I'm taking a sick day today, unusual for me, but I'm quite under the weather…and rushing to the bathroom.

I've decided that today is going to be a movie day. More specifically, a martial arts movie day. It gave me the idea to start a thread about our favorite movies of this genre!

I used to be an avid movie-watcher, so some of my favorite martial arts movies include: Enter the Dragon, the Undisputed series, the Ong Bak series (Tony Jaa is amazing), most Jet Li movies (like Hero, Unleashed, and Fearless), just to name a few. These are more of the 'art' part of martial arts. I also liked Blood and Bone, Fighting, and Never Back Down, though those seem to show the more 'cage/pit fighter' side of combat sport.

What about you guys?

I just watched 'The Protector', also called 'Tom-Yum-Goong'. Dear Lord it's awesome.

It has Tony Jaa looking for his elephant whom he grew up with in Thailand and considers his brother. Tony took traditional Muay Thai and made it into his own art. It's so creative and artistic. I can't get over it. The fight scenes are so well choreographed. Tony mixes physics, anatomy, and Muay Thai throughout the entire movie to make a downright beautiful, fluid, and brutal style of combat.

Also, to add to the bad-ass-ness of this movie, just like the Ong-Bak series, this movie uses no wires or special camera angles or anything. It's mostly full contact. You can actually tell the guys are getting cracked right in the side of the head or smashed square in the liver. Also, I just read that in the making, there were many broken arms, legs, and the such, and paramedics were standing by the whole time. It looks so outrageously painful, which makes it so awesome. Haha. It's real combat, not Hollywood effects. Most of the movie is action and combat, which is even better. At one point, Tony fights an army of generic, so-so martial artist thugs up 6 stories of a giant spiral staircase in this hotel. In this scene, several of the guys fall off the stairs either by stumbling, or getting thier ass teeped right off by Tony. One crashes through a little kiosk at the bottom, while the other falls 2 stories and lands on the flat stone floor. No pads or mats. Stone floor. I want to know how much they paid these stunt men.

Some of the details of the story are exaggerated, but it makes for an amazing movie. Highly recommended.