Mercury rising

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm starting to get a little excited about seeing Mercury Man, though with less than a week to go before its August 10 opening, the hype in Thailand isn't nearly as palpable as it was for Tom Yum Goong (or The Protector or Warrior King or whatever you want to call it).

No matter. There's still plenty going on. Deknang has a couple of pages to gander at. First, there's a look at what's apparently a Mercury Man comic book and a gallery of five new posters.

Twitch has been posting like crazy about Mercury Man. Their latest posting has a link to a downloadable trailer (also on the movie's website).

The movie is directed by Bhandit Thongdee, produced by Prachya Pinkaew (and his Baa-Ram-Ewe production marque) and features action choreography by Panna Rittikrai. Among the stars is model-actress Metinee Kingpayome, Miss Thailand World 1992, whom I last saw (it's been years now) in Province 77. She's playing an icy villain.

Meanwhile, there's just a bit more news to go along with this post.

There's also a crew of three martial-arts actors from France who go by the name Tri-X. They approached Prachya in Cannes and asked to be in his next movie. So they are in Mercury Man, somewhere.

And they are in a short film that's been shot in 360-degree format by Prachya and is showing at AIS Future World at Siam Paragon in Bangkok, according to an apparently print-only article in Thursday's Nation (Surreal Sound, August 3, 2006, page 16A, by Parinyaporn Pajee).

In the short, the Tri-X team appears in an empty warehouse and rescues a girl from a band of high-kicking villains. "The experience is so realistic," gushes The Nation, "that it appears as if audiences are instinctively warding off blows."

Guess I'd better submit myself.

The 360 film is produced by Fat Radio's (and House cinema's) "Ted" Yuthana Boon-orm, who also made a music video for the screening.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)