Review: Salween (Gunman 2)

• Directed by Chatrichalerm Yukol
• Written by Sterling Silliphant and Chatrichalerm Yukol
  
• Starring Sorapong Chatree, Siricoup Methinee, Ron Rittichai, Chatchai Plengpanich, Nappon Gomarachun, Chalita Pattamapan
  
• Released in 1994; English-subtitled DVD released by Mangpong (out of print)
  
• Rating: 4/5

MC Chatrichalerm Yukol is famous for his "message" movies - films with a social conscience.

Salween is one with many, but the main one is about the Burma situation about 10 years ago when this movie was made. At the time the Karen army was fighting for independent statehood. I suppose they are still fighting today, though most factions of the Karens have been beaten.

The situation is tense on the Thai border, and coming into it is a rookie police commander, Lieutenant Danai (Siricoup Methinee, son of Sombat Methinee - Fah, the leader of the bandits in Tears of the Black Tiger).

He's right out of police academy and is the nephew of a high-ranking official. When he sees the sorry state of the policemen at this border town, he's aghast.

The first thing he sees is one of his officers, Sergeant Ram, shoot an already wounded man. The sergeant, it turns out, is the acting police chief and an old hand in this town. He has many grudges. Full of pathos, he's subtly played by Sorapong Chatree.

These opening scenes are the most solid part of the film. Before Danai's arrival, Ram had proceeded to slap a guy around. Turns out the guy was sent to town to kill Ram. With the help of the townspeople, including a drunk on the ground who stops a motorcycle, he defeats the gunman and his accomplice.

After the first 10 minutes, the film is less solid, as it degenerates into derivative melodrama.

The town is under the influence of a powerful businessman, a logger named Tweepong. He sells arms to the Karens in order to have access to teak forests on their lands. But he might side with the Burmese (including a swaggering colonel played by Ron Rittichai). He's playing both sides. Tweepong also likes to hunt butterflies.

Tweepong's son, Somsak (Nappon Gomarachun), is married to an actress, a beautiful woman named Kanda who's taken to the drink because she's ignored at home. This is some of the unnecessary melodrama. But she is later used as a plot device, so maybe she is necessary.

Much of the action takes place at night in the forest. Consequently, you can't see anything for 40 percent of the film. It would be okay if the night jungle fighting scenes, which are quite tense, with intermittent flashes revealing bits of the action -- weren't back-to-back with another night-fighting scene in which the police raid a gambling joint where a fugitive is holed up.

Other action doesn't make sense. At one point, the Karen army is being pursued by the Burmese. They hope to cross over into Thailand to escape. Idealistic Lieutenant Danai is there to stop them, according to the book, but seeing the reality of the Karens being mowed down in the river by the Burmese helicopter is too much. So he opens fire on the helicopter. Such action would create an international incident, I would have thought. But it comes to nothing.

At another point, Somsak crosses into Burma and shoots a guy. There is no reason for this, except to establish that Tweepong's son is not a very nice person.

This causes Danai and Ram to have to cross into Burma to retrieved Somsak. They tangle with yet another star, a Karen rebel commander named Tulay (Chatchai Plengpanich), who is seen throughout the film but really comes into his own during the latter third.

They work out a deal with Tulay to get Somsak, leading Chatchai to utter the really cool line: "This is Kawthoolei. Thai laws have no meaning here."

The title of the film, Salween, comes from the name of the river that forms one of the borders between Thailand and Burma (a country that is called Myanmar by the ruling military government). The film's alternate English title is Gunman 2, but it isn't a really sequel to 1983's Gunman (Mue Buen). But it has many of the same players and characters. Sorapong Chatree is the veteran gunhand. He had a limp in Gunman, but in this one his heart and his pride have been hurt. The woman who portrays the actress Kanda was in Gunman, playing essentially the same role as a drunken, neglected (and overly melodramatic) wife. Ron Rittichai, who chewed up the screen as the Black Hand in Gunman, has a much smaller role in Salween, but his character still has the aviator sunglasses and the swagger.