Hormones rage on for a second week

The GMM Tai Hub teen romantic comedy Pid Term Yai Huajai (Hormones) topped the Thai box office for the second week in a row, racking up more than US$2 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

The No. 2 film was, unsurprisingly, Baan Phee Perb, a ghost comedy from Sahamongkol starring Jaturong Mokjok and the usual cavalcade of Thai comedians. It banked $228,978.

Other new releases in Thailand were The Water Horse, Neil Marshall's Doomsday (which is really cool!), Fool's Gold, Awake and An Empress and the Warriors, which has been released here only with a Thai-dubbed soundtrack and no English subtitles. Think I will pass. If I want to watch Donnie Yen, I'll put in the DVD of SPL.

With this week's releases of Nak, Dream Team and Art of the Devil 3, will Hormones hang on for a third week? Which one will topple it?



More information:

• Review: Hormones
• Thai moviegoers celebrate 'Hormones,' shun 'Shutter' [Cinematical]
• 'Hormones' raging at Thai box office [Variety]

Dynamite Warrior, Dorm at Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival

Wait. What year is this? A couple of the best Thai films of 2006, spooky Dorm and the fun Dynamite Warrior are getting a fresh airing at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, which runs from April 3 to 20.

The first solo outing by Fan Chan director Songyos Sugmakanan, Dorm stars Charlie Trairat as a boy who is packed off to a creepy boarding school by his father. The reasons for this are mysterious, as are the reasons the boarding school is mysterious. This being a GMM-Tai-Hub film, they couldn't end it on a down note, but everything up until the end is about pitch perfect, including the performance by Jintara Sukapat. Charlie and his co-star from Dorm, Michael Sirachuch Chienthaworn, currently star in Songyos' smash-hit romantic comedy-drama Hormones.

Dynamite Warrior was one of my favorite films of 2006. A western set on the Isaan plateau in early 1900s Thailand, it stars Dan Chupong as a young buffalo rustler who rides homemade rockets and uses knee kicks to defeat his foes. Muay Thai, black magic, explosions, herds of water buffalo and the menstrual blood of a virgin mix into a fun cocktail. Stunt choreographer Panna Rittikrai co-stars as an evil warlock.

Both Dorm and Dynamite Warrior are available on English-subtitled DVD, but they are both worth seeing on the big screen in the cinema, so if you're near Amsterdam, put them on your of things to see.

Also of interest in Amsterdam: Takashi Miike's western, Sukiyaki Western Django (tentatively scheduled to play in Bangkok in the coming months), Shinya Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective and Machine Girl.


(Via Twitch)

Ministry of Culture appoints celebrity deputy spokeswomen

The Ministry of Culture has appointed three actresses as deputy spokeswomen for "youth and for the children" -- Pornchita "Benz" na Songkla, Woranut "Noon" Wongsawan, and Taksaon "Aef" Paksukcharern.

Pornchita is primarily known as a singer, model and dancer, but she has acted in at least one film that I know of: playing against type as a comical maid in M.A.I.D.

Primarily known for her work in soap operas, Woranut won critical acclaim acting opposite Petchtai Wongkamlao in the wonderful Midnight My Love, playing a "masseuse" in a Bangkok massage parlor who strikes up an odd relationship with Mum Jokmok's sad-sack taxi driver. Noon was also in last year's period horror drama, Pern Maung: The Haunted Drum.

Aef was in Naresuan II, portraying the grown up Maneechan, the love interest for the Black Prince. I'm assuming she will be back for Naresuan III, due out later this year.

Bangkok Pundit notes the irony of these appointments, saying:

The Ministry of Culture is made up of "fundamental prudes" who travel the country telling people what to wear and how to act. If I was dictator for a day, one of my jobs would be send [Cultural Surveillance Center official] Ladda [Tangsupachai] and her fellow preservers of cultural identity to a deserted island or to some ivory tower and allow them to preach, but as long as they don't have power to control. Because of this, I just find the appointment of the three actresses as deputy spokeswomen as amusing. In all honesty, they are probably the three who have taken the fewest swimsuit/scantily clad shots and whose reputation is intact, but the standards which the Ministry of Culture set can't be met by anyone ...

I think this is a case of the Ministry of Culture taking a page from the book of Unesco, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Unicef and other UN agencies, which all have celebrity "Goodwill Ambassadors". It's a win-win situation for the stars, who get some positive publicity, and it adds a touch of glamour to the Ministry of Culture, which is an unpopular posting for politicians because it isn't as lucrative as say, the agriculture, commerce, tourism, transport or finance portfolios. There might not be as many contracts to award your friends, but at least you can rub shoulders with some celebrities.

Anyway, it's for the sake of the children, and, indeed, as Bangkok Pundit notes, how can anyone be against that? How? Heartless scum.

(Via Bangkok Pundit; photos, from left, Benz, Noon and Aef.)

Summer vacation splendor: Nak, Dream Team, Art of the Devil 3

With summer vacation in full swing in Thailand, and the weather being hot hot hot, the mainstream film studios are all vying to attract school-age filmgoers to come cool off in the frigid confines of the multiplexes.

Two of the three Thai films opening locally this Thursday are youth oriented -- the animated ghost story Nak from Sahamongkol, and the children's film, Dream Team, featuring a cast of kindergarten boys who are in a bid to win a national tug-of-war contest.

Art of the Devil 3 is decidedly a film for audiences who are at least teenagers, though with no ratings system yet in place, neither moviegoers nor the cinema operators have a guideline to prevent small children from being traumatized and desensitized by images of black magic, torture and bloodletting.

Nak is the one I'm most anticipating out of this batch, though I am keeping my expectations low. I don't think Nak is going to be Thailand's answer to Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon, but hey, at least somebody is trying. Colorful and cute, Nak is yet another iteration of the famous Mae Nak Phra Khanong ghost myth -- most memorably adapted in Nonzee Nimibutr's Nang Nak in 1999. This kid-friendly animated ghost isn't the vengeful wife of the legend. Here, she's a wide-eyed, pink-hued defender of the human race against some bad ghosts.

Says producer Boyd Kosiyabongse, in a recent story from the Daily Xpress:

We didn’t want to repeat the same old story, and besides, it’s too scary for animation. We show modern ghosts as the villains. Times have changed. Today’s ghosts are violent – they hurt people for no reason. It’s very different from the Thai ghost films I saw as a kid. They were spooky, but entertaining.”

Initially I thought this was a 3D-animated featured, but it's traditional two-dimensional. It's also the first Thai animated feature with show anime influences. Previous animated features -- 1979's Sudsakorn Adventures, 2006's 3D-animated Khan Kluay and last year's Life of Buddha all had a look that was more akin to Disney. Though anime's influence is seen in cartoons on Thai TV (and manga in Thai comics), there simply aren't that many Thai animated features because they are so labor intensive -- it's cheaper to make a live-action film.

Producer Boyd is a singer-songwriter better known for his syrupy servings of acoustic Thai pop. His latest partnership with Moderndog's Pod is a nauseating example. But he's been doing animation for awhile, heading up his own BBoyd CG studio, which did a Dracula Tok cartoon for TV. Boyd wanted to make a feature version of Dracula Tok, based on a character portrayed by famous comic actor Lor Tok, so he went to Sahamongkol Film International. There, studio boss Somsak Techaratanaprasert asked Boyd to take on the Mae Nak story instead, and Boyd was then paired up with producer Prachya Pinkaew. Comedian Mum Jokmok was brought in to voice the character of Phee Hua Kad, the headless ghost, after another actor, Thongchai Prasongsanti, had already been cast. Narawan Techratanaprasert voices one of the kids. Nak is voiced by singer-actress Sasikarn Apichartworrasilp. The director of the film is Natthapong Rattanachoksirikul.

According to the Daily Xpress article, the budget was initially set at 25 million baht, but the film ended up costing 40 million, which is still vastly less than other recent animated features, Khan Kluay and The Life of Buddha, which ended up costing hundreds of millions.

From RS Film, Dream Team is about a group of pint-sized boys who enter a national tug-of-war contest (based on the actual kindergarten games that take place in Thailand). It is directed by Kittikorn Liawsirikul (Ahimsa: Stop to Run, Bus Lane) and stars Kiat Kitjaroen and singer Sakolrat “Four” Woraurai and a bunch of 5-year-old boys. If done right, it could be a family friendly answer to the likes of Dodgeball, Balls of Fury and Talladega Nights.

Art of the Devil 3 has been covered extensively already. This is a prequel to Art of the Devil 2, which had nothing to do storywise with the first Art of the Devil film. Napakpapha "Mamee" Nakprasitte stars as a black-magic torture mistress, with Supakorn Kitsuwan figuring in here somewhere, too.

I don't get this particular brand of horror, but in the vein of Saw and Hostel, it is wildly popular and should prove lucrative for Five Star Production. Peter Nellhaus of Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee sums up the appeal of the film series in a recent review of the first two films:

The devil is a woman in both of these films, practicing witchcraft to seek revenge. The films are for those either with less discriminating tastes in horror films, or an abiding love for Thai films made for Thai audiences.

The first two Art of the Devil films are available as a box set with English subtitles and English-dubbed soundtrack.

More information:

• Trailer for new animated feature: Nak
• Nak postponed until April 3

BEFF5: A look back

The theme of this year's Bangkok Experimental Film Festival was "The more things change ..." I took the ellipses to mean I could fill in a blank with "... the more things stay the same." Or, maybe not. Maybe things are different.

BEFF has been held intermittently since 1997. The last one was held at the end of 2005 in Lumpini Park. Before that, I'm not sure where it was held. Though I was around for BEFF in 2005, I didn't attend, for no particular reason that I can think of. But probably, I wasn't ready. And, I'm not so sure I was ready for this year's edition.

This year was an experiment for BEFF, holding it in the flashily commercial confines of the Esplanade Cineplex. The aim was to bring experimental film to the multiplex crowd. But, with such other films as the hit GMM Tai Hub teen romance Hormones or Sahamongkol's latest cookie-cutter horror comedy Baan Phee Perb, as well as high-octane Hollywood offerings like Doomsday, Fool's Gold and The Water Horse, that crowds would make the choice to see a package of obscure short films seems impossible in retrospect.

At a panel discussion on Sunday, Cornell University Asian studies professor Benedict Anderson said the venue was too alienating and too cool (meaning cold and he didn't just mean the full-blast air cons). Audience members went into the cinema, sat in the dark in isolation and then left the cinema without interacting with anyone. It made the whole affair seem very lonely, Anderson said.

Anderson said that even some of the films seemed "cool" or cold, with museum-like qualities, mentioning Thunska Pansittivorakol's Middle-Earth as an example: Naked, still, wax-like men sleeping in a white, sterile room. (To me, I thought it was a landscape study -- watch out for that underbrush.)

May Adadol Ingawanij and Apichatpong Weersethakul also sat on the panel. With a focus on the films in the Core Program (Learned Behavior, Track Changes and Daily Rounds), they talked about what makes an experimental filmmaker different from a "regular" filmmaker and took a question about censorship from the audience. Their talk was in Thai, and since I was the only person in the room who wasn't bilingual or spoke Thai, I didn't get all of it. Not complaining mind you -- it's my fault for not finding the time yet to learn the language. One day, if I am able to find the time and place near where I live and work, I will. Somebody always misses out in discussions like this.

I had attended last year's World Film Festival of Bangkok at the same venue, and though I'd heard similar complaints then, I couldn't put my finger on them until now. Esplanade Cineplex and others like it -- Paragon, SF World, any of the Major Cineplex or EGV branches, any multiplex really -- are just too loud and impersonal. It's hard to hang out in the lobby and chat when there's an usher hollering away on a microphone, saying Awake is going to start, or a making-of promotion for Nak is blaring away on an endless video loop on a TV nearby. Even in the common areas in the mall away from the cineplex, there's some noise -- on the giant video screen in the ground floor lobby, down in the food court or in a restaurant. There's always some music playing, or somebody on a microphone hawking some whitening cream. All the aural and visual space is filled. There's no room for thought or thoughtful conversation.

While being careful to thank Major Cineplex for letting the festival be held at the Esplanade, curator David Teh acknowledged the criticism of the choice of venue, saying that to him it was "poison". "When I am finished, all I want to do is get away," he told me when I cornered him as he was waiting for a sandwich. He repeated those sentiments during the panel talk.

A Southeast Asian film aficionado told me she preferred the Lumpini festival, saying that as the films were playing, people in the park felt invited to come into the screening area and sit down, or simply wander through. It was bringing art and cinema to a crowd that normally didn't see either, because they hang out in the park.

This year's BEFF did have a mobile screening -- artist Pratchaya Phinthon's bicycle contraption -- but he didn't want his screenings publicized. One of these guerilla screenings was done on Saturday night in Bangkok's Chinatown, projecting some jumpy images on some shop doors.

That does seem more experimental than screening films in a mall multiplex, even if it is pretty haphazard.

The launch party was held across the river from Bangkok in an outdoor bar near Gallery VER. A screen was set up and films were shown on it as partygoers lapped up free beer (always a hit) and grazed at a buffet table. A luxurious converted rice barge was loaned to the event and took 30 passengers at a time on 30-minute video cruises. The videos played on a flat screen in a front compartment of the boat that probably only around half the 30 people on the cruise could actually see. Not that everyone was paying attention. The Chao Phya River at night is alive with all sorts of activity and sights. And there was free wine, red and white. Oh, the package of shorts all had something to do with water, which was kind of cute.

I don't know about all that. Free beer and wine draws in the dreadlocked, hand-rolling hipsters and some other mighty strange characters -- not just filmmakers -- giving the festival's launch party the feel of the bar in Star Wars. Not many people are paying much attention to the film because they are all talking to each other and getting smashed.

But as Anderson noted, screening the films in a museum or art gallery setting is too sterile, as people are conditioned to be quiet and respectful in such places, speak in hushed tones and be contemplative. That also doesn't leave much opportunity for interaction or experimentation, does it?

Somewhere between Mos Eisley and Museum of Modern Art is where BEFF needs to be. But where is that place?

(Cross-published at The Nation Weblog)

BEFF5: My viewings

I didn't get to as many of the screenings at the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival as I would have liked, which is always the case with festivals -- knowing which films to see, and which sessions are okay to skip or there's something better playing somewhere else, or should I tag along with a group of people for dinner. I never know what to do. Many times, I think I make the wrong choices.

Anyway, here's a look at what I watched.

Track Changes

Playing for the opening reception at the Esplanade, this featured Bopitr Visenoi's 19.09.2549 (the date of the 2006 coup); Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's Bangkok Tanks; Wathit Wattanasakonpan's In the Night of Revolution; Michael Shaowanasai's brand new Observation of the Monument; Prap Boonpan's Letters from the Silence; Prateep Suthathongthai's Explanation of the word ‘Thai’; Nok Paksnavin's Burmese Man Dancing; Ricardo Nascimento's AUTRMX; Tintin Cooper's Promethean Invention and Jakrawal Niltumrong's Man With a Video Camera.

I almost missed this. Things were running late with the opening reception, and I didn't sense a mass movement to the cinema doors. Thankfully I was pointed in the right direction at just the right time by a helpful aficionado of Southeast Asian cinema.

Seeing Bangkok Tanks was a treat. I first saw it last year in the Spoken Silence program at the 11th Thai Short Film & Video Festival. It consists of a fuzzed-out TV screen, tuned in to CNN with Thaksin Shinawatra's picture on it and the legend "Bangkok Tanks" emblazoned below his white-noised mug. A string of text messages captured from MSN are played, with rumors of killings and curfews. In reality, it was a bloodless coup and kids only got off one day of school.

I also enjoyed Michael's Observation of the Monument, which features Michael in resplendant drag, looking ever the part of the demure, well-coifed hi-so matron. She is perched, like a statue, on a pedestal in a city park, with a golden chair and a table of fruit. Lotus flowers are piled up around her in tribute. The camera pans across her. A rooster crows. She sits down, ever so carefully, smoothing the folds in her dress. The camera tracks back. The scene is repeated twice more.

A couple of the shorts dealt with the disenfranchised migrant workers and laborers: Man With a Video Camera and Burmese Man Dancing.

Daily Rounds

I didn't make it back to BEFF until Saturday afternoon, when I caught this collection of new Thai works devoted to cycles of daily life. The films were Chalermrat Gaweewattana's A Century of Love, Tanatchai Bandasak's Endless Rhyme; Anocha Suwichakornpong's Black Mirror Watchathanapoom Laisuwannachai's Golden Mountain and Chai Chaiyachit's National Anthem.

A Century of Love is a simple portrait of the filmmaker's grandparents, setting up a camera and watching them go through their daily routine of taking meals, sitting, napping and puttering around the house and garden.

Black Mirror is puzzling, with a hypnotic soundtrack of guitar and moaning voice, with shots of a road at night and an esophageal tube. At 2 minutes, it's almost too short. But maybe 3 minutes would have been too long.

I liked Golden Mountain, which ends awash in the sound of brass bells. I can't tell much more about it than that, except for some chicken being cut up with a cleaver.

From 2007, National Anthem is provocative -- it's silent shots of people in parks doing aerobics, with the sound kicking in as the 6 o'clock hour rolls around -- time to play the Royal Anthem, which which point, the aerobics leader calls a "time out" by forming a "T" with her hands. The rest of the 27-minute short is devoted to a couple of guys and their political rant, talking about how Samak will be elected (he was) and Thaksin will return (he has).

International Harvest II - Paranoid Dance

This is a collection of films that offer "unsettling flirtations with genre, paranoia and strange choreography ... explor[ing] the psychological programming of modern life." The film's are A Very Slow Breakfast by Edwin from Indonesia; Plot Point by Nicolas Provost from Belgium; Kempinski by Neil Beloufa from France; Haak Sei Wuih Tuhng Mau Jai by Adrian Wong from Hong Kong; May I Go to Toilet Please? by Veerapha Engmahatsakul, Ravitsara Phunphrae and Nitsaphat Meksakul from Thailand and Faceless by Manu Luksch of Austria.

Found video was a prevalent theme in this section. Plot Point was shot in New York City and is footage of street scenes around Times Square, specifically the cops. Dialogue is laid in over the footage to create a loosely surreal crime drama that ends with an endless parade of NYPD police cars racing off to somewhere.

Faceless is shot in London and is comprised of footage from the city's plentiful surveillance cameras. As stipulated by a law that allows the public release of this surveillance footage, the people's heads are blotted out by colored ovals. Some other footage, I believe, was staged, to tell a post-apocalyptic story of a woman being reunited with her man and child. Tilda Swinton narrates the story, adding much gravity and giving the film some high-wattage celebrity shine. It was probably the most thought-provoking work I'd seen at the festival, which is saying a lot, because all the works were thought provoking.

I was entertained by A Very Slow Breakfast, about an Indonesian family crowded into an attic kitchenette to have breakfast. Dad reads the paper, son is scratching his dandruff into his coffee and daughter is doing aerobics -- all under a sloped ceiling that makes everyone have to slouch over.

Thai Indie Experimental Music Videos

The videos were: Thunska Pansittivorakul's Blind Spot and Zart Tanchareon's Answer by Soundlanding; D.I.E.'s The Time We Had by Goose; Thawatpong Tangsujjapoj's Message by T-Bone; Pichanan Lauhapornsawan's Body and Pathompol Tesprateep's Reverse by Assajan Jukrawan; Chanatip Kunasayeamporn's We do it all the Time by Mae Shi; Chatchai Ngamsirimongkolchai's Circle; Sathit Sattarasart's Escape by Klear; Haukom&ISE's Tassanajorn by Talkless and Because (two versions) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

I don't know about anywhere else, but music videos (annoyingly acronymed in Thailand as MVs) are still a vital part of the music business because most of the mainstream artists also release karaoke versions of their albums. I'm not sure if any of these videos or songs will be featured on karaoke machines though, except for perhaps T-Bone. Their gentle song, produced by Hualumpong Riddim (whom fans of Pen-ek Ratanaruang's films know), is an infectious mix of Thai pop and ska-reggae. The video was animation -- big fluffy triangular figures rolling out more of their kind.

I enjoyed the first two songs by Soundlanding -- lots of jangly guitar. Is this Thai emo?

A nice surprise for me was Apichatpong's videos, only because I hadn't noticed them on the program earlier. The last version of Because looks to be shot on the set of Tropical Malady and features his actor Sakda Kaewbuadee and one of his stock-company actresses in repeated frames that scroll across horizontally.

Thai Indie Showcase

The program was Chulayarnnon Siriphol's 1013; Panata Dissuwankul's RGB; Unnop Saguanchat's Hear the Wind Sings; Nontawat Numbenchapol's Volatilize; Sathit Sattarasart's Breeze; Olan Netrungsi's Self Portrait, Kati, Nujj; Pathompol Tesprateep's 4 Feb 2006 live @ Bangkok Code; Zart Tanchareon's Before Raining; Suchada Sirithanawuddhi's Floating Thoughts; and Patchara Eaimtrakul's Close Friend.

This program was well attended, but I'm sad to report I can't recollect much of it. It's all a blur of over-saturation in my head.

What stands out is Pathompol's video of some industrial punk played live at Bangkok Code, while I'm assuming right next door, in the dark, some construction workers are climbing on the skeleton of a high rise being put up. Squalling electric guitar that would make Neil Young proud is a serenade to the laborers of the night.

Learned Behavior

Back at the BEFF on Sunday with a fresh, open mind, I was anticipating seeing Observation of the Monk directed by Pramote Saengsorn in collaboration with performance artist Wannasak "Kuck" Sirilar, who portrays a Buddhist monk.

Learned Behavior "explor[es] the poetics of reproduction, and the unconscious forces that shape the patterns of social and political life."

Other films are Middle-Earth by Thunska Pansittivorakul; Uruphong Raksasad's Roy Tai Phrae; Sports News by Manatsak Dorkmai; The Love Captive by Sanchai Chotirosserranee; 3 – 0 by Anocha Suwichakornpong; Drive by Olan Netrangsri; The Duck Empire Strikes Back by Nutthorn Kangwanklai; Escape from Popraya 2526 by Paisit Punpruksachat; Krasob by Nitipong Thinthupthai and Legacy by Inge 'Campbell' Blackman.

Observation fit this theme with its monk walking under a dusty bridge, encountering a pile of old CRT monitors (the wreckage of civilisation) and then seeing a disturbing(?) image of himself.

Several of the films I had seen before in the Spoken Silence program at last year's Thai Short Film & Video Festival: the provocative human landscape study of Middle-Earth; 3-0, about three people on the move but getting nowhere, just like Thai society; and the hilarious Duck Empire about a rubber duckie falling into a water barrel and can't get out, and is replaced on his perch by a dinosaur.

Roy Thai Phrae was surprising. It starts out like Uruphong's other odes to idyllic rural life, with footage of farmers sowing rice by hand. Then another face comes into the picture: Samak Sundaravej, the new prime minister, as if to say: These are the people who elected him. Do you have a problem with that? What is he offering them that you aren't?

I'm not sure why Sports News was named as such. It's about a guy being questioned about what Thailand means. The guy says: Nation, Religion, King and Constitution. No! There is no constitution. He is tortured. The guy is asked again: Nation, Religion and King. Just the holy trinity. And, no, it is NOT okay to make films showing a monk playing guitar.

Stuff I missed

I can't be in two places at once. Most of the time I was at work, because I have this thing called a job. But full-time attendees of BEFF were also faced with a dilemma -- watch the films at Esplanade or be across town at the Alliance Francaise. There were two distinct programs and venues.

Here's what I wish I would have seen:

• Local Loop: Emerging histories from the Philippines -- Two documentaries examine the history of the Philippines, from the Spanish-American War to the decline of the Marcos years. The films were Angel Shaw's The Momentary Enemy and Sally Jo Bellosillo's Laban: The Meaning of the EDSA Revolution. Bellosillo was also on hand for a Q&A. This played on Thursday night at the Alliance.
• Variety Theatre -- Playing on a hectic Friday night, this program featured Singapore Gaga, Tan Pin Pin's history of the arts in her country.
• Thunska + Sompot -- Playing too early on Wednesday night for me to finish work and negotiate murderous Bangkok traffic, this featured films by Thunska Pansittivorakul and Sompot Chidgasornpong, including Thunska's new works "Action!" and Soak. It's very likely this will be shown again at some point, somewhere in the near future.

(Photo from Faceless, courtesy of BEFF; cross-published at The Nation Weblog)

Thai film review roundup: Fun Bar Karaoke, Top Secret and more

While I've been out gallivanting around, riding boats with wine-swilling hipster freeloaders and chatting up underground filmmakers -- with not much yet to show for my efforts -- real bloggers are doing the real work of writing real reviews about real Thai films.

Over at Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee, Peter Nellhaus has been dishing up all Thai, all the time, with recent reviews of Fun Bar Karaoke, The Unseeable and the first two Art of the Devil films.

Fun Bar Karaoke is Pen-ek Ratanaruang's first film, which is only available on VCD (from a VHS transfer). I recently acquired the VCD myself, but have been so busy with work and trying to attend the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, that I put my own copy of Fun Bar Karaoke on the shelf to save for a day when I could give it my full attention. Until that day, I will let Peter say a few words about Fun Bar Karaoke:

Pen-Ek's background in advertising is very much at play with a scene of a photo shoot for a face cream, part of the action taking place in a 7-Eleven, and some unusual product placement for Coca-Cola. There are a couple of scenes of people dancing, not dance numbers per se, but still it suggests that it would most likely be Pen-Ek who might create the great Thai musical.

Many of the elements of Pen-Ek's future films are already in place. Characters are connected to each other in ways they don't expect while the family unit is often fractured. One of the characters, a young man named Noi, is a small time gangster whose dream is to walk away from that life. The film is in part about the clash between traditional Thai beliefs and like in modern, crowded and international Bangkok.

The Unseeable, is, of course, Wisit Sasanatieng's quickie, low-budget ghost movie from 2006. Though it lacks the colorful panache of Tears of the Black Tiger and Citizen Dog, it still oozes old-timey Siamese style. It played at the recent San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. It's one I also have on DVD, and I enjoy watching it very much.

Peter notes while it gives into the conventions of horror films, The Unseeable still has Wisit's style:

Too often, the soundtrack blares to instruct the audience to be startled. As the film was made primarily for a Thai audience, the concessions genre conventions emerge strongly during the last half hour. And yet what Wisit achieves a more genuine sense of poignancy that a less capable director could only wish for. Unlike too many Thai filmmakers who think nothing of playing down to their perceived audience, Wisit aims a bit higher. Wisit's artistic aspirations may have hurt The Unseeable at the box office, but it made for a much better film.

As for Art of the Devil, I want to save Peter's comments about that film series for another day, so I can move on to another blogger, Todd Stadtman, who writes Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!, which is a supplement to a film review website called The Lucha Diaries, which covers 1960s international action cinema.

On Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill! Thai action hero Mitr Chaibancha has his own label, and three of his films are covered: Top Secret and Operation Bangkok (both directed by Vichet Kounavudhi) and Mitr's final film, Insee Tong.

For Top Secret and Operation Bangkok, Todd is reviewing VCDs he's ordered from eThaiCD. These are not subtitled, and because they are from the 16mm era, the sound is post-dubbed, poorly. But Todd is very much into the look and atmosphere of the film, and Thai action films of the 1960s had those to spare. Here's a bit of what he has to say about Top Secret:

I'm not going to pretend that I even bothered to try to follow that plot, but from what I could see, it looked like it could be a fun film if watched in a context that didn't threaten permanent eye damage. There's a squadron of female karate commandos, a cool mod villain's lair with all kinds of hidden doors and booby traps, and plenty of shootouts between our very similar looking heroes and the villain's uniformed, tommygun toting hench-army. The production values are quite good, with an impressive display of military hardware on hand. (I've concluded that either the Thai government was very supportive of the film industry, or their military was just movie mad.) Finally, it's also something of a musical, with characters taking time out from the action to burst into song, and as such has it's own, equally distressed, audio track--which you can't always count on with Thai films of this vintage.

Todd goes on to note that Wisit Sasanatieng is in the process of making a new Insee Daeng film, possible rebooting the movie series that starred Mitr Chaibancha as a masked vigilante crimefighter, assisted by his faithful girl Friday, played by Petchara Chaowarat. He says:

So here's my--undoubtedly naive and completely unfounded--hope: That Wisit Sasanatieng's upcoming revival of Insee Daeng (aka Red Eagle) will be so awesome that it will inspire renewed interest in both the films of Mitr Chaibancha and 1960s Thai cinema in general, and that as a result we'll finally get to see more of these older films restored--if that's even possible--and subtitled on DVD.

Don't let me down Wisit. You've got me a little nervous, because The Unseeable kind of sucked.

More information:

• Here comes Red Eagle
• More Red Eagle (Twitch)
  

Sick Nurses Region 1 DVD release on April 22

Sick Nurses, last year's exploitive slasher ghost film, released in the wake of the censorship of Syndromes and a Century, will be released on Region 1 DVD on April 22 by Magnet, the "extreme" subsidiary label of Magnolia Pictures.

Directed by Piraphan Laoyont and Thodsapol Siriwiwat and produced by Sahamongkol Film International, the film was notable for its unsavory portrayal of medical professionals, working in a hospital, dressed like hookers, having sex (including some twin sister girl-on-girl action) and killing their co-workers.

This would have been all fine and well, if just a few months before Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century hadn't been censored by the very same board that approved Sick Nurses. With Syndromes, censors found something wrong with gentle scenes of some doctors having a friendly drink of some whiskey in the hospital basement, and of a doctor taking some time out of his busy day to meet his girlfriend and passionately kiss her. No, can't have any of that! Please, give us hot sex with lesbian twin sister lovers!

Predictably, gorehounds worldwide are hotly anticipating the release of this DVD. Says a poster on the Mandiapple forum:

Despite the fact that it has a long haired ghost for revenge, the film is said to be one of the most entertaining, original, and violent films out of Thailand, also featuring some ironic humor and many beautiful nurses! Also, the film is bathed in colors ala Suspiria.

Sick Nurses is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.

The censored theatrical version of Syndromes and a Century, meanwhile, is slated for release in Thailand on April 10 at Paragon Cineplex. Deknang has more on that, and I'll have more on it in a few days.

More information:

• Review: Sick Nurses
• Sick Nurses, Train of the Dead for Taiwan, Bangkok Love Story to Singapore
• Sick Nurses at Wikipedia

BEFF5: Anocha Suwichakornpong's Black Mirror, Thai Indie's music videos and showcase

Black Mirror, a new short film by Anocha Suwichakornpong, is part of the Daily Rounds program screening at 2pm on Saturday at Esplanade Cineplex as part of the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival.

It's part of Daily Rounds, a collection of new Thai works devoted to cycles of daily life. Other films are Chalermrat Gaweewattana's A Century of Love, Tanatchai Bandasak's Endless Rhyme; Watchathanapoom Laisuwannachai's Golden Mountain and Chai Chaiyachit's provocatively titled National Anthem.

This is followed at 4pm by International Harvest II - Paranoid Dance, a collection of films that offer "unsettling flirtations with genre, paranoia and strange choreography ... explor[ing] the psychological programming of modern life." The film's are A Very Slow Breakfast by Edwin from Indonesia; Plot Point by Nicolas Provost from Belgium; Kempinski by Neil Beloufa from France; Haak Sei Wuih Tuhng Mau Jai by Adrian Wong from Hong Kong; May I Go to Toilet Please? by Veerapha Engmahatsakul and Ravitsara Phunphrae from Thailand' and Faceless by Manu Luksch of Austria.

From 6.30pm, the floor will be taken over by Thunska Pansittivorakol and his Thai Indie collective, with two programs: a one-hour package of music videos and a 105-minute Thai Indie showcase.

Here are the videos: Thunska's Blind Spot and Zart Tanchareon's Answer by Soundlanding; D.I.E.'s The Time We Had by Goose; Thawatpong Tangsujjapoj's Message by T-Bone; Pichanan Lauhapornsawan's Body and Pathompol Tesprateep's Reverse by Assajan Jukrawan; Chanatip Kunasayeamporn's We do it all the Time by Mae Shi; Chatchai Ngamsirimongkolchai's Circle; and Sathit Sattarasart's Escape by Klear. 4:00

The Thai Indie Showcase starts at 8pm. The shorts are: Chulayarnnon Siriphol's 1013; Panata Dissuwankul's RGB; Unnop Saguanchat's Hear the Wind Sings Nontawat Numbenchapol's Volatilize Sathit Sattarasart's Breeze; Olan Netrungsi's Self Portrait, Kati, Nujj; Pathompol Tesprateep's 4 Feb 2006 live @ Bangkok Code; Zart Tanchareon's Before Raining Suchada Sirithanawuddhi's Floating Thoughts and Patchara Eaimtrakul's Close Friend.


More information:

• www.project304.org/beff5
  
• www.myspace.com/beff5

(Cross-published at The Nation Weblog)

BEFF5: Uruphong Raksasad's Roy Tai Phrae

Roy Tai Phrae, a new short film by Uruphong Raksasad, is part of the Doco Loco: Thammachad Tumra/Nature's Recipe program at the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival.

It will be shown at 6pm on Friday at the Alliance Francaise. The package is "an ethnographic program giving a taste of the diverse food traditions of Southeast Asia that could inspire the maintenance and revival of ancient knowledge."

Other films in the package are Pattanaphong Jatikaet's The Chameleon Hunt; Manu Luksch's and Mukul Patel's Aju J's New Year Feast - In the Year of the Fire Dog; Etta Säfve's North Sea: Low Tide (Ophelia); Jun Iwakawa's Harmonics (Fridge promo) and Rhino Ariefiansyah's Bisa Dèwèk – We can do it ourselves.

Special mention goes to Uli Westphal's and Kristin Cooper's Coleoptera, an animated short that in two minutes runs through silhouettes of beetles. The order Coleoptera contains up to 8 million species, which would take a very long time to go through. I forget exactly how long. Frame by frame, the short goes through as many of the bugs as possible in two minutes. Coleoptera was showing on a TV at a reception at Wednesday night's opening of BEFF5. I sat and watched it rather than mingle. And now I'm thinking about eating beetles.

Across town at the Esplanade Cineplex on Friday, there's a package of German shorts at 6pm in International Harvest - Introducing Berlin II with a talk by Mario Pfeifer and then International Harvest III - Variety Theatre with shorts from France, the US, UK and Belgium, closing with the 55-minute Singapore Gaga by Tan Pin Pin.

Uruphong's Roy Tae Phrae is also screening in the Learned Behavior program, which will have an encore screening at 2pm on Sunday at the Esplanade.

More information:

• www.project304.org/beff5
• www.myspace.com/beff5

(Cross-published at The Nation Weblog)