Panom Yeerum was
born on February 5, 1976 in the northeastern province of
Surin,
Thailand. His parents were elephant herders. Panom watched martial arts films as a
young kid and began to emulate some of his idols, from
Bruce Lee to
Jackie Chan to
Jet Li. After seeing the 1986 Thai action film \"
Born to Fight\", Panom met and studied martial arts and stuntwork as a
teen under the director of that film,
Panna Rittikrai. Panom went to
university where he studied a variety of martial arts, from taekwondo to judo. It was not
long before Panom would get work, doubling for
Robin Shou and
James Remar in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) and when his
demo reel was seen by director
Prachya Pinkaew, the film Ong-bak was created for Panom, who is now going by the
name of \"
Tony Jaa\" in
hopes to bring his style of action to
international audiences.
; "Tony Ja")
button beside categories below to add/edit content
+163
