The Protector

Finally, a movie that combines serious martial art-ass kicking and cute baby elephants.

Tony Jaa stars as Kham, a backwoods Thai-redneck who's family has raised elephants for generations. Kham and his father bring their elephants into town to be judged worthy of representing the King. Not so fast, Round Eye! It's actually a scam to steal the elephants and Kham doesn't figure this out until AFTER his father is killed and both family elephants are stolen. After a quick non-Democrat Party-supported interrogation of one of the bad guys, Kham is on the next plane to Australia.

Once he gets there he find himself in the middle of a complex and convoluted plot involving the Thai-Australian criminal underworld, corrupt Sydney cops and large numbers of unoccupied street thugs. The syndicate is run by dragon lady Madame Rose and her two henchmen, who have stolen the elephants for their mystical powers (Thai exclusive mystical powers). She has an insider in the police depaertment in the form of Officer Rick , short for officer Richard or Officer Dick.

Face it, if you're actually reading this review you don't care about the plot or charactor developement or script writing. That's good because neither did the people who made this movie. You only care about serious ass-kicking Asian dudes kicking serious ass. You are in luck because this movie has one long choreographed fight scene after another. The Jackie Chan acrobatic type stuff that's more like ballet for heterosexual men. Khan fights thugs on bikes, thugs on skates, thugs with flourecent lightbulbs, thugs on motorcycles, thugs on ATVs, big thugs, short thugs and well-dressed thugs. He fights in a werehouse, Bhudist Temple (on fire)and the gang hideout which is a nice multi-story job with a wide central staircase that's great for heaving bad-guys to their deaths.

This movie is vicerally satisfying. Don't bring your woman because there is so much testosterone that she'll grow a mustache by the end of the movie.

I give this one three stars and a big bag of peanuts.