Doctors upset about Cadaver

Hardly a week can go by in Thailand without a newly released movie upsetting someone.

The offender this week is a horror film called Cadaver, which has physicians up in arms, according to Soopsip in The Nation on Wednesday.

The Thai title of the film was Ajaan Yai, which is the Thai term for cadavers used for medical school training. It means "the principal" and is meant to be a term of respect for those who donate their bodies for research.

In the movie, the donation of the cadaver is being used to cover up a crime, but to be able to rest in peace, the dead man's spirit asks for help from a terrified young female student (Natthamonkarn Srinikornchot) to track down his murderer.

Doctors were offended by the film's title, which they said makes like of a time-honored term of respect.

To stem the outrage, the title of the film has been changed to Sop, which means simply "corpse".

"We're doing everything we can to comply with the requests of the group in order to be able to release the film on schedule," Sahamongkol Film marketing director Awika Techaratanaprasert is quoted as saying. "We have already called back all the promotional materials they found offensive and have put out information to make it clear that this is a work of fiction, not a true story."

Now, for my part, I'm not normally into the horror movies. They're too scary. But I've seen Audition, so how bad can this be? So yeah, I'm interested in seeing this, and this was before it become mildly controversial.

Meanwhile, Ghost Game, a movie that Cambodians found offensive because it made light of the Khmer Rouge horrors, has been shown in Singapore as part of the Sawasdee Film Festival. Channel NewsAsia has a review.

See also:

• Movieseer synopsis
• Trailer at YouTube

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)