps referring to it merely as a “lump of rock”. He scoffs at the idea of God, and instead declares that he himself is God, the lord of life and death. Fittingly, he is eventually crushed by the massive Buddha head that he is trying to dig out of the cave wall – he is destroyed by the very symbol he rejects as meaningless.
In Ting, we see someone who does things for the right reasons and is willing to give his life for what he believes in. He refuses to use his martial arts skills for money, and ends up using them only because he needs to in order to save Ong-Bak. He doesn’t turn his talents to pursuing his own gain, but instead puts them to use in the service of other people – namely the people of his village, who need Ong-Bak in order to survive. Ting is not simply an action hero, but a hero in the truest sense of the word – he is willing to risk his own life for others. It is because of this willingness that he is able to unintentionally pull Humlae out of his selfishness and make Humlae into a hero himself.
In a sense, this can be applied to our own lives. If we always try to put others first, and use our talents for the sake of God and of our neighbour, we might well find ourselves helping people in ways we didn’t intend. Ting’s purpose in going to Bangkok was not to help Humlae find his proper identity, but to retrieve Ong-Bak. However, precisely because of his selfless dedication to this goal, Ting succeeds in saving Humlae as well. Ting’s example of virtue becomes a model that allows Humlae to cast aside his selfishness and act out of love for God and for others.
Questions for discussion
1. The monk who trained Ting in Muay Thai warns Ting not to use it because it can be very dangerous if used improperly. Can this not be said of any of our talents? Think about how you use your own God-given talents. Do you put them at the service of others? Or do you use them selfishly?
2. Why do you think Humlae didn’t want to be associated with Nong Pradu and with his father? What do you think changed his mind?
3. Ting and Humlae are both willing to die for their religion. This can seem crazy to people, since it might look, on the surface, as a waste. What do you think? Why are they willing to die for Ong-Bak? Should people be willing to die for their religion? Why might it be important to know whether one is willing to die for God or not?
