The Bodyguard is a duology of action-comedy film written, directed by, and starring Thai comedian Petchai Wongkomlao (who previously had a minor role in the first two Ong-Bak movies), as well as Tony Jaa appearing in both films... at roughly four minutes each.
Wong Kom (Petchai) is the titular bodyguard and an all-round badass, but also a family man juggling his dual identity from his family. When he's out of a job due to his employer's assasination, Wong Kom had to clear his name while taking on legions and legions of enemy mooks.
The second film had Wong Kom, now inexplicably renamed Khamlao, as the leader of a Black op Counter-Terrorism Unit, going undercover as a country music singer. Realizing that his client's record label business turns out to be the front of a terrorist WMD production plant, Wong Kom must save the day again, but Hilarity Ensues when Wong Kom's suspicious wife Keaw decides to tag along.
This series contains the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Tony Jaa's cameo in the second film has him playing a clay elephant vendor who spends most of his screentime yelling, "Where's my elephant?"
- Advertised Extra: Despite Tony Jaa's combined screentime in both movies totaling up to around 8 minutes, the posters are advertising the hell out of Jaa's minuscule amount of screen time. If you squint closely at the first movie's poster, you can see a line of words proclaiming, "Featuring the Return of Tony Jaa".
- Affectionate Parody: Of John Woo movies and Heroic Bloodshed cinema in general.
- Agony of the Feet: In the standoff scene of the second movie, when Surachai shoots his former associate in the foot while using him as a hostage.
- Answer Cut: Happens during a motorcycle chase sequence when Wong Kom is riding his bike above the crowded, traffic-jammed Bangkok streets. In one of the vehicles is a father and his daughter playing "I Spy" to pass the time.Father: "So... what moves at 80km per hour, and climbs above vehicles?"(suddenly Wong Kom drives right above his car, landing on his hood and keep driving away, leaving the father stunned)Young Daughter: "Motorcycles!"
- Ask a Stupid Question...: From the first movie, when the mob boss of the nightclub scene accidentally gets knocked off a set of staircase railing and ends up going through a Staircase Tumble.Mook: "Boss, you're down here! How did you get down so quickly?"Mob Boss: "I fell down here, you idiot!"
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Wong Kom and Keaw against several mooks in the warehouse battle in the second film.
- Badass Biker: The moment Wong Kom gets on a motorcycle, he goes crazy with it, from driving above the hoods of parked vehicles to performing multiple Ramp Jump and epic stunts as mooks tries chasing him from behind.
- Badass Bystander: The supermarket attendant in the first movie, when suddenly realizing he's in the middle of an intense shootout, instead of cowering like a civilian, instead starts lashing out at nearby mooks, kicking the snot out of every opponent around him before they can raise their guns at him. Then again that bystander is played by Tony Jaa.
- Bald Head of Toughness: Wong Kom is the titular bodyguard and an all around badass, and he sports a bald head.
- Butt-Monkey: Wong Kom may be a badass and all, but he's also all kinds of accident prone and a bit of a klutz.
- Car Fu: Happens in the car chases of both movies. The first one notably had Wong Kom sending eight rival vehicles crashing together at an intersection at the aftermath of an intense car chase.
- Deadly Dodging: In the car chase of the first movie, Wong Kom, in his own vehicle, managed to trick two pursuing cars to crash into each other heads-on by driving out of the way in time.
- Death by Looking Up: Subverted in the climax of the second movie, when Wong Kom, operating a magnet-powered crane, drops an APC on Sushin's Convenient Escape Boat. Sushin looks up and see the falling APC, but managed to bail on time by jumping overboard.
- Defiant to the End: Sushin's last words before Wong Kom finish him off.Sushin: "Damn you..." (shot and Killed Mid-Sentence)
- Destination Defenestration: Happens constantly in Wong Kom's fight scenes. In the nightclub confrontation of the first movie Wong Kom sends a mook through a glass panel the height of a man before confronting the mob boss behind.
- Drives Like Crazy: Wong Kom whenever he's behind the wheels of any vehicle.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Played straight during chase scenes, vehicles tends to explode easily from getting bumped or nudged.
- Fire Hose Cannon: When Wong Kom, out of bullets, gets pursued into a corner by various thugs, he noticed the nearby fire hose, and uses that with its water turned at full blast to take out all the mooks.
- More Dakka: In the warehouse shootout of the second movie. Which inexplicably ends with Paula commandeering a truck mounted, belt-fed machine gun which she use to mow down more than twenty mooks in under thirty seconds while doing the "Peace" sign!
- Gratuitous Ninja: Keaw, while infiltrating the arms warehouse at the end of the second movie, is inexplicably dressed up as a ninja. She dons this outfit in the day by the way, completely defeating the common purpose of wearing black ninja outfits for stealth.
- Guns Akimbo: Wong Kom in his shootouts.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: Spoofed during one of Tony Jaa's cameos. In the middle of an intense shopping mall shootout, Wong Kom ducks behind a shelf while mooks are shooting at him... and saw a store attendant (played by Jaa) tidying the shelf while whistling to himself, completely oblivious to the chaos happening all around him.
- Job Title
- Leap and Fire: Wong Kom in most of his shootouts. He also does Somersault and Back-flip And Fire every now and then.
- Low Clearance: In the second movie, when the pursuing military vehicle of the rival mob boss cannot enter a carpark Wong Kom just drove into during a chase scene.
- Naked People Are Funny: During a shootout on a penthouse of the second movie, one of Wong Kom's stray bullets ends up hitting the wires holding a window cleaner's gondola on an adjacent building, causing the gondola to tip over and both cleaners to fall off. As the first cleaner ends up Hanging by the Fingers on the gondola's side, the swecond cleaner grabs at the trousers of the first, pulling off most of his pants and exposing his naked ass. And a second later, an adjacent window opens up as a lady tries investigating what's all that noise outside, only to catch an eyeful of the first cleaner's wienier.Lady: "What kind of bird is that?"
- Outrun the Fireball: Wong Kom and Paula outrunning their exploding truck when it's hit by a rocket launcher in the climax of the second film.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Happens all the damn time. In one of the shootouts, Wong Kom fires two shots at a mook, and then runs past the mook, who had two pencil-tip sized holes on his eyebrows, still standing despite being dead.
- Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Subverted and spoofed in the warehouse fight of the second movie. Wong Kom, after beating up various low-tier mooks, have to face a huge, muscular Caucasian Giant Mook a meter taller than him. Wong Kom tries punching his opponent, only for the hulking mook to smirk at him, fulfilling this trope. But then Wong Kom removes the helmet he's wearing, quickly delivers a series of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs while using the helmet as an improvised gauntlet, and in the next scene the giant thug is semi-unconscious on the floor and bleeding all over his face.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Petchai Wongkomlao is about to shoot you. In the poster of both movies.
- Shoot the Fuel Tank: Wong Kom defeats the rocket-launcher wielding mob boss by sending his motorcycle off a balcony, landing it on the boss' vehicle and while hanging by one hand, uses his other to shoot the motorcycle's fuel tank. The ensuing explosion completely obliterates his opponent.
- Stealth Prequel: The second film actually turns out to be set chronologically before the first.
- What the Fu Are You Doing?: In one of the many hilarious moments in the second movie, Wong Kom ends up confronting a henchman clad in long samurai robes, mediating around a series of candles with a katana, who immediately stood up when Wong Kom approaches him. The henchman quickly performs a series of quick, flashy moves with his katana, and accidentally caught his robes in one of the nearby candles, quickly setting his butt on fire and causing the panicked henchman to unintentionally knock himself out.
- Wire Fu: Glaringly obvious in the many action scenes of both movies. It's likely intentional, since this is a spoof film.
