Overpriced ‘Ong Bak 2′ premieres on VOD

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by Mark Pollard | September 28, 2009

ONG BAK 2 (2008)

Tony Jaa’s ONG BAK 2 began its month-long run on video-on-demand services this past weekend ahead of Magnet Releasing’s planned theatrical release of the period martial arts actioner. The film is part of the label’s Six Shooter Film Series 2 which includes other popular international action films BRONSON, RED CLIFF, DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM, and THE WARLORDS. (A sixth title has yet to be announced.)

ONG BAK 2 is currently available for a limited time at Comcast On Demand, Xbox Live and Amazon Video On Demand.

Unfortunately, in at least two of those options you’ll pay as much, if not far more for a single VOD viewing than you would for a ticket at your local movie theater. Amazon is charging $9.99 to stream the movie to your PC. In order to watch it on Xbox Live without a premium subscription you’ll have to purchase 1200 “Microsoft Points” and the cheapest option is to buy two bundles of 500 and 1000 points totaling $19.00. I couldn’t find a price point for Comcast but a lot of their premium On Demand titles cost $3.99, although this requires both a Comcast subscription and a digital cable box which costs extra.

The first ONG BAK is currently selling on DVD for $10 to $15 new. In other words, you could be spending the same amount the future DVD release of ONG BAK 2 costs to own just to watch it once in a lower-quality format on your computer.

When I first found out about Magnolia’s plan and reported on it here I was supportive of the idea of bringing foreign action films to VOD, in part as a way to combat online film piracy. Four dollars is a reasonable amount to charge for a user-friendly VOD service and although unconfirmed this may be an option for paying Comcast and Xbox subscribers. Yet even having an option at any of these services that could lead consumers to spend $10 to $20 for a single movie rental is ludicrous.

In March of this year, ONG BAK 2 was ranked number six among the top 10 pirated movies online according to Torrent Freak. That suggests international interest in ONG BAK 2 peaked six months ago, shortly after it began appearing on DVD overseas. Speaking of, Keris Video’s Malaysian DVD release of ONG BAK 2, with English subtitles, has been available for months for roughly $8 to $15 depending on where you order it from. Why would anyone in the U.S. want to pay $10 or more to rent the movie now, especially when they could wait and rent it from Netflix for virtually nothing or purchase their own copy for roughly the same price? There is little incentive for the tech savvy, budget-conscious movie lover to buy into Magnolia’s current VOD plan.

I was actually planning to rent ONG BAK 2 from Amazon but not for $9.99. I’d like to know what others think about this. Is charging $10 for a streaming rental of a movie too much? Any Xbox Live or digital Comcast subscribers out there able to rent it for less? Should the movie have simply premiered on DVD and VOD at the same time?

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  • "ONG BAK 2 - TWC was one of the companies that traded their rights back to Sahamongkol Film for a refund when Tony Jaa went missing.
    NEW POLICE STORY, DRUNKEN MONKEY - sold to Lionsgate.
    DRAGON TIGER GATE - sold/traded to Tai Seng, probably related to how TWC acquired Tai Seng's long-held exclusive US rights to THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR.
    THE PROMISE - sold to Warner Bros.
    ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE - sold to Senator Films after a prolonged shelving."

    I doubt Tony Jaa leaving for a bit would have convinced TWC to give up on Ong Bak 2, if it thought it could make some real money on the movie.
    And it's no coincidence that Harvey leased the rights when his company was going through the worst losses. Plus, I doubt if the director found Jaa, that the production would resume so fast, if it couldn't get funding for it. So it's more likely that Harvey decided to dump the movie on to Magnolia for some quick cash.

    New Police Story and Drunken Monkey were probably left-overs at Miramax which Harvey only had tentative rights to, and so LG swooped in to claim the flicks.

    And an insider told me that DTG was never really an official movie which Harvey owned.

    Bride with White Hair's probably been one of those Miramax holdovers.

    The Promise was sold to WB, because the director hated how Harvey screwed him over on it.

    And Mandy Lane was one of those flicks Harvey was hoping to put out as Oscar/arthouse-bait, but might have had to drop when he moved on over to TWC.

    But either way, the Weinsteins didn't get rid of these flicks because they didn't like 'em. Hell, unless someone pulls a Troy Duff on 'em, they'll even keep flicks they hate.

    "They manage to make everything they release look like either unappealing, generic DTV crap or yet another CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON clone - no wonder people aren't biting. Only the Jet and Jackie films manage to weather this inherent disadvantage, and imagine how those titles might be selling if they looked less embarrassing on the shelf."

    At least we can agree on something.

    " I'm a member of their core customer base for these things, and out of sheer disgust I haven't bought anything they've released since the SUPERCOP debacle."

    Fist of Legend was the only title I purchased, and I considered it bs that they couldn't get the version with the ending, since I saw it at an L.A. screening only a month earlier. Hell, they even had the subbed version of Fist of Fury there.
  • Rhythm-X
    "I doubt Tony Jaa leaving for a bit would have convinced TWC to give up on Ong Bak 2, if it thought it could make some real money on the movie. "

    You're right - apparently they gave up on it because it was a period film, the timing of them giving up may have been coincidental. (http://tinyurl.com/y9vthl4)

    "New Police Story and Drunken Monkey were probably left-overs at Miramax which Harvey only had tentative rights to, and so LG swooped in to claim the flicks."

    DRUNKEN MONKEY definitely was a Miramax title, but AFAIK all the Shaw Bros. films came with Harvey when he left Miramax. I could have sworn Weinstein Company had NEW POLICE STORY, but now I can't find any evidence of that other than some odd claim that it was Miramax, The Weinstein Company, and Lionsgate who all bought it together - which seems unlikely but does align with the film's eventual fate.

    "And an insider told me that DTG was never really an official movie which Harvey owned"

    It certainly appears that they owned it for a minute or two. Bey Logan claimed it was a Dragon Dynasty pickup in an interview with Twitch and repeatedly claimed/hyped it up on his blog, and Variety and Screen Daily both had stories about the pickup. Variety's review lists them as the film's distributor...

    "Bride with White Hair's probably been one of those Miramax holdovers"

    It could have been, but the first time I ever heard of it being anyone's title other than Tai Seng's was well after Dragon Dynasty was underway, and the timing of Tai Seng releasing what was widely confirmed to be a Weinstein title seemed to line up pretty nicely with Bey Logan suddenly starting to talk about a forthcoming BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR release. I can't find any reporting on when exactly either film changed hands, though.

    "The Promise was sold to WB, because the director hated how Harvey screwed him over on it."

    That's true - I should have specified that TWC weren't actually the ones who sold it to WB. They sold it back to the producers, who then sold it to WB. Still, like ONG BAK 2 and, from all appearances, DRAGON TIGER GATE, it's a film where the Weinsteins had it and then let it go for one reason or another.

    "And Mandy Lane was one of those flicks Harvey was hoping to put out as Oscar/arthouse-bait, but might have had to drop when he moved on over to TWC."

    I haven't seen it, but nothing I've read about it gives the impression that it was anything other than a low-budget horror movie aimed largely at teenagers, and quite far from Oscar bait or arthouse fare.
  • Rhythm: Excuse me, but when has Harvey ever "relinquished" his rights to a title, unless he was forced to do so? He's still got that case against Sony over the rights to CTHD ten years after it was already made, for eff's sakes. No, the only reason he gave up Ong Bak 2 is his company's hemorrhaging money. Hell, I remember three years ago when he said he had the rights to Drunken Master 2, and now we find out that Miramax is still handling it.

    "How do you sell THE BLADE? Ask HKFlix, they certainly don't seem to have any trouble moving that title."

    But importers are not the same as American consumers. The fact that DD's having enough trouble staying in business selling movies with Jackie and Jet Li, who are more recognizable here, shows that the market for HK movies here has a glass ceiling. [Though Harvey's partly to blame, because he could have released that shit subbed and uncut sooner, and taken advantage of a stronger DVD market, but he got greedy and tried to cut Disney out of the equation, so he'd make more money, even though Disney would have been better at promoting his Asian flicks than him.]

    "A: Tsui Hark's came first anyway"

    But the comic book preceded Tsui Hark's movie.

    "B: both BLADE and THE BLADE are 100% owned by Warner Bros, so not like they're going to sue themselves even if they could."

    Not exactly accurate. The Blade movie is owned by WB, but the Blade comic is owned by Marvel.

    "And if they could, why didn't they sue the Weinsteins for lifting at least two titles from WB for their butchered Hong Kong movie releases?"

    All I can say is there must be some seriously confusing contracts for certain
    parties to handle certain movies in certain regions. I imagine this was in the old days when indies either co-produced the flicks, got swallowed up by majors or semi-majors, or just split the ownership of a title with more than one production company, which is why Terminator's rights are so often in dispute.
    I imagine the situation's changed since then, but we're still waiting for that Adam West Batman thing to resolve itself, so who knows?

    As for Wolverine, compared to DB: E and Chun-Li, it's a friggin' masterpiece.
  • Rhythm-X
    "Rhythm: Excuse me, but when has Harvey ever "relinquished" his rights to a title, unless he was forced to do so?"

    Off the top of my head...

    ONG BAK 2 - TWC was one of the companies that traded their rights back to Sahamongkol Film for a refund when Tony Jaa went missing.
    NEW POLICE STORY, DRUNKEN MONKEY - sold to Lionsgate.
    DRAGON TIGER GATE - sold/traded to Tai Seng, probably related to how TWC acquired Tai Seng's long-held exclusive US rights to THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR.
    THE PROMISE - sold to Warner Bros.
    ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE - sold to Senator Films after a prolonged shelving.

    "But importers are not the same as American consumers. The fact that DD's having enough trouble staying in business selling movies with Jackie and Jet Li, who are more recognizable here, shows that the market for HK movies here has a glass ceiling."

    This is a failure of marketing and it's not just the Weinstein Company, but at Miramax the Weinsteins set the tone for marketing films of this sort and most other companies are following their lead. They manage to make everything they release look like either unappealing, generic DTV crap or yet another CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON clone - no wonder people aren't biting. Only the Jet and Jackie films manage to weather this inherent disadvantage, and imagine how those titles might be selling if they looked less embarrassing on the shelf. If they had something like Magnolia's comparatively competent marketing team, this would be much less of a concern. More importantly, they didn't learn their lesson about how when you stab your core customer base (us) in the back, you forfeit good word of mouth - and for niche titles like these, you NEED that good word of mouth if you want to have any hope of enjoying the occasional crossover success. I'm a member of their core customer base for these things, and out of sheer disgust I haven't bought anything they've released since the SUPERCOP debacle. I doubt I'm alone.

    Back to the point; if a company can't sell THE BLADE, they're probably selling it the wrong way to the wrong people - whchi is essentially the story of Hong Kong films in the US post-CROUCHING TIGER. If you can't sell Mozart CDs to the crowd at a Toby Keith show, it doesn't mean there's no audience for Mozart. It just means someone (or everyone) in marketing should get fired.

    As for THE BLADE vs BLADE - Marvel owns the character, but the film is all New Line/Warner Bros. The word BLADE is sufficiently generic that I can't see the title causing problems. For clarity's sake they could just call it DAO: THE BLADE if it came down to it.

    Saying WOLVERINE is better than LEGEND OF CHUN-LI or DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION, while probably true, is like saying that drowning in fresh water is marginally less unpleasant than drowning in salt water.
  • Rhythm-X
    I'm not sure why Magnolia would have to negotiate with the Weinsteins, who relinquished all US rights to the film and got their money back from the producers when Jaa went missing. They were out of the picture long before Magnolia stepped up to distribute.

    Warner Bros. didn't inherit the Golden Harvest films, they bought the films outright in 1999. Not sure how one would inherit the distribution rights to a couple hundred of someone else's movies, but in any event that's not what happened, according to the financial reporting on the matter at the time.

    How do you sell THE BLADE? Ask HKFlix, they certainly don't seem to have any trouble moving that title. Obviously there's demand, obviously someone wants to buy it, or else the bootlegs wouldn't sell. There's no way there'd be any legal conflict with the later, similarly titled Wesley Snipes film, as A: Tsui Hark's came first anyway and B: both BLADE and THE BLADE are 100% owned by Warner Bros, so not like they're going to sue themselves even if they could. And if they could, why didn't they sue the Weinsteins for lifting at least two titles from WB for their butchered Hong Kong movie releases?

    I'll agree that they ought to be in the Warner Archive program at the very least. There's probably 15 or so titles in there that warrant actual US DVD releases - but for the rest, the Archives would do fine, were anything actually being done, which as far as I can tell is not the case.

    I am going to go out on a limb and say that WOLVERINE succeeded in spite of people's reaction to that leaked film, rather than because of it. Holy hell, that was a terrible movie.
  • Rhythm: To be fair, Magnolia probably had to renegotiate with Harvey and then deal with Jaa's hissy fit. Then, it had to find a good date, so it wouldn't have to worry about losing sales to tentpoles. And maybe, like FOX and Wolverine, Magnolia's hoping fans will like the boots enough to pay for the original flick?

    As for WB, I'm guessing it's more like they just inherited the Golden Harvest stuff when the company stopped dealing with distribution. And I think the problem with WB's library is that there are no big names on it they can sell to American audiences, unless, as I said earlier, CBS, or whoever owns Martial Law, finally puts that effing show on DVD. At least the Mark Dacascos Crow thing ended up on R1 dvd, because it was a Crow spin-off. But the only selling point they got for Martial Law is the Arsenio Hall appearance. And I'm not sure how you'd sell "The Blade" here. Would there also be an issue with trademark disputes over it and that vampire action movie, too? But again, I'm hoping the Golden Harvest stuff ends up on the legal d/l-to-own program soon.

    Anyway, Jaa's gonna be in Chicago on Monday for a special screening. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42530
  • Rhythm-X
    If you want to look at it as costing about as much as two tickets to see it in a first run theater as it does to watch it in HD at home, it's not so outrageous. But on the surface it certainly seems pretty stupid to charge this much for a film where most people hellbent on watching it downloaded it or bought an import or bootleg months and months ago.

    When you buy the rights to something it is in your best interest to quickly release that thing - lest third parties release it for you without your participation. These distributors don't get it - their competition isn't IFC or Dragon Dynasty - it's isoHunt, RapidShare, Usenet, and The Pirate Bay. They can whine about legality and morality all they want, and be right about it all they want - it doesn't change the reality that they're competing against "free and now" and when that's your competition, "expensive and eventually" isn't going to cut it AT ALL, the law and your precious distribution rights be damned.

    I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they pissed away simply by sitting on ONG BAK 2 for so many months, when they should have been releasing a film that had already built up a lot of buzz?

    The saddest part is that Magnolia is among the LEAST moronic of the companies buying up the rights to Asian films in the US. They're Mensa scholars compared to Warner Bros, Miramax, and The Weinstein Company - while Sony is slightly better than that unholy trinity of stupid, is that really anything to be proud of?
  • albertv
    I have Bright House cable here and I just saw the listing for Ong Bak 2 and it is $9.99 for a 48 hour rental. That's pretty insane. Most of the new releases alone are $3.99 with the IFC titles bring $5.99 for 24 hour rentals. So for Ong Bak 2, bring $10 for a 48 hour VOD release is more of a toss-up for me.
  • 名ame
    A torrent is: fast, generally high-quality, generally available long before legal local releases, the file will download byte-for-byte perfectly, and you can keep the file around to watch when the mood strikes and to rewatch when the mood strikes again in the future.

    I would gladly pay $10 to download a DRM-free file to my hard drive at DVD quality or better (DVD codec is outdated, and the video payload of a blu-ray disc is generally no larger than a DVD while boosting resolution and quality)

    Basically, let me keep torrenting, but pay $10 so that my acquisition is legal and I can support the artists and companies involved. Unlike a hard-copy there is no plastic or paper or shipping waste.

    Paying any amount for something that has time or viewing limits on it is BS. Months or years after a foreign film has been available online or through grey market imports or bootlegs is a hard sell.

    Day-and-date sale of unrestricted file download and I'll be delighted to buy.
  • rhilophy
    This movie look good the first time you see it, then you never want to see it again
  • Proutcast
    You make a great point about VOD. I think anyone that would use VOD would have to be somewhat tech savvy. Example, my father loves Asian martial arts films, but has been to Amazon.com maybe 6 times, doesn’t own a 360, and never uses the On-Demand feature on his Comcast Cable box, even though he has it. Even if he did know to use these things, or bothered to learn these outlets, he uses a small laptop and doesn’t have the patience to hook it up to his LCD TV via VGA. Add a $10 price tag for a one time viewing on top of that and its game over. Also, I have seen ZERO advertising for this outside of the Asian Film sites. How would a noon hard core fan even know this is out?

    For me, I have zero interest in VOD. If the film is good enough for me to have an interest in it, then I will purchase the DVD or Blue-ray. Why you ask? That’s just how I consume movies. Over the last 7 years I have invested in a 50 LCD HDTV, 2 Projectors with a 70” Pull down Screen, a PS3 (Blue-ray), a Region Free Momitsu DVD Player, and a decent 7.1 Home Audio tuner. So image all that junk setting downstairs in the den, and I’m watching the latest and greatest Hong Kong Action film on my 22” Widescreen computer monitor streaming over Comcast with computer 2 speakers. It’s just not for me. I see VOD being for people who have a passing interest in a film, or want to see the film on the go. But not for a home theater, Asian Martial Arts Action fan like myself. $10 is not a lot of money, but when you compare a download / stream to a DVD / Blu-ray, it’s game over.
  • tikkiexx
    im glad i have Time Warner Cable. i cant imagine having to watch PPVs on a PC. you just order the movie on TW and play it thru the cable box in HD. so at least you get full surround sound, but i think the movie is 720p. honestly if i hadnt seen the movie id be tempted to rent it or download it on my 360. and id be wasting 10 bucks because as cool as Ong Bak 2 is its not worth paying 10 bucks to be able to watch it for a day. one of the most unintentionally hilarious endings of all time. and one of the most dissapointing.
  • Dave
    From what i've heard, this movie definitely aint worth $10!
  • tikkiexx
    in this case it seems like a waste of time, but only because the movie has been on DVD for so long. like you say why pay 10 bucks to rent when you can buy the import for almost the same price. if they had of done this when the movie first came out or even when it first hit DVD i think it wouldve worked a lot better.
  • I'd imagine paying for a system with such a high defective rate in general's a rip-off, regardless of what you stream on it. ^_- Anyway, if I have anything to bitch about from the company, it's that it has yet to put out that "trilogy" from Ringo Lam, Johnny To, and Tsui Hark, "Triangle", on R1 dvd. [My bad, it is on dvd. A month ago, even. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0846017/dvd]

    "Why would anyone in the U.S. want to pay $10 or more to rent the movie now, especially when they could wait and rent it from Netflix for virtually nothing or purchase their own copy for roughly the same price? "

    Because they really like Tony Jaa and want to see him succeed here? Plus, Harvey's no longer going to rape OB2, as originally planned, so Magnolia deserves our support from saving it from being re-titled to "The Protector 2".
  • tikkiexx
    nice 360 dig. the newer models are reliable by the way. my first year 360 is still chugging along....for now. lol.
  • sheeky
    They sure are not doing much to discourage people from getting an illegal copy. I don't know how widespread this is, but I was up in MN recently, and at the Mall of America, there was a kiosk where you could buy a ton of martial arts DVD imports, including this one. Would have been $15. I try to support the distributors who bring films like this in by waiting to purchase it here, but stuff like that kind of makes you think 'why bother.'
  • tikkiexx
    i dunno if its a total ripoff. i guess its equivilant to watching a movie at home before it even comes out in the theatres hence the high price. and for people that dont want to go to the theatre i guess its ok. too rich for my blood tho, plus ive already seen it. lol. seems aimed at people that have a good tv set and surround sound. i wouldnt mind seeing other movies try this distrubution model tho. if it was Ninja Assassin or something id be all over this to be honest. my local theatre sucks.
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