Muay Thai - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Interest in Muay Thai has risen in the past decade, due to the popularity of martial arts in film and television. The most notable practitioner of Muay Thai is Tony Jaa, who is best known for his roles in Tom-Yum-Goong and the Ong Bak films, all released in the 2000s. One of the first western films that included Muay Thai was Kickboxer (1989), which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme. Chocolate (2008), starring Yanin Vismitananda, is another action movie that featured a combination of muay Thai and Chinese martial arts, demonstrating the system's increasingly broad appeal.

Muay Thai has been represented in many fighting video games as well. Sagat and Adon from Street Fighter, Joe Higashi, King, and Hwa Jai from King of Fighters, Zack from Dead or Alive, Bruce Irvin from Tekken, Brad Burns from Virtua Fighter, and Jax Briggs from Mortal Kombat, are all exponents of muay Thai.

Another reference to muay Thai is its use in the anime/manga, Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple. Apachai Hopachai, one of the Masters of Ryozanpaku is called, in episode 48, "The Death God of the Muay Thai Underworld"; he is also shown to have difficulty controlling his power as well. This stems from his lifelong exposure to ruthless opponents in death-match fights.

Most recently muay Thai has seen an influx in onscreen exposure with the likes of The Contender Asia (2006) and The Challenger Muay Thai (2011), which was shown on AXN in Asia and aired worldwide in 2012.