Cannes 2013: Mixed reviews for Only God Forgives, Chompoo on red carpet

Vithaya Pansringarm, Kristin Scott Thomas, Nicolas Winding Refn and Ratha Po-ngam at the daytime photocall for Only God Forgives in Cannes.

The blood-spattered Bangkok-set crime drama Only God Forgives premiered to boos and mixed reviews in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. The violence in the film has been turn-off for the squeamish critics, even though some of them liked the movie.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, Only God Forgives features his Drive star Ryan Gosling in the lead role.

However, Gosling didn't turn up at the premiere, and sent his regrets to festival director Terry Fremaux. He is in Detroit shooting his directorial debut How to Catch a Monster.

The Guardian rounds up some of the reactions, including a five-star review from The Guardian's own Peter Bradshaw in which he says "The first scenes made me think that Wong Kar-wai had made a new film called In the Mood for Fear or In the Mood for Hate."

Other round-ups are at and Metro. Reviews include Variety, Screen Daily, AV Club and the Vulture.

Liv Corfixen and her husband Nicholas Winding Refn hits the red carpet at Cannes with Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm and Ratha Po-ngam.

Some of the critical loathing is directed at Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays Gosling's venom-spewing mother. She forcefully calls on her gangster son to take revenge for the death of his brother. But others are praising her bold turn, which the actress herself has said left her unsettled by the time filming was over.

But it's Vithaya Pansringarm (profiled recently by The Nation) who plays the main antagonist, a sword-wielding former cop nicknamed the Angel of Vengeance who metes out his own form of justice. It's a breakout role for "Pooh" Vithaya, 50, who's only been acting for four years. He previously starred as the sleuthing monk in Tom Waller's Mindfulness and Murder and had bit parts in various foreign productions in Thailand, including The Hangover Part II. In real life, Vithaya is a kind, soft-spoken soul who runs a ballet school in Bangkok with his American wife. However, in the movie he pins a man to an armchair with knives and stabs him through the eye. Not unsurprisingly, he's earned the "badass" title and admiration from various quarters, including Twitch and First Showing. Hopefully, his appearance in Only God Forgives will be a shot in the arm for his and Waller's next project, The Last Executioner.

Singer-actress Ratha "Yaya Ying" Po-ngam, among the stars in the recent Jan Dara remake, also appears in Only God Forgives, playing Gosling's girlfriend Mai. She, Vithaya and Scott Thomas joined the director on the Cannes red carpet and at a daytime photocall. Vithaya, as promised, waved the Thai cultural flag, turning up on the red carpet in a Siamese cut jacket and traditional black silk "jong kraben" trousers.

Also in Cannes is Madame Ho actress "Chompoo" Araya A. Hargate. However, she isn't there as part of any movie, she's representing l'Oreal Thailand. Wearing a frilly green gown, she hit Tuesday's red carpet premiere for Behind the Candelabra, the Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon and directed for HBO by Steven Soderbergh. And on Wednesday, she turned up in a slinky black number for All Is Lost.

Chompoo is at Cannes representing l'Oreal. She attended premieres for Behind the Candelabra, left, and All Is Lost.

Cannes 2013: Peru checks in for Long Weekend

At the Cannes market, Thongsuk 13 (ทองสุก 13), a.k.a. Long Weekend, was picked up by Eurofilms Perú for distribution in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, according to Film Business Asia.

The first release from a new production shingle, Wave Pictures, international sales for Thongsuk 13 are being handled by Five Star Production, which also found buyers in Asian territories for 3AM: The Second Night, another entry in Five Star's exploration into the realm of 3D horror.

The slasher-thriller Thongsuk 13, directed by Taweewat Wantha, was featured at last month's Udine Far East Film Festival, where Film Biz Asia's Derek Elley gave it a reasonable review.

Also worth a read at Film Biz Asia is the recent report, Good times, bad times. It's a look at the current state of the Thai film industry, from such highlights as the record-breaking box-office success of Pee Mak Phra Khanong and high-profile foreign productions like Lost in Thailand and Only God Forgives, to the problems, such as the continued censorship and banning of films and the failure to deliver on promised incentives to foreign productions, which could lead to film shoots choosing Malaysia instead of Thailand.

Pen-ek secures limited release for Paradoxocracy

Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิปไตย, Prachathipatai), Pen-ek Ratanaruang's documentary of Thailand's modern political history, is set for release at the end of next month.

According to the movie's Facebook page, it'll get a limited run at Paragon Cineplex and Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada in Bangkok from June 24 to July 3.

A pet project of Pen-ek's, Paradoxocracy was cleared by censors early in the year and was set for release in February. However, it ended up being delayed, with the blame at first attributed to "technical problems" but Pen-ek later admitted he'd encountered difficulties in finding a venue to screen it.

Featuring a mix of archive footage and talking-head interviews with academics, Paradoxocracy covers such topics as the switch from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy in the 1930s and the violent political protests of the 1970s to the rise in political power of populist telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra.

A trailer is available on Facebook, and it's embedded below.

Pee Mak reaches No. 1

According to a story in The Nation today, the horror-comedy Pee Mak Phra Khanong has earned 556 million baht, surpassing the previous Thai box-office record holder, MC Chatrichalerm Yukol's 2001 royal epic Suriyothai.

The new record can be attributed to increases in ticket prices over the years – nearly double since 2001 – as well as the opening of more and more mall multiplexes across the Kingdom. What's surprising is that a mega-hit to beat Suriyothai didn't happen sooner.

Opening on March 28, GTH's monster is still in cinemas. As a "thank you" to fans, the studio has a promotion going until tomorrow, offering discounted tickets for 80 baht – see it again, and give them even more money!

It was No. 1 at the Thai box office for five consecutive weeks before dropping to No. 2 over the weekend of May 2-5, being bumped from the week-on-week top spot by Iron Man 3, which is holding on even after this past weekend's release of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Pee Mak should easily be the No. 1 movie of the year in Thailand, having clobbered other Thai releases, such as studio M-Thirtynine's weepy World War II romance Khoo Kam and Chookiat Sakveerakul's teenage coming-of-age comedy Grean Fictions, as well as the Hollywood blockbuster G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Meanwhile, The Nation's story today deals with the idiotic rumor that Pee Mak is "banned in China". The nonsense is thanks to lamentations circulated on a Thai website by Pee Mak leading man Mario Maurer, who expressed his dire wishes that the movie would get released on the Mainland.

However, according to director Banjong Pisanthanakun, Pee Mak isn't banned in China, officially anyway, because no deals have been made with distributors there, though interest has been shown. Nonetheless, it's doubtful Pee Mak will ever screen in China, thanks to prohibitions against the "ghost movies" and the "third sex" that are staples of the Thai film industry.

Plus, there's the strict quota that only allows a handful of foreign films each year. Thai officials are lobbying for China to bend the rules to allow more films from other Asian countries. But as long as Iron Man is powered by a Chinese milk drink, it's going to be tough for other countries to compete with Hollywood for a toehold in China.

Oh well, at least there's Hong Kong, where Pee Mak opens this week, followed by Cambodia next week, Malaysia on June 6, Singapore on June 13 and Taiwan on August 9.

With Pee Mak topping the box office and being so phenomenonally successful, the pressure is on. Other Thai studios are surely taking stock of the productions on their books, and looking for ways to compete with GTH's slick marketing machine.

And even other GTH directors are feeling the pressure, among them Sophon "Jim" Sakdaphisit, who is tasked with coming up with the studio's next big hit this year. Now, he's no slouch, having written and directed the 2011 No. 1 movie Laddaland as well as having a hand in writing the international hit horrors Shutter and Alone. But rather than deal with the scrutiny, Sophon has dropped off the grid, according to a recent Soopsip column in The Nation. He will likely re-emerge once the stretchy-armed shadow of Pee Mak has retreated a bit.

Industry has plenty to celebrate at Cannes Thai Night 2013

Along with the return of the Thai Pitch event at the Cannes Film Festival, this Saturday, May 18, is also the date for the Thai film industry's glitzy annual Thai Night celebration.

And, despite there being no entries from Thai directors in this year's festival, the bigwigs feel they have much to celebrate, as detailed in this press release:

Presided by Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, Thai Night Cannes 2013 will be the occasion to celebrate another banner year for the Thai film industry.

Entirely shot in Thailand, Nicolas Winding Refn's new thriller Only God Forgives, one of the most anticipated films of the year, will premiere at the festival in official competition. The film features veteran Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm and pop star Yaya Ying alongside Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott-Thomas.

Another highlight of the past year is the Chinese film Lost in Thailand, written and directed by Xu Zheng. Shot in Thailand with the financial support of the Thai Ministry of Tourism, the comedy went on to become the highest grossing Chinese film of all time, netting over $200 million in China alone, where it beat the previous records held by Avatar and Titanic in numbers of tickets sold. Abe Kwong, producer of Lost in Thailand, will be at Thai Night to share this extraordinary success story.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. In 2012, Thailand hosted 53 international film productions, a 45 percent increase over 2011 and an absolute record for the country.

This remarkable growth is not only due to the country's breathtaking sceneries, the world class quality of its hospitality services and its competitive production costs. In recent years, the local film industry has gone through a rapid period of modernization and internationalization, and now offers among the most skilled film crews and technical services available in Asia.

The local industry's coming of age is also apparent in the rising strength of Thai cinema itself, which boasts critically-acclaimed auteurs such as Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul along with a new wave of genre directors such as Chookiat Sakveerakul, whose high concept thriller 13: Game of Death is being given Hollywood remake treatment by Daniel Stamm under the title Angry Little God, and Banjong Pisanthanakun, director of the brand new horror-comedy Pee Mak Phra Khanong, which is smashing all records at the Thai box office.

All these accomplishments will be at the centre of Thai Night 2013 - Where Films Come Alive, an exclusive event organized by the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP), an agency of the Royal Thai Ministry Of Commerce, during the Cannes Film Festival.

Thai Night Cannes 2013 will be held in Cannes on Saturday May 18th, 2012 at 6pm.

Thai Pitch returns to Cannes with four more new projects

After a five-year absence, the Thai Pitch returns this year to the Cannes Film Festival, bringing projects by Aditya Assarat, Boonsong Nakphoo, Pimpaka Towira and Somkiat Vithuranich to the Thai Pavilion on the Crossette.

Supported by the Culture Ministry, the Thai Pitch will be held on Saturday, May 18 at the Thai Pavilion. Producer Raymond Phathanavirangoon (Headshot) is the coordinator.

Here's the four projects:

A Culinary Murder, directed by Somkiat Vithuranich (October Sonata), produced by Pawas Sawatchaiyamet (Headshot, Red Eagle) – Born poor and raised as the kitchen maid to a wealthy, corrupt family, Anoma spends her childhood learning that the secrets to a man’s heart lie in his stomach. Enticed by her developed Thai culinary skills and arresting beauty, the gluttonous master of the house marries Anoma. She feeds him well, but as the years pass his rotten core poisons their relationship.

The General’s Secret, produced and directed by Pimpaka Towira (One Night Husband, The Truth Be Told) – Rian, young and idealistic NGO worker, lives with her mother who suffers from a chronic back pain. One day, she finds her mother's condition has gotten better after receiving a homeopathic massage therapy from an "auntie". The woman soon becomes a part of Rian and her mother's daily lives, but Rian starts to develop an inner conflict and decides to find out the auntie's secret. Incredibly, it goes back to the roots of Thailand's modern political history.

The Way Back, directed by Boonsong Nakphoo (the Deauville award-winner Four Stations, Poor People the Great), produced by Pantham Thongsang (Tropical Malady, Mid-Road Gang, Ai-Fak) – Sueb, the protagonist, decides to leave Bangkok behind and bring his family. Life in the countryside initially seems to be as joyful as anticipated, until stresses gradually pile up. In reality, life outside the cities is not easy.

The White Buffalo, directed by Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town, Hi-So), prodcued by Aditya, Soros Sukhum (Mundane History, P-047) – Peter, a European, is married to a Thai woman and living in her village in Northeastern Thailand. Their situation reflects the colonial past, when white men came to the East to exploit and build their own paradise. But today, the balance of power has changed. The European is large only in body. He is no match for the cunning and deceit of the Thais.

Sweding lives again in Thai Iron Man 3 parody trailer

The Fedfe Iron Man Corps. Photo via Facebook.

"Sweding", the trend of lo-fi, back-yard remakes of blockbuster movies that became popular with director Michel Gondry's 2008 Jack Black romp Be Kind Rewind, lives on in Thailand, thanks to a comedy collective known as the Fedfe Boyband.

Fedfe's Thai-sweded Iron Man 3 trailer has racked up more than 900,000 views since being posted on YouTube on April 25, and has been incessantly blogged, reblogged and tweeted about.

The fake trailer has made its way into the mainstream media, with The Nation's Soopsip saying it was featured on Thai TV's Channel 3, and had the morning-show hosts in stitches.

The tattooed Tony Stark's Iron Man suits are made of underwear, body paint and cardboard. His swanky ocean-cliff Malibu pad is a joss paper mansion that's destroyed by toy helicopters. Special effects consist of the actors holding sparklers in their hands and running. Skydiving stunts involve wriggling around on the ground.

The Fedfeclip YouTube channel also includes a comparison video, just so you can see the guy in the blonde wig giving Gwyneth Paltrow a run for her money, though the less said about the guy in blackface standing in for Don Cheadle the better.

Thumbs-up "likes" of the original video (embedded below) number around 19,000 versus zero thumbs-down dislikes. Comments number around 2,830, mostly compliments – "Thailand is the new Sweden", "Thai-Ron Man", etc. – and requests for more "sweded" trailers, such as the upcoming Fast and Furious 6  (I'd vote for a Fedfe version of Star Trek Into Darkness).

The group's worldwide fame has also boosted "likes" on the Fedfe Facebook page.

Fedfe started posting clips on YouTube around a year ago, beginning with Jackass-like pranks before moving on to parodies of boyband music videos.

With fame from their Iron Man 3 video, perhaps the group will be picked up by a TV production company or maybe even get a film deal. However, if either of those things happen, I hope they'll keep their raw edge and not simply become dumbed-down clones of the clowns already on Thai TV and in Thai comedy movies.

Yuthlert gives up hope on Fatherland

While opponents of film censorship in Thailand chalked up a rare victory with the recent banning and unbanning of the Thai-Cambodian border documentary Boundary, it appears the fight has been lost on another politically sensitive film, Yuthlert Sippapak's Deep South action-drama Fatherland (ปิตุภูมิ พรมแดนแห่งรัก, Pitupoom).

The Thai social media was buzzing yesterday after Yuthlert posted a cryptic message on Facebook, translated as: "It's certain now that Thais will not be able to watch this film. Thank you." He signed off with a frowny-face emoticon.

Yuthlert's comments led to stories in the Thai mass media, including Thai Rath and Prachachat.

According to a story in The Nation, it appears that the backer of Fatherland has gotten cold feet and decided not to release the drama, which deals with the complex issues of separatist violence in Thailand's Muslim Deep South. The matter is especially sensitive right now, due to embattled peace talks that have just started between the Thai government and a small faction of the insurgents.

Long in the works, production was wrapped on Fatherland last August. Trailers surfaced (embedded below) and posters were made. It was penciled in for release last December, but never materialized.

Fatherland was highly anticipated, thanks to its popular stars, leading man Ananda Everingham, plus actor "Wier" Sukolwat Kanaret and Pee Mak Phra Khanong starlet "Mai" Davika Hoorne. Appetites were further whetted with slick-looking production stills.

The film, which captures the problems in southern Thailand through the eyes of two police officers and a female Muslim scholar, looked to be yet another serious shift for Yuthlert, a prolific director who is famous for his frequent genre-jumping but is mainly known for his action and horror comedies, Killer Tattoo and the Buppha Ratree series. His more recent films, the hitman films Saturday Killer and Friday Killer, have been more serious in tone while still retaining many comedic elements and starring noted comedians.

The case of Fatherland not being released is made murky by the fact that it hasn't been submitted to the censorship board for rating. So it's not banned, officially. Instead, it appears to be a case of self-censorship by the film's backers who fear it's not liable to be approved for release because it deals with issues that are too politically sensitive.

The Nation story included comments by film critic and blogger Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, better known as Filmsick:

"This is a society that just doesn’t want to debate. Something is missing in our [social] structure."

“Maybe they just want to ‘play safe’ by not screening it,” he said, adding that he had heard some movie theatres were reportedly reluctant as well.

“In the end it has crippled [society], because now everyone engages in self-censorship, which is an indicator that we are not free. This a problem that is very difficult to solve.”

Read the rest of the article for more comments.

Countdown wins runner-up at FEFF15

Nattawut "Baz" Poonpiriya at the Far East Film Festival in Udine. Photo via Facebook.

Countdown added a runner-up prize to its trophy shelf at the 15th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy.

Film Business Asia details the other winners, the South Korean romantic comedy How to Use Guys with Secret Tips, which took the top-prize Audience Award, the other runner-up, Hong Kong martial-arts actioner Ip Man: The Final Fight, and the Black Dragon Audience Award to Taiwan's Touch of the Light.

Countdown director Nattawut "Baz" Poonpiriya was among the festival guests. His debut feature, Countdown was adapted from his student short film shot in New York. It won several awards this season for its performance by David Asavanond as an unhinged drug dealer named Jesus who terrorizes three Thais in their apartment on New Year's Eve.

Also at the FEFF was Chookiat Sakveerakul, supporting the screening of Home.  Other Thai entries in the fest were the gangster drama Antapal, the nine-segment horror 9-9-81 (recently reviewed at Film Business Asia) and Thongsuk 13, a.k.a. Long Weekend.

Further coverage of FEFF 15 is at the Coventry East Asian Film Society, including a review of Home.

Boundary unbanned, censors apologize for 'mistake'

In a surprising and historic move, the Thai censors have admitted they were wrong, saying their decision to ban the documentary Boundary (ฟ้าต่ำแผ่นดินสูง, Fahtum Pandinsoong), was incorrect.

Directed by Nonatwat Numbenchapol, the film about the politically sensitive topic of Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple and the Thai-Cambodian border dispute, has been rated 18+ and cleared for release with one very minor change.

Here's the explanation from the film's Facebook page:

The Film and Video Board, attached to the Office of Cultural Promotion, contacted the filmmaker of Boundary on Thursday to apologize for the “technical mistake” regarding the ban order on Tuesday, April 23. The filmmaker was informed that the ban order was the decision of a sub-committee that in fact has no authority to issue such verdict. Only the main committee has the jurisdiction to do so. When the main committee saw the film on Thursday, April 25, they decided to let the film pass. Also, before banning any movie, the committee is required to allow its director to defend himself, but that didn’t happen on Tuesday.

However, the censors asked the director to remove two seconds of ambient sound in an early scene. That scene is the New Year’s celebration at the Ratchaprasong Intersection during which an MC announces on stage: “Let’s count down to celebrate HM the King’s 84th anniversary”. The censors expressed concerns that this might lead to misinterpretation.

The filmmaker realizes that the sound has no significance to the story of the film and agreed to mute it.

The sub-committee who banned the films cited several inappropriate issues and presentation, but the main committee does not object to any of them. Besides those two seconds of audio, the entire film remains intact.

Citing concerns about national security, the subcomittee had earlier objected to text that referred "nearly 100 deaths" during the crackdown on the 2010 red-shirt anti-government protests, as well as a Cambodian soldier's monologue criticizing the Thai government. The censorship sub-committee was also worried about nudity (a little crying Cambodian boy bouncing up and down on his toy car if I remember correctly).

And there was concerns that the film's Thai title Fahtum Pandinsoong, literally "low sky, high land", was a reference to the monarchy, which Nontawat denied in a story in The Nation today.

The five-man censorship panel under the Culture Ministry cited risk of creating misinformation and rifts in society for banning it, considering the film as a threat to national security and bilateral relations between Thailand and Cambodia. The committee also cited the title of the film as possibly creating a negative impression of the Thai monarchy because the word 'fah' or sky, can also be used as a casual alternate reference to the monarchy and the film's title stated the sky is low.

Nontawat, a Bangkokian, said he was surprised by the ban, but vowed to fight on. "Since they are not banning my life, I can speak, write and convey my message as to how real local people think about the issue." He also denied his film had anything to do with the issue of the monarchy, saying that the title of the film was adopted from an old love song dated from the 1970s about how people who think differently should be able to coexist.

But now Boundary, which premiered at the Berlin International Festival and also screened at Salaya Doc, has been cleared for release, and the initial confusion over it being banned should help other filmmakers clear hurdles as well as clarify the procedures for the authorities in charge of enforcing the film law.