Cherd Songsri Retrospective review: Puen Pang

• Directed by Cherd Songsri
• Starring Sorapong Chatree, Chanutporn Wisitthasopon and Kanungnit Rirsasarn
• Reviewed on September 30, 2007 as part of the Cherd Songsri Retrospective
• Wise Kwai's rating: 5/5

Made five years after his landmark Plae Kao, Cherd Songsri's Puen Pang packs a harder emotional wallop than the earlier film, with a more tightly focused story about a young man and his relationship with two sisters.

Like Plae Kao, Puen Pang is set in rural Siam of the 1930s. It is an epic story about Lor (Sorapong Chatree), an orphan boy who was adopted by the father of two girls, Puen and Pang. Even in childhood, it's assumed that Lor will one day marry the eldest, most favored daughter, Puen, and not the younger, clowning, clumsy Pang. But when Pang is in trouble as a child, it is Lor who comes to the girl's rescue - a theme that is revisited later in the story.

In young adulthood, Puen is the more attractive of the sisters, but is vain, teasing and non-committal in her relationship with Lor. Pang, meanwhile, is more down-to-earth and eager to please, and she's always turning up in the rice fields to pester Lor. Singing and dancing, every time Pang shows up, you just know there is going to be trouble for poor Lor.

When it's finally agreed that Lor will indeed marry Puen, a date is set. Puen tells Lor in no uncertain terms that he should stop being friendly to Pang, and Lor follows suit. But the poor boy is conflicted, and, after telling Pang off one night, he sits outside brooding until he passes out. He wakes up covered with mosquito bites and malaria.

Taken to Bangkok for medical treatment by a wealthy aunt, Puen and Pang accompany the comatose Lor. In the big city, Puen is courted by a cousin, Boonpeng, despite warnings that Boonpeng is a ladies man and will only hurt Puen's feelings. Pang, meanwhile, watches over Lor, and her love for Lor deepens as she sees her sister wooed by car rides, pretty dresses, dance dates and tennis lessons.

Lor does wake up, and they all return to the farm, where Lor eventually confronts his true feelings for Pang, with disastrous results.

While overtly melodramatic, the strong performances by Sorapong Chatree (he enters the picture standing atop a galloping water buffalo!), Chanutporn Wisitthasopon as Pang and Kanungnit Rirsasarn as Puen, make this film eminently watchable. The story speaks volumes about relationships, selfishness, inner desire, true love and vanity, and how all those things can come into conflict.

The movie left me an emotional wreck, and it was all I could do to keep from blubbering as I met actress Chanutporn, who was present for the screening, and told her how amazing she was in the film. Quite a few other fans were similarly affected, and the outpouring of nostalgia made Chanutporn a bit tearful herself as she posed for photos alongside a display of Cherd Songsri.


Capsule reviews

• Am Daeng Muen Kab Nai Rid (Muen and Rid, 1994) -- Muen and Rid opens with a bit of shocker - Jintara Sukapat's bare breasts! And it's those bare breasts that a young Buddhist monk named Rid, portrayed by Santisuk Promsri, cannot get out of his mind, even as he meditates in front of a human skeleton, reminding him that the flesh is just a vessel for suffering and ego. Jintara's Muen also can't get the monk out of her mind. The monk rescued the struggling, topless Muen from a raging river at the beginning of the film. In doing so, he touched her flesh, and that makes him her husband. It's true love. To be close to the monk, the plucky and resourceful Muen pesters Rid's elderly abbot to let her attend classes at the temple, not knowing she would be making herself a pioneer for women's rights in Rama IV-era Siam - women just didn't do that sort of thing. There was a saying back then, "Woman is buffalo, but man is human," which stemmed from the fact that women could be openly and freely sold or given away by their fathers, in order to pay debts. Such is the case with Muen when her alcoholic, gambling-addicted dad sells her to the wealthy owner of a Buddha-statue factory - a guy with a huge empire and many wives already. Any other woman would probably go for the arrangement, but the determined Muen is different - she dares to use her brain. The case of Muen and Rid becomes a legal battle, with a trial held in an open-air pavilion. Eventually, the fugitive Muen petitions King Mongkut, who agrees with her, setting into motion equal rights for women in Thailand. Though made in 1994, the film feels much older than that, which is in keeping with the timeless quality of most of Cherd Songsri's films. (4/5)
• Tawipob (Another World, 1990) -- The story of a time-travelling young socialite who finds a more meaningful life in Rama V-era Siam than 1988 Bangkok, I was beguiled by the wide-eyed leading lady, Janjira Joojeang. While still a loopy, somewhat disjointed affair with the disco-light time-travel sequences through the looking glass, it's superior to the 2004 remake, The Siam Renaissance, because it relies on genuine emotion and decent, measured acting rather than slickness and gimmicky plot changes that detract from the message of the novel. I wish I would have seen this before I'd seen Siam Renaissance three years ago. (3/5)
• Plae Kao (The Scar, 1977) -- This landmark film is, I guess, the alpha and omega of Thai melodrama. Though there were Thai films before it, ever since then any Thai television or film melodramatic references Plae Kao, sometimes overtly, but mostly subconsciously. It has everything: feuding fathers, a headstrong young woman (Nantana Ngaokrachang), a determined hero (Sorapong Chatree), a rich-boy villian (Setha Sirichaya) and even a rich woman who adopts the young woman because she looks like the rich woman's dead daughter! But Plae Kao has plenty of heart, as well as water buffalo. Mainly, it's a tour de force for Sorapong Chatree, who sings and plays his bamboo flute to win the heart of his Riam. The Romeo and Juliet story of ill-fated lovers living in rural, 1936 Bang Kapi, there are even a few chuckles. One was when Sorapong's character, Kwan, goes in search of Riam, who has been sold into slavery to a rich woman in Bangkok (hey, I thought that had been outlawed in 1865!). Not realizing how big Bangkok really was, the naive Kwan asks around, but nobody will give him the time of day, except for an old codger boatman, who tells Kwan he'll just have to look for where Riam is staying himself. (4/5)

In all, five films were shown in the Cherd Songsri Retrospective, organized by the Thai Film Foundation. Sadly, I was unable to see one of them, Ploy Talay (The Gem from the Deep, 1987).

There was some talk about possibly releasing the films on DVD, and I think it's a great idea. Cherd envisioned his films as a way to promote his concept of "Thainess" to international audiences, which would seem perfect for an overseas venture, such as the Criterion Collection, rather than just limiting the films to the Thai market. By giving the films as wide an audience as possible, there could possibly be no more appropriate tribute to the late director.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes and Bangkok Cinema Scene)

Review: Bangkok Love Story

• Written and directed by Poj Arnon
• Starring Rattanaballang Tohsawat, Chaiwat Tongsang, Weeradit Srimalai,
• Chatcha Rujinanon
• Released in Thailand cinemas on September 13, 2007

A shootout in a Buddha factory.

If all I had to do was write that sentence as a means of critical response to Bangkok Love Story, I would be very happy indeed, because then I could move to more enjoyable matters. Unfortunately, there is a bit more to tell about this film, which will likely gain what stature it can in pop culture as the "Thai Brokeback Mountain" or maybe "that gay hitman movie".

Written and directed by Poj Arnon, Bangkok Love Story, or simply Puen (Friend), is the tale of two young guys who weren't looking for love when they first met. Thrown together in odd circumstances, they are sort of dumbstruck at first by lust, and love comes later -- a lot later.

Poj has said he had the idea for the story long before Brokeback Mountain was made into a smash-hit, Oscar-winning film. But since Brokeback, it's lot easier to get a movie like Bangkok Love Story made, and like it or not, comparisons will be drawn.

Bangkok Love Story is about a loner hitman named Mhek (Cloud), played by Rattanaballang Tohsawat, who supports his HIV-positive mother and brother (Mhok, or Fog) with his assassination jobs. His usual hits are simple, walk-by affairs: sneak up, pull the trigger and run away. But for his next assignment, Cloud must kidnap a guy named It (or Stone), played by Chaiwat Tongsang, and bring him to his scar-faced bosses (including Ong-Bak baddie Suchao Pongwilai).

The confrontation with the bosses goes awry, with Cloud declaring he won't kill Stone because Stone's a good guy and Cloud only kills dirtbags. The aforementioned shoot-out in the Buddha factory occurs, with Cloud taking a bullet, Stone picking up Cloud's gun and returning fire, and then the two guys escaping and eventually holing up in Cloud's rooftop hideaway. Stone then digs the bullet out of Cloud's shoulder, and, while wearing nothing but his undershorts, proceeds to give cloud a sponge bath. The two men hide out, usually wearing nothing but their undershorts. They sneakily stare at one another, and finally get it over with in the rain, on the rooftop, as the skytrain whizzes by.

It's unfortunate that Bangkok Love Story has been marketed as Brokeback Mountain was -- as a gay love story. Knowing that walking in, there's no surprise. It's not a matter of will the guys get together, but when, and how, and who will be the Heath Ledger and who will be the Jake Gyllenhaal (Rattaballung and Chaiwat, respectively, more or less, though Chaiwat takes on some of Ledger's character's attributes later). The movie really has no place else to go after that first bit of PG-13 sex, though it does try for a twist at the end to keep things interesting.

The sexual tension gone, Cloud wants nothing more to do with Stone, and much of the rest of the picture is spent with Stone wallowing in tortured pain at not being able to be with Cloud, and the harmonica-playing Cloud slyly hiding from Stone when Stone comes looking for him. Of course there is the issue of Cloud's fiancee, Sai (Sand) who wonders why her husband-to-be isn't the same since he returned from his strange disappearance. One day Stone turns up with a ragdoll he found in Cloud's room, and spends his nights pathetically hugging it, much as a denim jacket was pathetically hugged in Brokeback. At that moment, Sand knows that Stone is lost to her.

Subplots? Well, it wouldn't be a film without one. In Bangkok Love Story, it involves Cloud's brother, Fog (Weeradit Srimalai), who is HIV positive, and is persecuted for his affliction, and gets revenge by working as a hustler. Both boys were sexually abused by their step-father, who infected the mother and Fog with HIV. It's not clear how the story of Fog really fits in film, other than to just be there and make a well-intentioned social statement about the treatment and stigmatisation of AIDS- and HIV-positive people in Thailand.

Chemistry-wise, the pairing of Cloud and Stone never really gels, beyond a couple of make-out scenes in the rain. By the time they really get together emotionally, it's too little, too late. As a supportive big-brother stand-in, Stone and little brother Fog share more tenderness in the friendship department.

Where Bangkok Love Story falls apart with its storytelling, it makes up for in the style department. Bangkok has never looked so beautiful on film, with super-saturated colours, sped-up motion and jumpy editing. The love scenes are in the rain (did I mention that?), which must be symbolic of something or other. Some colourful Siamese fighting fish figure into the story, too, and I have to wonder if the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Siamese Fighting Fish had a say in any of the proceedings.

At one point, the love-tortured, whitey-tighty clad Stone puts a pistol to his head and pulls the trigger on an empty chamber, clicking it over and over. Running on empty. That was one bit of symbolism that was probably appropriate, for a film about love that left me feeling a bit hollow afterward.

(Cross-published at The Nation weblog)

Review: The Truth Be Told: The Cases Against Supinya Klangnarong

• Directed by Pimpaka Towira
• An Extra Virgin Production, 100 minutes
• Premiered on September 6, 2007 at the Thai Film Foundation's Digital Forum

The spirits of pre-coup Thailand are revisited in the new documentary film, The Truth Be Told: The Cases Against Supinya Klangnarong. Directed by Pimpaka Towira, it's an epic piece of filmmaking, following media-rights activist Supinya on her three-year legal odyssey. It also chronicles Thailand at a turbulent time in its history, from the growing dissatisfaction with prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the aftermath of the 2006 coup.

Supinya, an NGO worker, was forced into the glaring spotlights of media celebrity, after she made some comments in 2003 to the Thai Post, saying that the Shinawatra family's Shin Corporation benefited from the policies of the Thaksin administration. Her opinions must've hit too close to the mark for officers of the telecommunications conglomerate, for they filed both a criminal and civil lawsuits against Supinya and the Thai Post. Supinya faced a jail term for her statements. In fact, on the night of the film's premiere at the Thai Film Foundation's Digital Forum, Supinya said September 6, 2007, was the four-year anniversary of her being bailed out. The company also sought 400 million baht in damages, because it said Supinya's comments adversely affected Shin's stock value and credit rating. But what the company hoped to gain from suing an activist and university lecturer who earns a 14,000-baht monthly salary is unknown. If Shin officials had ignored the statements, they would have been largely forgotten. Now there's no chance of that happening.

Through the lens of the documentary, the man at the centre of the controversy, Thaksin, is virtually invisible. He's seen for perhaps 10 seconds in some footage shot at a rally, before his beatific smile and square-faced visage disappears behind a wall of dark-suited supporters. But his name is heard. Repeatedly. "Thaksin! Get out! Thaksin! Get out!" Shouted over and over again by marchers and political rally attendees. There are crude caricatures, even a Chinese opera performance devoted to him. He is everywhere, but never seen.

The focus is on Supinya, and in looking at her, people and issues that have been forgotten are suddenly remembered. The spectre of missing civil rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaichit hangs over the proceedings. And there's a chance meeting with some Electricity Generating Authority Workers, who have been fighting privatisation of the state-owned utility.

And there's Supinya's family, chiefly her mother, who was genuinely fearful that her daughter was going to disappear, after all, Supinya was going up against the most powerful man in Thailand. At times, Supinya's mother steals the show. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if things were run by concerned mothers, aunties and grannies, rather than men with big-business connections. The films of Apichatpong Weerasethkul feature striking women like this, too. With more character, backbone and charisma than just about any of the latest one-shot, 18-year-old actresses-of-the-week, they give real meaning to the term "leading lady". I think all the Klangnarongs show up at some point, putting a genuine and heartfelt human face on this story. They're all really lovely people, and I had to wonder why a big company like the Shin Corp. thought they were so threatening.

In March 2006, Shin, by then controlled Singapore's Temasek Holdings after a still-controversial stock divestiture by the Shinawatra family, offered to drop the civil suit, if Supinya would apologize for her remarks. But she remained steadfast, to the horror of her mother and others around her - even herself - leaving the case in the hands of the court. Anyway, the criminal court threw out the lawsuit, saying, in effect, Supinya was just doing her job, and that her comments were fair. The civil suit, a moot point, was withdrawn.

But, as anyone who has not been hiding under a rock in Thailand would know, the story didn't end there. The documentary might've been completed sooner, but on September 19, 2006, the Thai military took over while Thaksin was out of the country.

To not address the coup, which changed everything, would have been unsatisfying. So Pimpaka and her crew kept at it, making for a compelling and informative view of Thailand's political landscape. There are no gimmicks, nor manipulation. No rousing rock music to create atmosphere. This makes the rhythmic cries of "Thaksin! Get out!" that much more powerful. It's bone-dry at times, yet refreshing, and it jumps around in a non-linear fashion, making things a bit unpredictable, which is a good thing.

For Supinya and the wearied anti-Thaksin protesters, the coup has left many discouraged about the democratic process in Thailand. To oppose the coup is to appear pro-Thaksin. Even though there are many colors when it comes to political stripes, in post-coup Thailand, with the military still in charge, there's only black and white.

Thank goodness for The Truth Be Told, to add back some color.

See also:

• Eisenhower Fellowships news
• The coup and the cutting-room floor (The Nation)
  

(Cross published at The Nation weblog and Rotten Tomatoes)

Review: Muay Thai Chaiya

• Directed by Kongkiat Khomsiri
• Starring Akara Amarttayakul, Thawatchai Penpakdee, Sonthaya Chitmanee, Sarita Kongpech, Sangthong Ket-U-Tong
• Premiered on July 29, 2007 as the closing film at the Bangkok International Film Festival; wide release in Thailand on August 30, 2007.

Landing a one-two elbow blow that's hard enough to leave blood in your stool, yet sentimentally sweet and nostalgic enough to bring tears to your eyes, Muay Thai Chaiya was a winner as the closing film of the Bangkok International Film Festival.

The solo directorial debut of Kongkiat Khomsiri, who wrote the screenplay for Wisit Sasanatieng's The Unseeable and co-directed Art of the Devil 2, Muay Thai Chaiya is set in 1970s Thailand, and follows the exploits of three friends from southern Thailand as they come to Bangkok and then take divergent paths in the gritty world of Thai boxing.

Growing up in Chaiya, a fishing village in Surat Thani, three boys, Piak, Pao and Samor, are keen to follow in the footsteps of Pao's brother, Krang (Prawit Kittichanthira), a legendary boxer who is taught by Pao's father, Tew (former boxing and Muay Thai champ Samart Payakaroon). The three boys share a bonding experience that leaves Samor a limping cripple, and then Piak and Pao both train as boxers under Tew. As Tew's and Krang's reputation grow, the big operators in Bangkok come calling, and Tew's idyllic beachside boxing camp is scattered to the wind.

Piak, meanwhile, endures some hard knocks when his gambler father is killed. But he then woos a pretty nurse, Sripai (first-timer Sarita Kongpech, a doe-eyed Thai-Spanish actress), who has also caught the eye of Pao. Though good friends, Piak and Pao differ in style, with Piak hot-headed and brash, while Pao is a quiet strategist.

When they are old enough, Piak (Akara "Golf" Amarttayakul)and Pao (Thawatchai Penpakdee) make their way to Bangkok, with buddy Samor (Sonthaya Chitmanee, from The Tin Mine) and Piak's sweetheart Sripai in tow. They find that Krang is dead as the result of some shady business, and Tew has given up boxing and entered the monkhood.

The two fighters join a gym, and Piak is put forward as a top boxer, with Pao and expert cut-man Samor as his corner men. Piak's impatience costs him a fight, though, and his career is soon ended. The two friends part ways, with Piak and Samor joining up with some gangsters. Piak then becomes the star of an underground fight club, where anything goes - knives, swords, pipes, makeshift body armor, the cannibal from Dynamite Warrior, anything. Pao disappears from the scene for awhile, amidst all the debauchery and mayhem.

As Piak and Samor become more deeply involved in the underworld, enforcing gambling debts, dosing fighters with laxative and even killing people, the movie takes on a bloody and violent tone that wouldn't be out of place in a Martin Scorsese film. "It's like a 'Thai Goodfellas'," one member of the audience said in a Q&A session after the screening. There's even some rousing rock music (I heard a snippet of Hendrix) playing, with plenty of jump cuts between killings.

And with the boxing scenes, it's more Raging Bull than Rocky, and I also couldn't help but think about the Shaw Brothers' Duel of Fists, directed by Chang Cheh and starring Ti Lung and David Chiang as long-lost brothers, involved in the muay Thai underworld in Bangkok. Muay Thai Chaiya even has a heaping helping of heroic bloodshed, just like in a Chang Cheh film.

Sangthong Ket-U-Tong takes on a much different role than she played in Citizen Dog, here playing a sexy go-go dancer who Piak takes up with, and Sripai flees to Pao.

Oh yeah, Pao. He eventually makes a return to the scene, as a boxer being coached by his father, who's come out of the monkhood. Eventually Pao is set to fight a big bout, which places him at odds with the gangsters Piak and Samor work for.

There's a big bloody showdown, with Piak hacking his way into the boxing stadium using two-handed Thai swords, and facing off against a Bruce Lee look-alike who even pulls out a pair of nunchuks to try and show who's the big boss.

Along the way, there is plenty of heart and physical soul poured out. The lead actors trained extensively in Thai boxing (the film is co-sponsored by Fairtex gym), and a lot of effort was put into making the fights appear authentic. There are boxing dramas and there are boxing dramas; Muay Thai Chaiya is a Thai boxing drama, through and through.

The film has atmosphere, too, with a feel for 1970s Bangkok achieved through such details as old Pepsi signs adorning the front of the boxing stadium, and some old boxing posters in the office of the boxing promoter. It helps that Wisit Sasanatieng served as an uncredited art director for the film; he has such an eye for detail, as shown in his own films, Tears of the Black Tiger, Citizen Dog and The Unseeable.

BKKIFF 2007 review: Mystic Ball

• Directed by Greg Hamilton
• Reviewed at the 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival
• Rating: 4/5

Mystic Ball is a 2006 documentary film directed by and starring Greg Hamilton, chronicling the Canadian man's two-decades-long obsession with a Burmese sport-artform called chinlone. Played by six players in a circular ring, using their feet to pass each other a cane ball that is perhaps six inches in diameter, it is described as non-competitive sport that is only about completing the most beautiful moves possible.

Originally conceived as a documentary about chinlone, the documentary morphed into becoming a movie about Hamilton, a Canadian of Africa-American-Irish descent who grew up in foster homes and was bullied and picked on during his childhood. He obtained a background in martial arts, but one day during the 1980s in Toronto, he saw a Burmese immigrant playing chinlone, and from there became steadily obsessed with learning the game.

It is a journey that has taken him from Canada to Myanmar many times, and has made him famous in Myanmar as the only foreigner to participate in chinlone, which is only played in Myanmar. Similar forms of chilone exist. In Thailand and other southeast Asian countries, there is sepak takraw, which is a competitive sport played by teams on either side of a net, like volleyball. There's also a circle form of takraw, but it is not the same as chinlone.

Though Hamilton takes center stage, a move that Hamilton says was necessary for him to find backers in the West and help foreign audiences relate to the film, the documentary does a good job of presenting the Myanmar players who are the best in the game. These include the incredible Su Su Llaing, who is also a chilone soloist, performing acrobat feats and balancing, all while bouncing a ball on the top of her feet.

Ultimately, the goal for Hamilton is to spread word about chilone to the world outside Myanmar, and possibly form an international tour of Myanmar's top chinlone practitioners.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)

Review: Sick Nurses

• Directed by Piraphan Laoyont and Thodsapol Siriwiwat
• Starring Chol Wachananont, Chidjun Rujiphan, Ase Hui Min Wang, Doloros Dechapratumwon, Kanya Rattanapetch and Ampairat and Ampaiwan Techapoowapat
• Released in Thailand cinemas on June 14, 2007
• Rating: 2/5
  

Six sexy, naughty, bitchy nurses, and one dumb doctor get what’s coming to them, one by one, in Sahamongkol Film International's latest ghost thriller, Sick Nurses.

Directed by Piraphan Laoyont and Thodsapol Siriwiwat, the writer-director team behind Suicide Me, Sick Nurses is a bloody, confusing, misogynistic mess from start to finish.

There’s not a single character that is worth rooting for – every one of them you want to see meet their end in the most violent, horrible way. Credit is due the directors for making this happen, most of the time. There is humor, fitfully, although it seems out of place, but in this type of film, you have to take what you can get.

Set in a run-down, isolated hospital, it seems young Dr. Tar (Wid Charu-jinda) and seven nurses have been running a scheme to sell dead bodies on the black market. But one nurse (Chol Wachananont) thinks the whole thing stinks, and is ready to blow the whistle. So the other six nurses gang up on her, slap her down on an operating table, kill her and then wrap her in a black, plastic garbage bag. They then dump her in the trunk of the doctor’s car, where the corpse will be kept on dry ice until it can be sold.

The storyline jumps around, doing some nonsensical flashbacks and flash forwards. The flashbacks establish the characters – Chol was the doctor’s girlfriend, but so was her coquettish sister (Chidjun Rujiphan). The other girls all have their own sick obsessions. There’s a fitness freak (Ase Hui Min Wang), a bulimic (Doloros Dechapratumwon), a fashion slave (Kanya Rattanapetch) and a pair of phone-camera-snapping twin sister-lesbian lovers (Ampairat and Ampaiwan Techapoowapat). And it turns out that Dr Tar had been having flings with all the women, though he also has another big secret to hide.

Jump ahead seven days, and the ghost of Chol, draped head-to-toe in black, has returned, and must bond with her lover and take revenge on her death before midnight, or something like that. The deaths of the six are all pretty spectacular, and prey on the suffocating vanity and cuteness of their characters.

Doloros’ demise is the best – she is forced to eat a handful of scalpel blades, then her jaw drops off and her tongue falls out. Her pet cat, on which she has transferred her eating disorder, then eats her tongue. Then, a fetus from a jar flies into her throat, choking her. Not much else in the film tops that scene, except maybe for a giant red cross falling off the front hospital building and spinning across the lawn, where it is supposed to flatten Chidjun.

Kanya has a handbag sewn to her head, so that when her shadow appears behind a screen, the handles of the handbag made her look like a killer Teletubby. That was one of the funny bits.

However, before the opening credits even roll, the big question all this begs is: How did this film get released? The entire premise, based on a bunch of murderous medical professionals, should have got the film shelved by the Board of Censorship, which took a dim view of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century. In that film, some friendly, hard-working doctors take a break to drink some whisky, and a male doctor meets his girlfriend in his office, kisses her passionately, and gets an erection. These are real, everyday depictions. Those scenes weren’t fit to be seen by innocent Thai eyes, the board ruled. However, a doctor and nurse going at it on a morgue table, or a nurse sitting on a toilet with just her panties to block her nether region, or obviously insane doctors and nurses engaged in criminal activities – that’s okay?

Maybe Sahamongkol Film, the producer of Sick Nurses and dozens of other films that depict monks, doctors and teachers in what are likely objectionable situations, holds some influence over the Board of Censorship, while independent, award-winning filmmaker Apichatpong does not? There is a double standard, plain and simple.

The point is, though, there shouldn’t be any censorship of films in the first place – even if, in the case of Sick Nurses – they aren’t really fit to be seen by general audiences. But it should be the audience's right to choose, not some fascist policeman or narrow-minded culture ministry nanny wielding scissors and petroleum jelly.

(Originally published in The Nation, Life section, June 18, 2007)

Review: Ploy

• Written and directed by Pen-ek Ratanaruang
• Starring Lalita Panyopas, Pornwut Sarasin, Apinya Sakuljaroensuk, Porntip Papanai, Ananda Everingham, Thaksakorn Pradabpongsa
• Premiered May 21 during the Director's Fortnight at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival; censored version opened in Thailand cinemas on June 7, 2007
• Rating: 5/5
  

A languorous daydream, dragged out by jetlag and a before-noon vodka binge, Ploy is sure to leave you out of sorts, but happy, or at least bemused.

The sixth feature film by Thai auteur Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Ploy is the story of a middle-aged Thai-American couple who return to Thailand for the first time in years to attend the funeral of a relative.

Arriving at Suvarnabhumi Airport at 5 o'clock in the morning after 20 hours of flying, the bleary-eyed couple checks into a hotel. It’s one of those trendy boutiques, with a lot of bare concrete and nicely appointed rooms, but hallways that are out of a horror film.

Dang, played by the incomparable Lalita “Mew” Panyopas, just wants to sleep. But her husband, Wit, is restless, and heads down to the hotel bar to buy a pack of smokes. In the bar, Wit strikes up a conversation with a young, frizzy-haired girl named Ploy. She says she’s waiting for her mother to arrive from Stockholm. Soon, the pair are sharing coffee and cigarettes and listening to Photo Sticker Machine on Ploy’s iPod. Wit then invites Ploy up to his and Dang’s room, so she can get cleaned up and take a load off. But as soon as Dang opens the door and sees young Ploy, it’s obvious that Wit has made a horrible lapse in judgment.

Feelings of rage and jealousy are seething deep inside Dang, and while Ploy uses the toilet, Dang demands that Wit get rid of the girl. But to the girl, Dang is actually quite sweet, and can’t bring herself to confront the urchin.

It’s the kind of character that Mew, with her distinctive appearance – she’s taller than she looks – is made to play. One instant she is a calm sea, and the next a raging storm – you can never tell what she’ll do next. It’s pure excitement to watch her work, and great to see her on the big screen, where she hasn’t been since Pen-ek’s 1999 black comedy, Ruang Talok 69.

Surrounding Mew is a great ensemble. Wit is played by first-time actor Pornwut Sarasin, whose day job is executive vice president at Thai Namthip – the company that sells Coca Cola in Thailand (at the press screening there was free-flowing Coke Zero, which was surely not a coincidence).

Ploy, played by Apinya Sakulcharoensuk, is a gem. Turned 17 on May 27, she’s full of wide-eyed innocence, but carries an air of mystery that’s a bit disconcerting. An Afro mop that's straight out of the Boondocks adds the crowning touch to her character.

As Wit and Dang talk over their eight – no it’s seven – years of marriage, there’s a Greek chorus of sorts in nearby room 609: Ananda Everingham, portraying the silent, weary bartender and leggy Porntip "Cartoon" Papanai, a sex bomb of a maid (she played Dao in Monrak Transistor), are having a play-acting tryst. It’s an erotic counterpoint, which in screenings during the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes two weeks ago, was reportedly quite explicit. It has been re-edited by Pen-ek so innocent Thais – and the Board of Censors – won’t be offended.

The proceedings unfold dreamily, and full of surrealism and surprises. It’s never certain just what is reality and what is a nightmare, sort of like the sleep-deprived state you’re in after a 20-hour long-haul flight.

Ploy is a bit of a return for Pen-ek, who scripted this film himself, after doing the pan-Asian existentialist odes Last Life in the Universe and Invisible Waves with writer Prabda Yoon, and cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

He’s back in Thailand, working with his old cinematographer, Charnkit Chamniwikaipong, with Lalita again as his lead actress. But everything Pen-ek has done up to now – from Fun Bar Karaoke, 6ixtynin9 and the musical-comedy Monrak Transistor to the weirdness of Last Life and Invisible Waves (which, for the record, I liked), has led to Ploy – it’s a natural progression for him. And surely, whatever comes next, will be just as full of wonder as Ploy.

(Originally published in The Nation Weekend on June 7, 2007, Page 17)

Those wacky national costumes

Miss Thailand Universe Farung Yuthithum came in 11th place in this year's Miss Universe contest, in which Miss Japan, Riyo Mori, was crowned Miss Universe.

In a year of protests and a fall by Miss USA Rachel Smith (she still came in fifth place), there was plenty of trouble. The Mexico City pageant drew protests from women wearing white dresses splashed with blood, calling attention to the abuse of women. Miss Sweden was made to withdraw after protests in her country called the contest demeaning. Miss Mexico had to change out of her national costume, which was decorated with images of rebels in a 1920s religious uprising being hanged or shot.

Yes, those bizarre "national costumes", in which the contestants themselves (or their handlers) take a lot of creative license. For example, Miss USA dressed as a white-jumpsuited Elvis Presley lookalike. And Miss Thailand had a belly button-baring ethnic Hmong outfit.

Of course, back home in Thailand, cultural watchdogs were shocked, shocked, by Farung's choice of costume. The front page of the Thai daily Kom Chad Luek had a photo of Farung in her faux hilltribe get up, asking, "A national costume?"

Whatever it is, it is definitely not Thai, said Ladda Tangsupachai, director of the Ministry of Culture's ominously named Cultural Surveillance Centre.

The Thai national dress, Ladda stressed, must be Thai. It also must be in line with the official, royal designs and it must be used for proper occasions. She criticised Farung for failing to do her duty and show the outside world an authentic national Thai dress. Instead, Farung turned up in a sort of hybrid ethnic - read not Thai - costume.

There was outrage, yes, though not nearly the firestorm that was whipped up when Chotiros "Amy" Suriyawong wore that dress to the National Film Association Awards.

Still, it raises some troubling issues, points out Bangkok Post assistant editor Sanitsuda Ekachai, who says there's a narrow view of Thai identity that ignores the nation's cultural and ethnic diversity. She writes in a recent column:

This hegemonic history, perpetuated by all forms of popular media, has brainwashed society to believe that the country belongs to the ethnic Thai only, reducing other ethnic groups to 'outsiders'. This rigid, national identity forces ethnic groups to drop their ethnic names, adopt Buddhism and learn to speak Thai without an accent in order to be accepted as 'true' Thai.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)

Review: Me … Myself (Khor Hai Rak Chong Charoen)

• Directed by Pongpat Wachirabunjong
• Story by Pongpat Wachirabunjong, screenplay by Kongdej Jaturanrasamee
• Starring Ananda Everingham and Chayanan Manomaisnatiphap
• General release in Thailand cinemas on April 19, 2007

Identity, sexuality and childhood aspirations are examined in the romantic comedy drama, Me … Myself, which stars Ananda Everingham as a transvestite cabaret dancer who suffers from amnesia after he is struck by car.

The woman driving the car, Oom (Chayanan Manomaisantiphap), takes responsibility for him and brings him back to her place. Before he was struck by her car, he was beaten and robbed by some guys on a motorcycle while he was using a payphone. His only possession is a necklace with a pendant that spells out "Tan". Not knowing his name, that's what they settle on calling him.

Tan initially has a rocky time being accepted into Oom's life. Plus, she's having crises of her own – having just broken up with her domineering boyfriend, Krit, and having to take care of her troublemaking young nephew, Ohm, the son of her dead sister. She's also balancing a career as a budding creative director at an advertising agency, where she's always running into her old boyfriend. A couple of comical slacker neighbours who are always hanging around don't help much either.

One thing leads to another, and Tan is smacked upside the head by one of the slacker guys for saying something deemed offensive. This brings forth a vision of a woman in Tan's mind. He's taken to a doctor and then a psychiatrist for treatment. He's given a journal and encouraged to free associate.

In the meantime, Tan charms his way into Oom's life. Not only is he supportive of her with her work and in her role as a surrogate mother to her nephew, he's great at organising her stacks of magazines and giving her perfect fashion advice. Comfortable in his masculinity, he can wear a Hello Kitty apron without any sense of irony. Tan tries to defend Ohm after the boy gets in trouble in school, and ends up getting punched out by another boy's father. His stronger suit is being able to tell Oom what dress to wear, and the appropriate shade of lipstick. He restores Oom's confidence and self-esteem. So, of course, they fall in love.

"I don't want to remember anymore. I want to be like this with you here, forever," he tells Oom one night as they watch the sunset from a ledge outside her apartment.

At this point, it's not a spoiler to say that before Tan was beaten up by thieves and then struck by Oom's car his name was Tanya. He was gay and was the star of a transvestite cabaret in Phuket. What he was doing in Bangkok, and even how he ended up as the featured dancer in a katoey show, are some of the things this movie reveals.

The issues it raises – would a gay man forget he's gay if he had amnesia, for example – are compelling. Further, if an amnesiac had to start over, what would he do? What are his childhood dreams and would he still work to achieve them even though he's forgotten them?

Me … Myself is the directorial debut of veteran actor and singer Pongpat Wachirabunjong. Who would have thought of this coming from a man who's best known as the red-shorts-clad action hero of the Seven Street Fighters films? He's also credited with the story, though prolific screenwriter Kongdej Jaturanrasamee penned the screenplay.

The film is an assured debut, and has its enjoyable little moments, like the camera focusing on the front wheels of a shopping trolley, when Oom explains that shopping at Foodland keeps her mind off her problems. Another cut-away shot shows Oom backing up from Tan, her dainty high heels clicking on the floor. It's a small detail, but it's one that speaks volumes.

The story gets bogged down in the heartbreak the protagonists feel after the truth of Tan's past is revealed – nothing like an apartment full of transvestite cabaret dancers to break the news. But the subtle performance by Ananda, and a strong debut by Chayanan, along with the interesting issues the film raises, make My … Myself worth watching.

There's some interesting supporting characters. Director Tanit Jitnukul (is he still making movies?) has a cameo as a police officer. Puttachat Pongsuchat portrays "Boss Oil", Oom's workaholic lesbian boss, who offers some kind support and insight. One of the slacker neighbors is that guy from the Mhee Panda video.

It's a film that seems ripe for a remake by Hollywood, though it probably won't be quite as good. Somehow, the idea of, say, Orlando Bloom and Kate Hudson putting this story through its paces doesn't seem as rewarding.



More information:

• Official site

(This review was originally published in The Nation, May 12, Life section, Page 6)

Review: Alone

• Directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom
• Starring Marsha Wattanapanich and Vittaya Wasukraipaisan
• Released in Thailand cinemas on March 29
• Rating: 4/5

There's nothing scary about Alone, except for the corpsified ghost woman who keeps popping up.

A slick, self-assured thriller Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, Alone is up there with the best of the J-horror flicks that have gone on to be remade by Hollywood. It also recalls the best of Hitchcock or Cronenberg, with its dark, psycho-thriller elements.

Of course, Banjong and Parkpoom are the pair that made the smash-hit chiller Shutter back in 2004, and it's up for a remake by Hollywood, too, and it will likely be inferior to the original, as most remakes are. With Alone, Hollywood will have to work overtime to come up with a production that is as strong as this Thai film.

No, there is nothing scary about the screenplay, which contains some snappy foreshadowing -- the kind that when the stuff happens that was foreshadowed, you smack your forehead and think, "Why didn't I see that coming?"

There's nothing scary about the photography, which is luminous, nor the editing, which is tight.

And there is definitely nothing scary about the performance by Marsha Wattanapanich, who at 36 is twice the age of the Thai actresses playing most of the lead film roles.

None if it is scary -- it is all beautiful, and moving.

Except for that ghost girl. Now she's scary.

Alone is a tale about conjoined twins, or, if you prefer, Siamese twins, after history's most famous conjoined brothers, Chang and Eng. And indeed, the brothers, originally from Samut Songkhram, are referenced in this dark tale.

In a killer performance, Marsha portrays Pim, a Thai woman who's happily married and living in South Korea with her architect husband, Wee, also Thai, and their pet beagle, Lucky.

On her birthday, a call comes in from Thailand. Seems Pim's mother has had a stroke and is in the hospital. So Pim must return home. Wee and the dog accompany her.

The trip back home brings a rush of memories for Pim. And in a creepy, old wooden Thai colonial-style mansion, she is just not comfortable. Adding to the creepiness is Pim's mother's shy maid, who refuses to stay in the house. The flashbacks to Pim's childhood are bittersweet, showing the repressive bond she had with her conjoined twin sister, Ploy, who apparently died after the twins were separated.

Most of the previews for the film give away the good scares, like Lucky barking at a mirror, and Ploy popping out of it, scaring Pim so much that Pim falls headlong down the stairs.

She ends up in the hospital, babbling about seeing her ghostly sister. Wee invites an old friend to visit. He's a psychiatrist, and Pim suddenly becomes very impolite to the man. But to please Wee, she undergoes some sessions with the shrink, who tells her the ghost is all in her head -- that there's something buried deep in her psychosis that's causing it.

The doctor suggests a change of scene, but it doesn't help, as a walk on the beach shows. Where there should be one set of footprints in the sand, Ploys turns around and finds two, and is horrified. The look on her face is priceless.

Flashbacks go deeper and deeper into the relationship, with the dark, menacing Ploy saying she and Pim will never separate. And then, as children, while staying in the hospital, the diabetic Wee enters their lives. At this point, the younger Pim and Ploy are played by some actual twin sisters, and they, as well as the young Wee, come off just as strong in their performance as their adult counterparts.

A brilliant artist, Wee sketches a picture of the twin he favors most -- Pim of course. This makes Ploy very angry. Oh, and that's pretty scary, too.

And it keeps getting scarier and scarier, as the thrills, surprises and action keep building up.


More information:

• Review at Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee