At one point Tony Jaa was the most
exciting martial arts star on the planet. Then he became a big weird
joke. And now he’s done. Twitchfilm
is reporting that Tony
Jaa has quit filmmaking and become a monk in Thailand.
This
doesn’t necessarily mean his career is at an end, though. Twitch points
out that it’s not uncommon in Thai culture to take some time to join a
monastery, and Jaa could eventually leave the religious life and return
to kicking ass in movies, but it’s unlikely that this will happen any
time soon.
Jaa’s
career has been on a downward spiral; after demanding directorial
control on Ong Bak 2 he got it, and turned in a movie
with good action but really shitty everything else. I haven’t seen Ong Bak 3 but
hear that it’s terrible – according to Twitch it’s essentially a
failure in Thailand.
And while making Ong Bak 2 Jaa famously flipped his shit,
disappearing for two months, possibly getting involved in black magic.
That was just the tip of the crazy iceberg – Twitch has a full rundown
of Jaa’s turbulent last few years, which you can read by
clicking here. Let’s
just say that there’s the makings of a great Thai martial arts movie in
all of this. Sadly it looks like Tony Jaa won’t be starring in it.