Ong-Bak the Thai Warrior (2003)

There must be something lost in the translation of the title of this film. Ong-Bak is the name of the buddha that looks over the village of Nram Pradu. He is a stone statue, and this is not some kind of fantasy film. I'm sure the warrior bit refers to Ting (Tony Jaa), the young man whom on the eve of becoming ordained as a monk must use muay thai skills to retrieve the head of Ong-Bak which has been stolen by a thug hoping that it's worth a lot of money.
Ting soon finds himself in Bangkok, trying to look up Humlae, who now goes by the name George and is a petty con man who works with a partner, Muay. Ostensibly they are pulling cons to pay her way through university. Since Ting has sworn never to use his formidable muay thai skills, he must think that his life is in danger or that another's life is - which it turns out through the coures of the movie that he only fights when it's a girls life in danger. He actually does a fair bit of running away to avoid fighting, which shows off Jaa's amazing athleticism. He runs like a cross between a parkors champion and a young Jackie Chan in one of his serious roles (hey, he had a few when he was younger).
The fights in this movie are impressive. The chase scenes are impressive. The acting, not so much. Actually, it's pretty much on par with most action movies starring a martial arts champion, whether it be Chinese, Brazilian or American.
The ending of this movie is great, and I doubt that I'll spoil it for you by giving it away since looking into my magic eight ball tells "not a chance" when I ask it if anyone who reads this was planning on ever watching this movie. The bad guy who you know is bad from the moment you see him because he uses an electronic voice box and smokes through the hole in his neck, after stealing the Ong-Bak and putting Ting through the ringer (including kidnapping Muay to make Ting fight), is crushed by the head of a giant buddha which he is trying to steal. It was a bit pedictable really, but still kind of cool.

Ong-Bak the Thai Warrior on IMDb (IMDb gave this a really high rating - 7.2, to my surprise)