Eagles and Mitr fly in outdoor movie shows

Thai films will be screened in the classic nang klang plang (open-air) style – including live dubbing – nightly from Friday until December 26 in the Movies on the Beach show at the Ramada Plaza Menam Riverside Bangkok Hotel on Charoenkrung Road.

Filmmaker Pantham Thongsang curates the program, mixing classics with contemporary Thai movies.

The program starts with Khoo Kam, a classic tale of star-crossed lovers during World War II. Many versions of this story have been filmed, and they'll show two of the best remembered – the 1973 version starring Nat Phoowanai and Duangnapha Attapornwisan and 1996's with Thongchai "Bird" McIntyre in the role of a Japanese officer and Apasiri Nitibhon as the Thai woman he's in love with.

Saturday's show will have dueling historical dramas, starting with 1966's Suek Bang Rajan, starring Sombat Metanee in a performance that won him a Tukata Tong (Golden Doll) award, which was handed to him personally by His Majesty the King. Phitsamai Wilaisak also stars. It's in a double-feature bill with Thanit Jitnukul’s blood-soaked battle epic Bang Rajan, which became an international cult hit after its release in 2000.

Sunday will feature the martial-arts exploits of legendary actor Mitr Chaibancha and his leading lady Petchara Chaowarat in the high-flying Hong Kong wire-fu swordfighting fantasy Atsawin Daap Gaaiyasit (อัศวินดาบกายสิทธิ์). According to Thai Worldview, another actor named Chat Chayaphum from Chayaphum province was brought in to complete the film after Mitr died.


During the week, there will be the films by Pantham and Somkiet Vituranich: the talking-dog drama Ma Mha (Mid-Road Gang) on Monday, and 2004's social drama Ai Fak (The Judgement) on Tuesday.

Nonzee Nimibutr's 1997 debut feature Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters about teenage hoodlums in the 1950s (screenplay by Wisit Sasanatieng) shows on Wednesday.

And there's the smash-hit 1970 musical Monrak Luk Thung (Magical Love in the Countryside), starring Mitr Chaibancha and Petchara Chaowarat.

Christmas Eve has more Mitr action in 1970's Insee Tong (Golden Eagle), which features the fateful helicopter stunt that killed Mitr on October 8, 1970. It'll be in a double bill with this year's Insee Dang (The Red Eagle), an action-packed reboot of Mitr's long-running franchise by director Wisit Sasanatieng, featuring Ananda Everingham in the lead role of the masked vigilante crimefighter.

Christmas night will offer spirituality and laughs in the Buddhist monk movies Luang Ta 3: Seeka Khang Wat from 1991 and Luang Phee Theng (The Holy Man).

The program closes with the 2001 romantic drama Khang Lang Phab (Behind the Painting), the final film by the late director Cherd Songsri, starring "Ken" Theeradej Wongpuapan and Cara Pholasit.

Tickets are Bt350 for one screening and Bt450 for two movies on Friday and Saturday. Part of the proceeds will benefit the Thai Film Foundation. Call (02) 688 1000.

Eternity (Teerak), Red Eagle and more set for Rotterdam

The International Film Festival Rotterdam presents its XL edition for its 40th edition this year, and is already unveiling some of its Tiger Awards competition lineup.

Among the selections teased is Eternity (ที่รัก, Tee Rak), Sivaroj Kongsakul's debut feature. Eternity received support from IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund.

There's also Wisit Sasanatiang's The Red Eagle, and Wisit will serve on the jury for the Tiger Awards competition alongside Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, former IFFR director Sandra den Hamer, Romanian filmmaker Andrei Ujica and Sonic Youth musician Lee Ranaldo.

Anocha Suwichakornpong, who won a Tiger Award for her debut feature Mundane History will also be back in Rotterdam, serving on the jury for the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films. Her latest project, the all-female-director short-film trilogy with China's Wang Jing and Singapore's Kaz Cai, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, will also be shown.

IFFR runs from January 26 to February 6.

Mundane History back in New York City

Anocha Suwichakornpong's award-winning family social drama Mundane History is back in New York City, where it's playing in a limited run at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art.

The New York Times' Jeannette Catsoulis gives it review. Here's a snip:

Merging astronomy, Buddhist philosophy, and political and social unrest, Mundane History may carry a modest title, but its ambitions are exactly the opposite. A simple, almost spare family drama told through strong, purposeful images, this first feature from the Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong parallels the emotional dynamic of a single home with the tumult of an entire country

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It's screening until Sunday as part of MoMA's ContemporAsian film series.

Ready to be knocked out by Bangkok Knockout

Aside from The Red Eagle, I've been underwhelmed by the offerings of Thai action flicks (*cough Ong-Bak 3 cough*) this year.

So I'm looking forward to this Thursday's local release of B.K.O.: Bangkok Knockout (โคตรสู้ โคตรโส, Koht Soo Koht Soh) as a welcome break from the romantic dramas and cookie-cutter slapstick comedies that are the usual Thai offerings.

Stunt guru Panna Rittikrai, the mentor of Tony Jaa, directs this one, and he's seeking to outdo all the insanely dangerous-looking action he displayed in the 2004 stuntfest Born to Fight.

Among the notable setpieces is a truck stunt that Panna has said was way more complicated to put together than the truck stunt from Born to Fight – you remember the one where the dude almost had his head crushed under a truck's wheel in the final take?

Bangkok Knockout is the story of a college "fight club" whose members are together for a reunion when one of their number is kidnapped. So they have to combine all their mad skilz – Muay Thai, kung fu, capoeira and other forms of badassery – to rescue their friend.

The cast of fighters are mainly guys who've been playing stunt doubles in movies choreographed by Panna and his crew at Prachya Pinkaew's Baa-Ram-Ewe studio. But among the recognizable names, there's Kazu Patrick Tang, the French-Vietnamese martial artist who co-starred with Jija Yanin in Raging Phoenix. Other marquee draws for Thai fans include comedian Kiatisak "Sena Hoi" Udomnak, actress "Kratae" Supaksorn Chiamongkol and veteran action star Sorapong Chatree.

In addition to the English-language trailer, there's also a Thai trailer, and you can watch it here.

Are they or aren't they? Yes or No?

The poster really says it all.

In Yes or No (Yes or No อยากรัก ก็รักเลย, Yes or No, Yak Rak Kor Rak Loei) a college girl named Pie (Sucharat Manaying) has a tomboy named Kim (Supanat Jittaleela) as a roommate

They have their differences at first. The girl thinks the tomboy with the Korean pop-star hair is a guy. They divide their room in half with a line that shall not be crossed.

But they eventually become friends.

And perhaps it will be more than friendship?

There's a trailer and you can watch it here.

Review: Cool Gel Attacks (Kradeub)

• Directed by Jaturong Phonboo
• Starring Jaturong Phonbbo, Jim Chuanchuen, Nuttapong Chatpong, Patarasaya Kreusuwansiri
• Released in Thai cinemas on December 2, 2010; rated G
• Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5

The sci-fi/horror comedy Cool Gel Attacks (กระดึ้, Kradeub) is a blast of entertainingly cartoonish special effects against the backdrop of a typical Thai situation comedy, with all the usual stereotypes, crude humor, wacky sound effects, goofy slapstick and lots of running around and screaming.

Weird blue maggots attached to an asteriod are somehow mutated when they crash-land in a suburban Bangkok village. With a mouthful of sharp teeth, these one-eyed wonder worms are cartoonish and fun. They range in size from that of an egg up to a submarine sandwich. Though one mother worm is as big as a city bus.

Produced by GTH, Cool Gel Attacks is directed by comedian Jaturong "Mokjok" Phonboo. One of the usual suspects in Thai comedy films, he starred in GTH's cute family comedy earlier this year, The Little Comedian, and gives that film's director Witthaya Thongyooyong a cameo as a newspaper delivery man.

Loosely based on a factual incident of a blue substance falling from the sky, it's the story of feuding neighbors who have to put aside their differences and team up if they are going to defeat the worms from space.

Jaturong's character is Teerachai, the patriarch of a clan of pork-bun makers. The steam from his bakery annoys his neighbor Maew (Jim Chuanchuen), who runs an icehouse. The two trade insults over a rickety picket fence.

Nuttapong Chatpong, who's been featured in the comedy segments of GTH's Phobia movies, is the nephew of icehouse owner Maew. He's in a Romeo-and-Juliet romance with "Peak" Patarasaya Kreusuwansiri, the actress from Yuthlert Sippapak's drama The Last Moment, daughter of the steamed-bun maker.

I have to say, I think Peak is better suited for comedies than weepy melodrama.


There's also a lesbian sister at the bakery who's in a hot and heavy romance with one of the icehouse workers.

Later, a group of gangsters show up, and among their number is an effeminate-acting cross-dressing man, just to check off one of the items on the list of things all Thai comedies must have.

The space slugs first attack pet dog and then try to find their way inside the other inhabitants of the village.

The usual running around and screaming ensues. Sight gags include the stock kicks to the groin, pork buns used as padding in a bra and an alien worm trying to enter a man through his anus. Seems a bit strong for a Rated G movie.

It's entertaining enough, but humor-wise I don't think Cool Gel Attacks is trying hard enough. The potential for a cult-hit in the vein of SARS Wars is there, but it doesn't rise above the level of pedestrian Thai comedy, which may limit its appeal to audiences beyond Asia, though genre festivals might seek it out, just for a few laughs.


Related posts:

• Weird blue slugs from outer space in Cool Gel attacks

Prachya, Jija and Mum join Koreans for 100-million-baht Kick

Ong-Bak and Chocolate helmer Prachya Pinkaew is now at work on a Thai-Korean co-production called The Kick, and according to an article in The Nation on Sunday, it'll be the first Korean martial-arts film.

"We don't have martial-arts films. Most of our action films revolve around gangsters or fights. And there's never been a movie about taekwando before," producer Kang Sung-kyu is quoted as saying.

The movie is budgeted at around 100 million baht, which is more than twice as much as what's usually spent on most Thai studio flicks.

It's a co-production by Sahamongkol Film International and CJ Venture Investment, an arm of the South Korean giant CJ Entertainment.

Raging Phoenix and Chocolate star Jija Yanin has a supporting role in the film. It's worth noting that Jija's first martial-arts training was in taekwondo, and only picked up Muay Thai for the movies. Here, she plays a Muay Thai boxer named Wah Wah, who along with Tony Jaa's comic sidekick Mum Jokmok, trains at taekwondo gym in Bangkok that's owned by a Korean family.

They join the Korean stars, Cho Jae-hyun and Ye Ji-won who portray a couple who've settled down in Thailand to run a Korean restaurant and taekwando school. They have three teenage kids who also get in on the action.

The plot involves Korean gangsters who steal some ancient daggers, and so the plucky family and their Thai friends have to try and stop them.

Veteran Thai producer Sa-nga Chatchairungruang, who had a hand in Fireball and the now-classic Film Bangkok productions like Tears of the Black Tiger, Bangkok Dangerous and Bang Rajan, is co-producing.

"It's an action comedy and appropriate for all ages. It has the ambience of a Jackie Chan movie," Prachya is quoted as saying by The Nation, which could make The Kick similar to Jump, the live stage show that's been a smash-hit in South Korea and worldwide.

Details about The Kick were first broke last month by Twitch, which revealed the news in its coverage of the American Film Market.

Twitch now has their hands on a Korean behind-the-scenes video on the production of The Kick. Go on over there to watch it.

The movie is due out sometime next year.

Constitution Day "funeral" for Insects in the Backyard and free expression

What was meant to be an informed and scholarly discussion about censorship and Thailand's confusing film laws, became a protest yesterday after the Culture Ministry sent a letter threatening to impose stiff fines and even jail time for the organizers of the seminar that was to show Insects in the Backyard at the Thai Film Archive.

The letter came from the Department of Cultural Promotion, which said that "every film screened in the Kingdom must first pass the Film and Video Commission."

So the seminar, which coincided with Constitution Day, was turned into a "funeral", during which the elegantly black-clad Tanwarin Sukkhapisit gave a tearful "eulogy" and then a ceremonial "cremation" was held, lighting fire to a disc of the movie. The ashes will be stored at the Thai Film Archive.

Those taking part in the ceremonies included Dorm and Hormones director Songyos Sugmakanan, who heads the Thai Film Director Association, Dome Sukwong, director of the Thai Film Archive, and media activist Supinya Klangnarong.

Instead of Insects, the formerly banned film Tongpan was shown. There was also a panel discussion on the film law, as planned.

A video of the eulogy is at YouTube, and you can watch it below.

Tanwarin, a veteran indie filmmaker, directs and stars in this family drama, portraying a sad and deluded transvestite father of a teenage daughter and son. The movie has strong depictions of sexual acts as the two youngsters address their confused sexuality and rebel against their cross-dressing dad by entering the prostitution trade. There's masturbation, a strap-on dildo and a brief glimpse of the director's penis. But there's also tears and even a bit of optimism.

A magnum opus by the director, Tanwarin has said Insects in the Backyard was made to address the issues of gay discrimination that persist in Thai society.

The movie was selected for the Dragons and Tigers competition at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it premiered, and also screened at the recent World Film Festival of Bangkok.

Working with Bioscope magazine's Indy Spirit project, which earlier this year obtained a local limited release for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Tanwarin's been aiming to release Insects under Thailand's most-restrictive 20- rating, which would limit the film to viewers aged 20 and older only.

This has been met with bureaucratic resistance, with Culture Ministry authorities saying the film is "contrary to morality". In the bureaucracy's confusing labyrinth of sub-committees and boards, Insects has already been turned down twice.

Employing kind of double-talk that you might find in Orwell's 1984, MiniCult says Insects isn't officially banned, "we just didn't give it permission to screen".

According to a story in The Nation today, Insects in the Backyard comes up for appeal for a third time before the Culture Ministry's full National Film Board on Monday. The story offers a glimmer of hope that the movie might be passed for release.

I'll believe it when I get to see it playing at a multiplex near me.

You can keep up with Insects in the Backyard at Facebook.

Update: Rikker has translated the eulogy.

Update 2: The Bangkok Post also had a story.

Cinemanila 2010: Hope for a Red Eagle sequel

The 12th annual Cinemanila International Film Festival wrapped up on Sunday, with Wisit Sasanatieng's The Red Eagle among the line-up.

Insee Dang himself, Ananda Everingham, was in attendance, and did a Q&A after the screening. According to Twitter, he said:

"If Wisit makes nice with Five Star, then the sequel will film in 2011." He also shared that Sahamongkol is interested in sequel.

So maybe there will be The Red Eagle: War of the Deadly Psychobots. I guess I still have a slim hope.

Ananda also took time out to talk to the press, talking about Filipino films and the possibility of his planned collaboration with Adolf Alex Jr. on a Spratlys Islands drama, Kalayaan.

Cinemanila opened this year with the Taiwanese comedy Pinoy Sunday and closed with John Sayles' Philippine-American war movie Amigo – two foreign films featuring Filipino actors and telling Filipino stories.

Suffering budget problems, the festival ran just five days this year, and come together at the last minute, according to Film Business Asia.

At the opening ceremony, the festival's founding director, Amable "Tikoy" Aguiluz, stated that "Cinemanila is like Philippine cinema, always in crisis mode, always in trouble, but somehow, someway, always pulling through".

Screening fees are blamed for being the biggest drain on the budget. Read the Film Business Asia article for more on that.

(Photo via Hammered Thor)

Luang Prabang Film Festival 2010: Festival notes

I was invited to attend the opening weekend of the Luang Prabang Film Festival, which is screening 23 Southeast Asian films until Saturday.

The fest got me a deal on a Lao Airlines flight (one of the sponsors) and put me up at a My Lao Home guesthouse (another sponsor). So many thanks to the director, Gabriel Kuperman, for inviting me and putting on what hopefully will be an annual event.

I wrote up a story about it for The Nation, and it's in the paper today. Here's a snip:

The fest, the first-ever in Laos’ Unesco World Heritage city, flickered to life over the weekend, showing films from neighbouring nations in the hopes of getting Laotian people interested in making movies.

In fact, they already are. The opener on Saturday night was an exuberant compilation of 15 one-minute films made by children in Luang Prabang. They played to an audience of 1,000 that filled the 800 seats in the City Market Square and spilled out around the edges. Passersby would pause on their way to the walking-street night market.

The Oneminute Junior programme, put together by Unicef and various other cultural organisations, was under the theme of “Daily Life in Dreams”. The short subjects ranged from a public-service message about wearing motorcycle helmets to mini-profiles of artisans.

One of the most entertaining was Be Careful!, an animation of an aeroplane, similar to the tiny twin-propeller aircraft that buzzed past the open-air festival venue on take-offs and landings at the city’s international airport. The crayon drawings of the plane flying through a thunderstorm in the mountains were moved by hand in front of the camera while the noise of the aeroplane and storm were imitated by vocal sound-effects that had the audience in stitches.

Made just last month in a Luang Prabang workshop, it was the first time many of the children had ever held a video camera, says Kuperman, who’s been in Laos since 2008.

Other shorts gave voice to the children’s dreams, of becoming a teacher or owning a computer shop. Maybe now, some of the children will dream to be filmmakers.

I think the short films were my favorite of the festival, and would recommend the package to other festival programmers. It's not every day you see a film from Laos.

I'd seen most of the other films already.

The opening feature was the Irish documentary Today is Better Than Two Tomorrows, which was filmed in Laos by director Anna Rodgers. Beautifully shot and interspersed with philosophical quotations, it's an intimate portrait of two boys who seem destined to live the same hand-to-mouth existence as subsistence farmers as their parents. An uncle convinces the families to send the boys to Luang Prabang. One enters the monkhood, where he'll spend 10 years in meditation and getting an education. The other attends a school. I was grateful for the scenes that showed the temples and monastic life around Luang Prabang. Because I was on a working weekend, and concerned with covering the festival, I didn't take much time out for touristy things like visiting the temples.

On the van ride from the airport, I ran into Stirling Silliphant, who I became acquainted with years ago when he was living in Bangkok and playing in a co-worker's rock band, the Eastbound Downers. Stirling, son of the famous screenwriter, was there representing the Vietnam-based Indochina Film Arts Foundation, one of the festival's "gold sponsors".

I also met Blaine Johnson, who was providing technical support for Open Air Cinema, an American company that specializes in inflatable movie screens for outdoor screenings. While the once-popular outdoor cinema screenings are becoming thing of the past in Thailand, Blaine says they are all the rage in the U.S., where park districts put on shows. For the Luang Prabang fest, Jay had a conventional fixed screen, 20 feet by 11.5 feet, which was a bit small. But that was within the small budget of the festival. A large Sony projector provided by Lao Star TV beamed the images from DVD files ripped onto a laptop.

Lao pop singer Alexandra Bounxouei was the mistress of ceremonies on opening night, providing bilingual translation of the speeches by Kuperman and the various Lao government dignitaries.

There were only a few noticeable technical difficulties. Moisture in the projector lens made a red splotch on the screen that sometimes made it look like someone's head was bleeding.

And sadly, one of the films playing this weekend that I hadn't seen, Kelvin Tong's Singaporean ghost thriller The Maid, had a problem with its file, which had apparently been ripped from VCD and send on a DVD. It was pixellated and running poorly and then gave up the ghost entirely about halfway through. I had a great time watching it with the Lao kids in the crowd, who screamed and covered their eyes to keep from being scared.

Later in the evening, for movies like Adrift from Vietnam or Karaoke from Malaysia, the audience tended to drift away, but like any festival, there's a hard-core of die-hard viewers who'll watch them all.

The Lao movies like Sabaidee Luang Prabang starring Ananda Everingham tended to attract the biggest audiences, showing there's a hunger for local movies.