The words "Quentin Tarantino Presents" have come to represent something very specific to film audiences, especially those who thrive on the adrenaline-infused B-pictures from the Far East that Tarantino has delighted in introducing to American filmgoers. "The Protector," starring the Thai action hero Tony Jaa, lives up to Tarantino's imprimatur, both in its cheesy grind house aesthetic and its occasional forays into brilliant, bravura filmmaking. (See In Focus on Page 29.)

Jaa, who burst on the festival scene three years ago in "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior," here plays Kham, whose family for generations has looked after the prized elephants of the Thai kings. When two of Kham's beloved elephants are stolen and smuggled into Australia, Kham travels to Sydney, where he runs afoul of the police, the venomous chief of a local crime syndicate and all manner of baddies who look like they just came from a casting call at Looney Tunes.

"The Protector," which reteams Jaa with "Ong-Bak" writer and director Prachya Pinkaew, opens with stirring scenes of the young Kham at work and play with his magnificent animals, and for a minute audiences may think they're in the presence of something of actual poetry and substance. But soon enough Pinkaew reverts to type and puts Jaa through his paces as a one-man CGI effect -- kicking, punching, flying and dancing his way through Sydney's Thai underworld. Oh, and add the verb "shattering" to that list; Pinkaew and Jaa don't let one pane of glass go unbroken, whether it's a car window or a fluorescent bulb that's wielded like a Jedi light saber.

Pinkaew often dives into the action sequences too fast, and although Jaa is an appealing performer with a winsome face to offset an amazingly contoured collection of muscles, and his elephant co-stars are certainly charismatic, there's not much here for anyone who isn't a die-hard, unreconstructed chop-socky junkie.

-- Ann Hornaday (Sep. 8, 2006)

Contains pervasive strong violence and some sexual content.