Tony Jah - actor, stuntman, director

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

"No ropes, no CGI!" - the principle of the Thai film actor, stuntman, choreographer and director, specializing in films with martial arts, Tony Jah (Pan Yirum). This interesting person developed his superhuman jumping ability from childhood. To do this, he jumped on the backs of elephants, which were bred by his parents. The elephants gradually grew, at the same time Tony's jumping ability increased, his skill improved.

Tony Jah. Biography

Tony was born in northern Thailand on February 5, 1976. Since childhood, he loved to watch action movies with Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li. He was so fascinated by martial arts that he began to practice Thai boxing. The young man practiced the punches he'd seen in the movies so many times until they were just the way they were meant to be.

From the age of twelve, the young man dreamed of becoming a martial arts star. He was engaged in various martial arts, fencing, gymnastics. The father did not take his son's hobbies seriously and even forbade him to do this business, but Jah threatened him with suicide, so dad could only accept. He even becameto teach his son, as he had experience in coaching in martial arts. Training took place every day and lasted six to seven hours.

Iconic meeting

When the boy was ten years old, he learned about the Thai stuntman and director P. Rittikrai. At the age of thirteen, he asked the master to train. Since then, he began to help on the set: fetching water, cooking, holding an umbrella over the camera, and so on.

Already at the age of fifteen, Tony becomes a real student of P. Rittikray. At the same time, on his recommendation, he began to study at the school of physical education, studying various martial arts. And every weekend the young man studied acting and stunt skills.

Even in his youth, Tony Jah won many times in various sports, winning only gold medals. He was the chairman of the sword fighting club and was repeatedly invited to China to demonstrate Thai martial arts.

Beginning of acting career

After some time, Tony Jah becomes a stuntman in Rittikrai's team. Together they are interested in the ancient style of muay boran, intensive training begins. At this time, Jah develops his own style, combining gymnastics and Muay Thai.

After a few years, a short film is released, where Tony showed all his abilities. The director P. Pinkay saw the picture, and the stuntman was invited to play the main role in his new film. Prior to this, Tony Jah, whose biography is quite fascinating, had experience in cinema, as he had previously dubbedactors and in advertising, and in several films. It must be said that Jah took his first steps as a stuntman in ten films, which brought him some profit.

In 2003, the picture "Ong Bak: Thai Warrior" was released. In this film, the viewer saw the most difficult stunts with high-speed battles and quite extreme acrobatics. All of these stunts were performed by Tony himself, so no CGI or other mechanical means were involved in the film. The picture was waiting for success, and the stuntman himself became the star of Asian action films. The audience was looking forward to films featuring Tony Jah.

The next successful film directed by Jha, Pinkkayu and Rittikrai was released in 2005 under the title "Dragon's Honor" (also known as "Thai Dragon"). This picture was a huge success, so in 2006 it was released in the United States under the name "Defender".

The Protector has become the most successful Thai film released in the West. Thanks to this, Tony began to arrange demonstrations outside of Thailand.

In 2006, Jah tries himself as a director in the film "Ong Bak 2". The picture was released in 2008, and in 2010 the film "Ong Bak 3" was filmed.

Private life

Tony Jah, all of whose films are filmed without the use of computer graphics, loves his parents very much. He bought them a huge two-story mansion, where they now live. But the old small house was not demolished, it stands nearby in the garden as a reminder to the famous actor of hischildhood.

Today, Jah has a huge number of plans that are related to future films and directing.

Filmography

Tony starred in many films, and all of them were a great success with the audience. Possessing incredible abilities, the actor and stuntman constantly impresses idols with his skill.

With the participation of Jha, such pictures were published: “Mortal Kombat. Extermination" (1997), "On Buck" (2003), "Bodyguard" (2004), "Dragon's Honor" (2005), "Bodyguard 2" (2007), "On Buck 2" (2008), "On Buck 3 "(2010), "Dragon's Honor 2" (2013), "Man Will Rise" (2014), "Slave Trade" (2014). These are the best movies with Tony Jah.

Furious 7 is expected to be released in 2015 and will be the Hollywood debut of the Thai star.

Muay Thai

As Tony Jah himself says, he wanted to show the whole world a different side of Muay Thai, completely opposite to what everyone sees when watching fights in the ring. Jah wanted to convey to the people the Thai culture that developed thousands of years ago.

Thus, the main task of Muay Thai was originally to help the warrior survive in the war after he became unarmed. The main emphasis in technology is placed on developing the skills of a fighter without any weapon to fight an armed enemy. The emphasis here is on incapacitating the enemy with quick devastating blows. The technique has Buddhist roots, so a lot of preparation time is devoted to meditation in order to achieve the highest form of concentration of the mind.

Tony Jah in hisfilms not only successfully demonstrates the ability to fight using martial arts, but also conveys to the viewer the ancient culture of Thailand. Maybe that's why you want to watch all the films with his participation again and again.