Some of you might be wondering what all the fuss over Tony Jaa is about so let?s set the wayback machine to 2003 shall we. It was Friday, September 6^th and my buddy and I had just seen 5 stellar films: Matchstick Men, Zatoichi, I Love Your Work, Alien, Bright Future and the last film of the day was Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior. We were pretty fried but Colin got everyone pumped up and set the bar pretty high by claiming that Tony Jaa was going to make Jet Li & Jackie Chan look like they were standing still.

Thankfully the first fight sequence of villagers beating the snot out of each other to reach a tree top got everyone?s adrenaline pumping and it kept flowing through to the climactic final battle atop a giant stone Buddha. And in the 5 years since, I've never seen the madness crowd respond as loudly as they did when Tony was kickin' butt with his legs literally on fire! It was clear that this was one martial arts star destined for big things and by the end of the film the crowd was on its feet.

That?s right folks a standing O for Ong-Bak. I?ve been a part of a few standing ovations in the 200+ TIFF screenings I?ve attended over the last 7 years, but most of them are because the director has a Dainipponjin sized entourage or is David Cronenberg. This was the real deal, an audience standing and cheering for what we hoped to be the second coming of Bruce Lee. During the Q&A a fan actually asked the director for the shirt off of his back... Granted, it was a Tony Jaa shirt, but let's see someone ask Atom Egoyan for his shirt after a screening at the Elgin! Only at Midnight Madness people. Being the fanboy that I am, I couldn't resist getting the director's autograph, though from the look of it I think he just made sure my sharpie was working.

Once the demo reel for Tony Jaa?s directorial debut Ong-Bak 2 hit the net a few months back, a bunch of us figured it would be a shoe in for the Madness. Unfortunately it all proved to be a bit much for Tony. But fear not true believers, Prachya Pinkaew (Ong-Bak?s director) is back with a new action discovery: 24 year old Jija Yanin starring in Chocolate.

And this time the film is screening in the primo closing night spot that launched the Saw franchise and the career of Eli Roth. So let?s hope Pinkaew can capture lightning in a bottle once again and kick some serious midnight butt! Hopefully this time he'll have more than one Jija Yanin shirt.