Review: Busaba Bold & Beautiful (Suay Sing Krating Sab)

• Directed by Pisuth Praesaeng-iam
• Starring Suvanant Kongying, Weeraphap Suphappaibul,
• Supakorn Kitsuwan, Charutpong Surasawadee, Kirk Schiller, Achita Sikamana
• Released in Thailand cinemas on January 24, 2008
• Rating: 2/5

Two guys, a girl, and a large, stolen sapphire could make for a decent screwball comedy or crime thriller.

But in Busaba Bold & Beautiful (Suay Sing Krating Sab), amidst jokes about explosive diarrhea, a smelly corpse in an ambulance, transvestite hookers and an endless parade of comedians and funny-looking folk, somehow the fact that there were two guys and a girl, with the makings of the typical love triangle, was forgotten.


Too many characters, an overly confusing story and frayed plot threads involve the large blue gemstone and multiple double-crosses as it is stolen from thieves by another thief by another thief and another.


Tears of the Black Tiger and Monrak Transistor star Supakorn Kitsuwan gets third billing in this crime comedy that stars soaps actress Suvanant Kongying and TV star Weeraphap Suphappaibul.

Charutpong Surasawadee plays Banharn, the leader of a bumbling crew of gangsters that includes Ampon Rattanawong (who acted opposite Supakorn in Monrak). They are trying to track down Heng (Kirk Schiller), a participant in a heist of gemstones from some Westerners. Heng slinked away from the daring daylight robbery and switched the gems with some fakes. Achita Sikamana is a (fashionable) plainclothes police captain trying to solve the heist.

Supakorn and Weeraphap portray Pod and Ad, a pair of small-time crooks. They are introduced running through alleyways as they are being chased by some other gangsters. The scene could be referencing a similiar chase scene from Monrak Transistor. It ends with a joke, as Pod and Ad ask a couple of men in police uniforms to stop the gangsters from beating them up. But the police say they are powerless. It is then revealed that they have stumbled onto a movie set, with director Thanit Jitnukul playing an assistant director.

Not sure what this set-up was for, but it was easily the best and funniest scene in the film.

Pod and Ad are former thieves who run a restaurant in Bangkok where they take in stolen goods to fence. They are visited one day by a man (Black Phomtong, the sugar cane overseer from Monrak Transistor) from their village who wants them to find Dao, a girl from the village who is the marry the village chief's son.

Ad and Pod catch up with the girl Dao in Siam Square, where she is working a scam as a pickpocket. They keep her at their house for the night, and then take her the next day to Hualumphong Station to be put on a train back to the village. Here is where they encounter Heng, who is fleeing from Banharn and his men. Ad and Pod know Heng from their days as thieves. In much confusion, Ad and Pod end up in a car with Heng, while Dao is the driver of another car with Banharn's men. Shooting is involved, and Dao is understandably upset that Pod and Ad fired upon the car she was driving, even if there were bad guys in it. She gets rid of the bad buys in a clever move by stopping at a police checkpoint to ask for directions.

Chases and double-crosses ensue amidst much forced hilarity, and trying to think about it all is not worth the effort right now. The climax takes place at the Dreamworld theme park in Bangkok, where Dao dresses up in a cow costume and the boys confront the crooks in the snow.

The ironically named Banharn gets the last laugh with a joke that he will use his influence to escape justice, and he'll move to England and buy Manchester United.