Dolph is Jaa's new punching bag

Little is known about the picture so far, but Sia Jiang says Jean Claude Van Damme has pulled out as co-star, citing health reasons, and been replaced with Dolph Lundgren, a Swede swap for the Belgian, but muscles abound either way. Vitidhan Rojanapanich, best known as the first Thai to master Mount Everest, might be directing, or Jaa might, or both.

TwitchFilm.com recently posted photos from the shooting locale in Thailand and reported the movie’s “working subtitle” as “A Man Will Rise”. It says the story is about a local man who stands up to foreign gangsters in the 1950s. 

Lundgren, star of “A View to a Kill” and “Rocky IV”, on his own website calls the Thai film an action comedy.

It’s also heralded as Jaa’s first step to the “international” level, which seems a bit off the mark, given the global popularity of “Ong-Bak”. This is, however, Jaa’s first movie with a “famous” foreign actor co-starring.

 

Well flaunted

Rich people are often assured that, if they’ve got it, they can flaunt it, but actress Bongkot “Tak” Kongmalai came under social-network fire this week after posting an Instagram photo of the Bt7-million cheque she’d just given the abbot of Wat Pak Nam. “Doing a ‘little’ merit,” she declared. “Why? It’s my money. Hope everyone get some share of the merit.” 

Okay, she just married billionaire Boonchai Bencharongkul, but showing off a donation to a temple seemed awfully tacky to folks on the social media. Tuk reacted with surprising force for a woman who’s three months pregnant. “I want to show off like other people do,” she declared, unabashed. “Plenty of people post photos of their expensive bags and cars, so why can’t I show off when I make good karma?”

Touché!