Tony Jaa asks: Are you plus?

Tony Jaa is appearing Mitsubishi truck ads. They played one before Babel at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit. It starts out with him looking like he's going to beat the truck up. Then he dances around and flies over it, and then he actually gets in and drives the thing.

Coincidentally, one of the bus-stop ads is across the road from Major Sukhumvit. There's also a humongous billboard of him on the Rama IX expressway, on the way out to Suwannapoom Airport.

And incidentally, the Tony Jaa commercial wasn't the best of the commercials shown before the film - it was a spot involving a muay Thai fighter going through his pre-fight ritual, in which his trainer is blowing on him to imbue some sacred powers on his fighter. But the trainer's breath is so bad, the fighter is knocked out before he gets in the ring. The ad is for Salz toothpaste.

In Thailand the movie-theater commercials are often better than the films themselves. They took my mind off the anxiety over whether Babel would have English and Thai subtitles for the non-English dialogue. Often, the "foreign language" films in wide release in Thailand only have Thai subtitles. I'm pleased to report that everything is translated in both languages.

And in other Tony Jaa news, there was talk back in 2005 that he'd had some cosmetic surgery done to sharpen his jawline. When questioned about it, Tony admitted he'd had some work done -- he had his wisdom teeth removed. This is according to a Thai news report, translated by my girlfriend.

Anyhow, here's hoping Are you plus? becomes the new catchphrase of the year.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)