Bin Bunluerit - Chainsaw Hunk

This is Bin Bunluerit and it's a still from the movie Roy Pah (ร้อยป่า, 1986). I think I don't have to write more. It's brilliant in every way possible. I will buy this DVD and review it sooner or later. Watch this space. 

Krai Thong 2 (ไกรทอง 2, 1985)

A couple of years after the last movie Krai Thong is now back in another exciting adventure, Krai Thong 2, unfortunately watched without subtitles so I'm not 100 % sure about the story this time. Not that it seems any complicated at all. The whole movie is just one crocodile attack after another and not much more. "Well, thank you Sompote Sands!" I say and raises my hand in a respectful gesture, because that's exactly what I want with a movie like this: a rubber monster and gore!

A new evil wizard is in town and has taken over Chalawa's old golden cave. This guy also have to women down there, if they are kidnapped or not I have no idea, but they seem to like it. Anyway, it might be them - or the evil wizard - who goes on bloody rampages along the river, eating, killing and maiming everyone from little babys and children to old people and... yeah, about everyone else coming it the crocodiles way. Of course Krai Thong (Sorapong Chatree) is called into action again, probably believing it's his old nemesis Chalawa who's back in business again!

Yeah, while the story seems uncomplicated, it's a movie packed with action - a lot more than the first one and maybe much of it is stock footage from some earlier film, I don't know because I don't recognize the main set-pieces from any other proejct, but on the other hand, I haven't seen them all yet. What's a little bit of a disappointment is how little screen time Sombat Metanee has, he's just have a glorified cameo at the end and Sorapong Chatree has fairly little screen time compared to the first movie. I mean, these are the starts - and both is always brilliant whatever they do. Sorapong gets most to do, including flying on an angry crocodile...

... and Sombat just participates (in human form) in one action scene, which is a quite nice fight between him and the new evil wizard down in the golden cave. The highlight here is when the evil wizard sends several mini-crocodiles towards Sombat who has to battle those completely immovable, dead, puppets like a madman - if you need a comparison, think about Bela Lugosi vs. the giant octopus in Bride of the Monster. Another good thing with Kraithong 2 is that it's a lot gorier than the first part. First of all, there's a lot of blood-pumping attacks in the water, but during one sequence the crocodile crawls up on lands and starts tearing people apart with very gory and bloody fashion. Sompote Sands here uses real-life amputees who have fake-limbs attached to their stumps and the crocodile-puppet can chomp away as much as possible on them! It looks quite good, or at least gory.

To simplify the story and focus more on action is good for a movie like this. There's no need to follow the storyline of some ancient legend and the production actually has a less heavier tone. It's more fun, more action and more blood - but also less involving because or more undefined and weaker characters. Sombat and Sorapong is good and so is the new guy playing the evil wizard, but the rest of the characters gets lost in storyblivion and is easy to mix up with each other.

But it's clearly a better and more sellable movie, much to the joy of a popcorn cinema fan like me. 

Krai Thong (ไกรทอง, 1980)

When visited Sompote Sangduenchai (aka Sompote Sands) earlier this year I got a unique look into a fantastic film factory like I never seen before. The only problem was that it was destroyed by the recent flooding in Thailand and the whole area was roughed up by the water. The doors into his house still had marks from the waterline, way way above what's even could be considered close to normal and it was shocking to understand how much props, posters... yeah, Thai movie history, that was destroyed during that disaster. Before we left the place we stopped by one of the big studios, now more or less empty because of the destruction - and I saw this:

Yeah, it's two of the crocodiles he always used in his movies. One with a wider nose and this one, with a more pointed snout. It might not say anything to you, but for me it was like being close to a legend - a cult movie legend in the form of a crocodile puppet being used to eat so many Thai stars over the years. What's even more bizarre, I never seen one of his more famous creations, the super-hit Krai Thong starring Sombat Metanee, Sorapong Chatree and Aranya Namwong. Today, after failing to see one single Thai movie for many months I finally sat down to watch it.

Chalawa (Sombat) is a might Crocodile Wizard living in a golden cave deep down under the water. One day he falls in love with two beautiful women, daughters of a rich man, and kidnaps them. They seem happy about it, but not the father who calls out for someone to save them - and here Krai Thong shows up, played by Sorapong - and he takes it upon himself to find and battle the wizard and stop his crocodile terror once and for all!

Like many of Sangduenchai's films it's a bit rough around the edges. It's closer to some Thai opera than a typical monster movie. And with Thai opera I mean it's very theatrical, filled with colourful costumes and sets that might not look realistic - but still works fine because the rest of the movie is so over-the-top. Actually, that description could work on most of Sangduenchai's films! But I think you know what I mean. The story it's more clear and understandable than usual, but it's also based on a classical folk tale and having a more defined storyline than if it was his own creation. It's actually not directed by Sompote, at least not according to the credits - but he's the man behind it, it's easy to see.

I love big rubber crocodiles and so do Sompote, as we all know. Krai Thong is packed with crocodile attacks, people getting chomped by the monster and everything is mixed with real crocodiles who hardly look like the rubber one at all. In one short shot the croc is about 500 times bigger than in the rest of the movie, which probably means that this shot is just stock footage from some earlier film he made. The attacks are pretty well made with a lot of pumping blood and kids being eaten over and over again. Fun for the whole family!

The actors do what they do best, looking cool. Sombat is mostly down in his cave making out with two ladies and Sorapong is mostly on the ground trying to find Sombat. They're both good and knows what they're doing after 500 movies behind them both. That's something called experience like few other actors have!

Krai Thong might just be for us, the most obsessed, but if you feel for watching it there's some good news: the Thai DVD and VCD actually has English subs! Amazing, and it makes everything much more clear! 

Farewell, Pearl of Asia...

It's with shock and sadness I hear today that Pawana has left us. Yeah, that's the shittiest start of a Monday ever. According to Bangkok Post she was found drowned in her pool and some other sources says they also investigation her death as a possible murder.

Earlier this year I went to Thailand, both to meet dear friends and to have a well-deserved vacation. I met up with monster-maker Tong in Bangkok and we set out to hook up with actors and filmmakers we admired. One of them was the Pearl of Asia, Pawana Chanajit - star of countless Thai action movies and several Hong Kong films opposite David Chiang.

I met her at a restaurant outside Bangkok. She was a bit late, but when she arrived - an elegant, colorful, woman with a big smile - she welcomed this big, pale, bearded Swedish geek with open arms. Thanks Pawana! I will never forget that!

We sat down, me and Tong, for an hour or so, with her and talked movies and how she by chance became a movie star - and she made me eat some strange food also! :) She retired from acting in 1979 and was since then a successful business woman.

She was in a hurry – she actually forgot about our meeting – and was on the road to do other things, but took time to meet us , and after signing some posters for us she asked me when I would return to Thailand. Maybe in a year, or earlier I told her. She smiled, "Then we must meet again and talk longer, eat dinner and just hang out!" she said in excellent English.

I promised her that. And said goodbye.

She signed these for me, sorry for the bad quality. I will treasure them like no other posters in my collection.

Farewell you pearl of Asia, may you forever glimmer among the other stars that's left us.

/Fred

This blog is...

...is pretty dead. I'm not sure if I will let it stay alive. 

I'll give it until the end of the year. Need to find a good reason to actually keep writing.

/Fred

Headhunter (2004)

It's trash-time at The Mee Noi Thai Movie Review!

It’s not often nowadays, I know. But I will be better, promise folks! There seem to be tons and tons of cheap shot on video movies in Thailand, and during a period cheap 3D-movies shot on video was even more popular. They never reached outside Thailand and its VCD and DVD-market, and I guess most people just are happy because of that. Me, a brave man, likes to dive into the unknown and therefore I’ve seen – so you don’t have to – Headhunter!

A serial killer (no, actually two serial killers) are murdering their way thru Bangkok (I think…) and is collection body parts. Their dad is a man with black magic as a speciality and he want to create a new man, a “Frankenstein’s Monster” more or less, but will make him alive with magic instead of electricity.

After one of the sons is killed by the police they want to take revenge on them, and kidnaps and chops up the brother of our hero-cop. Not soon after that, they have a zombie, a living dead super-strong killer built of body parts – and the head of the brother!

Yes, Headhunter is cheap trash with cheap gore and cheap acting. It’s not boring, I can’t say that, but a lot of the story is destroyed by two other characters – a nosy female journalist and her very stereotypical gay photographer. They are written like two morons and is totally unnecessary for the story. They’re just there to be some kinda silly, idiot non-funny comic relief.

The gore is cheap, but its quite bloody – though it’s nothing to some other Thai movies I’ve seen. What works though is the 3D, which looks fine and a lot better than I expected. The colours look realistic and the depth is ok, at least when the camera is moving around on rail or on a steady cam. Even if you would see this in 2D, there is not chance in hell that you would have missed the 3D-feeling because there’s something always pointing towards the camera, always!

Headhunter is crappy, cheap entertainment. Nothing else.

Slice (2010)

Wow, shit. Slice is a heavy piece of Thai cinema. It wasn't really what I expect, actually it was a good thing - but I was kinda into watching a more commercial and "simple" serial killer-movie, but got a very brutal, downbeat serial killer/childhood-drama with some stunning visuals and excellent acting. It starts of with a farang pedophile getting stabbed in his hotel room - the little boy as a witness - by a person in a big read cloak. The man's genitals are then cut off and he's stuffed in a red bag and dumped into the sea. This isn't the first victim for the killer, who attacks virtually everyone that has some special sexual fetisch - neither it's illegal or not.

The police handling the case, the nasty Papa Chin (Chatchai Plengpanich) get's fifteen days to solve the case when the son of the chief of police is killed and get his anal ripped open, and hanged up-side-down outside in the public - wearing female underclothing! He remember that his old friend Tai (Arak Amornsupasiri), an ex-cop - nowadays in prison for killing another officer - once talked about a friend of his, Nat, who might be involved in the case. He get's Tai out of prison, gives him a gun and a cell phone and tells him to find the killer in fifteen days - and so Tai goes back to his childhood village and soon we learn the tragic story of Nat, a boy that wanted to be his friend and maybe more...

I guess this could be one of the most graphic and controversial Thai thriller ever and the style of the movie, a lot of non-shaky handcamera, experimental visuals and naturalistic acting was probably something that turned of the normal Thai audience - it became a flop to, which is a damn pity because it's one of the best Thai movies I've seen in a very long time. This is a movie that never lets the audience calm down and go back to that normal state of non-thinking, non-controversial relaxation. When some shit happens here it happens big, and it won't take long until something even worse happens. The stuff in this movie is something that never, and I mean never, would happen in an American movie. The story deals a lot with pedophilia, which is a very rare subject in Thai cinema (I think this is the first time I see it), and the abuse that both children and women are victims off.

But because the murders are so fierce, it's hard to first connect to the killer - understand why he or she is doing this - but after every detail of abuse, every crappy person that lives in the earth shows up, fuck someones life up over and over again, it's starting to make sense. Everything comes together in the end in a way I think is good, but I would have prefered a slightly different ending. Good or bad means nothing in Slice, which makes it even more interesting.

And yes, for fans of gore and violence, you have a lot to see here - but I doubt you will find any enjoyment from it. The only scene that might pass as "entertainment" is a shoot-out at a sex-club, which is filmed very arty, in slow-motion, with lots of blood and violence. The set is also a weird carousel and the first thing that came to my mind was a Roman orgy! It's hard to describe, so give the movie a try and see what you feel about it.

Because feeling is everything here, thinking and analysing is further slices down in the cake.

Operation Bangkok (เพชรตัดเพชร, 1967)

Operation Bangkok is an awesome Thai/Hong Kong co-production from 1967. Starring the only and only, Mitr Chaibancha and leading ladies Regina Pai Ping and (of course) Petchara Chaowarath, this a action-packed, fun and visually strong action movie with enough kitch for everyone. No subtitles of course, but Chaibancha's character seem to go undercover (as usual) in some crime organization and gets in to a lot of fistfights, always with a perfect hair cut. Yes, except a slower half-hour during the last hour of the movie (it's almost two hours long), this is a damn effective and good-looking piece of action cinema. There's more the one fistfight, often violent and with excellent editing. Shoot-outs, car-chase with helicopter, a fight on a speeding boat and even more fistfights!

Shot on what looks like 35 mm, it look less cramped than some of Chaibancha's 16 mm-movies from the same era, and the co-production with Hong Kong probably brought a lot more money into the production than usual. It's also shot in Hong Kong, some parts at least, and boats a big cast of cool actors. The production is slick and looks like a much bigger movie than it probably was, and the only thing that makes this film suffer is the very scratcy master - but still, it's probably the only version left and this is as good as it ever will look nowadays.

Chaibancha is as usual an excellent leading actor, and this time he's also paired with another guy who I don't know the name of, but he has a great face and has a lot of chemistry together with Mitr. One of the fights in the end, where both of them are fighting each other in some old warehouse is one of the action-highlights of this charmer of a movie. Another wonderful thing is the cool music numbers. Because this movie is set in couple of different nightclubs, so there's always a new Thai-pop/beat group playing on stage, probably real groups doing cameos. Most of the time we're allowed to see the whole numbers too, so it's a great way of watching kitchy Thai-versions of western pop/rock/beat!

I have a lot of good things to say about Operation Bangkok, because it deserves it. Even with out subtitles and with a constant rain of scratches, this is one of the best and coolest Chaibancha-movie I've seen so far.

1 2 3 Monster Express (1-2-3 ด่วนมหาภัย, 1977)

First of all, I'm not sure when this movie was released - most sources say 1977, but some claims 1970 or 1971, and one say 1975. Sorapong Chatree looks very young here, so it could be the early seventies. Anyway, 1 2 3 Monster Express was the biggest blockbuster that year in Thailand and I can understand why. First of all, the story is very, very, very simple...

We have the usual suspects in a seventies thriller: the pregnant woman, the teenagers, a young military (Sorapong of course), one more typical leading man (Krung Srivilai, who I've mentioned here before), an eldery man and so on. All of them are traveling with a long distance bus, but someone really want to stop that bus. First a couple of robbers are following them and tries to stop the bus, but one man on the bus has a weapon and stops them - and they we realize that he's a gangster too - and that he has a couple more collegues on the bus! The passengers stops them too after some fighting and shooting, but are ambushed again by more baddies and is brought to a prison camp! From there they escape AGAIN with the bus, after a lot of action of course... and they more bad guys takes up the chase... and I even have to mention that there's a bomb on the bus?

I think everyone understands, this is non-stop action from start to finish (actually, the first ten minutes is quite slow but has a big fight and the last ten minutes is a bit slow, but has a pregnant woman giving birth on the bus) in the classic cheap but spectacular way we all learned to love from the Thai's. The fights are of course only fistfights and stuff like that, but it's violent and with a lot of energy. Bloody squibs, explosions and a few good stunts here and there makes this a damn fun movie - and even without subtitles it's easy to understand the twists and turns.

Visually it looks better than I thought it would. The claustrophobic setting on the bus is used with talent (and my god, it must have been warm on that bus when they shot the movie - no studio here, just a moving bus in the hot sun all the time) and the movie looks very fine. It also has two stylish slow-motion shots during the last half, but it could have been more if I could choose. What helps the movie even more is the stolen soundtrack, probably from similar American thrillers and disaster movies. It fits the mood and style, and it's nice to hear something else than cues from the Bond-movies, Pink Floyd or The Pink Panther-theme for once!

The Thai VCD looks quite good, even during the night shots, but is (of course) cropped on the sides. But it's one of the better looking VCD's of such an old Thai-movie I've seen. Recommended.

War of Devils (199?)

According to IMDB, Tony S. Suvat wrote two movies around 1990: The Lost Idol (with Erik Estrada and Sorapong Chatree) and In Gold We Trust (with Jan-Michael Vincent and Sam J. Jones, got good reviews in Variety in 1992)), both directed by one "Philip Chalong". If Tony is just a writing-alias for Philip Chalong I have no idea, but Tony S. Suvat (or maybe his name is Buncherd Dhawee?) is credited as the director and writer of this little known movie, War of Devils. The only place I've seen something that resembles a review say it's from 2007, but that's not correct. It look more like early nineties.

Inspired my American horror-movies, it starts of with a couple of teenagers (but I guess they are well above 25, going with the tradition of slasher-movies) in a Scooby Doo-van, looks like something right from the seventies with the famous peace-mark embedded in a a very trippy paint-job.They are rocking to the max while listening to a, probably, unlicensed Highway Star with Deep Purple! After a few hours on their trip they are far out in Reckneckistan and stops by a little store - where some hillbillys, here represented by local gerillas or something, starts bugging them. Soon they are out in the jungle and meet an old (floating in the air) man that warns them about going further, but they don't listen to him.

Not long after this the rednecks is catching up and wants to have little fun with the girls, and maybe kill their boyfriends, but they are stopped in the last minute by a forest ghost, a flying woman with a manic laughter and with the power to transform herself to a rotting corpse - still flying, waving her arms like a bird! The rednecks wants to take revenge for her stopping the fun, and finally manages to kill one of the kids - and this starts a war! Finally one of the bad guys uses his black magic to invoke a couple of monsters: a vampire dwarf, a rotting zombie, a Thai-warrior with two faces and a bat/ape-esque demon from Hell!

The kids takes shelter in a house and has to defend themselves against the monsters outside!

The inspiration from the US slasher movies obviously stops with them leaving the rednecks at the store, because after that it's traditional weirdo Thai-territory! War of Devils is a good-looking little movie who are more ambitious than a lot of the other movies set in jungle thats been produced in Thailand. The direction is inspired and way better than usual, and it also looks damn good. The first half is a bit slow, with too much talking, but it builds up to the Night of the Living Dead-style finale and delivers a lot of fun during the time. The special effects are good, sometimes very good. The flying woman and demon from hell works very good and looks cool and convincing. They also added some animated sparkles to the woman, which actually works fine. The rotting zombie is disgusting, the vampire dwarf is cooler than you would think and the Thai warrior is a bit scary with his huge deadly sword.

It also delivers some gore, though not in any big amounts. There's a nice chopped of arm, some impalings by sword and other pointy things, a quite dark scene of the zombie ripping out the intestines from a character, some squibs and a little bit more. But the best thing is just the monsters attacking the house in different ways, the black magic vs the white magic. It's a bit childish, but with a mean-spirited feeling of sadism.

I have the Thai VCD, and the cover don't look that exciting. But it's a fun movie (and the picture quality is ok) that belongs to the old style of Thai-filmmaking, still low budget and quite obscure. I was afraid that the generic (but competent) beginning would set the course for the rest of the movie, but it takes a wonderful quirky turn and shows us that the Thai's always know how twist our expectations a little bit extra.

Aussawin Darb Gaiyasid (อัศวินดาบกายสิทธิ์, 1970)

From the first of October 1970 to the fifth, the same year, just under a week, Mitr Chaibancha was in Hong Kong and Taiwan and shot one of the few foreign (or co-productions) movies in his career. A couple of days later he was back in Pattaya and did the final scenes in Golden Eagle, the first movie he produced and starred in at the same time. As we all know, that final take was the take that led to his death and he left behind 266 feature length movies in fourteen years and 18 unfinished productions that had to be shut down or re-shot because of his death!

I don’t know the original title of Aussawin Darb Gaiyasid, but most of the cast seem to be Chinese – and the only actor I can identify is the great and awesome Kien Shih. The female lead is played be a Thai actress in this version, but I heard that it was a Chinese actress doing the part in the Hong Kong version. Anyway, because I watched it without subtitles and it has a lot of story and characters it was kinda hard to follow. But what we have is the traditional love story, two enemy families and one of them owns a salt mine. Chaibancha plays the son in one of the families and seem to be fighting a lot with another dude, maybe someone from the other family. In one sequence I get the idea that one of them has some kind of psychic powers, because he can move heavy objects. Maybe making them magnetic. Yeah, that’s about it.

I’ve been trying to decipher the Thai Wikipedia about this movie with the help of Google Translate, and after Chaibancha died the director also brought in another actor with a similar face and body to shoot rest of Chaibancha’s scenes. I didn’t notice this when I watched it, so either it was very little or the other actor had very similar look.

Even if I didn’t understand a friggin’ word of the movie I enjoyed it immensely. The action was more or less non-stop with a lot of fun and bloody sword-fighting. Maybe because of the print quality, it had a very nice gritty feeling. Especially those scenes shot outside of the studio, around beautiful Taiwan. Cool angles, some smart use of handheld camera and lots of energy. Sure, it might just be the result of the low budget and fast shooting schedule, but it still looks and feels very impressive.

Mitr Chaibancha impresses in the only serious role I’ve seen him in so far (when this review was written, which was a while ago...). After all the tongue-in-cheek action flicks from Thailand it was cool to see him in such a meaty, blood-soaked, part. Petchara Chaowarat also appears, and she's a fantastic actress that worked together with Chaibancha for many, many movies. 

The Thai DVD from Triple X is not bad at all. Anamorphic widescreen and, I think, uncut. The print is quite rough, but for us that appreciate these kind of movies it just makes it even better.

303 Fear Faith Revenge (303 กลัว/กล้า/อาฆาต, 1999)

303 FearFaith Revenge was the first Thai movie I bought on DVD and it's still a movie I revisit from time to time. If you ask me which the first Thai movie I saw was, I would say something by P. Chalong - because several of his movies was out on VHS here in Sweden. But back to 303. It was the years after Scream and the industry was flooded by slick and very mainstream slasher movies, so it didn't take long until Thailand did their own take on the American tradition of a crazy killer chopping up kids. The Thai's did their own twist and brought back the supernatural twist, which is fine by me - as long the body count won't stop!

St. George boarding school, a Catholic school during the late fifties or early sixties. New students arrived, among them Ghu (Ananda Everingham) who's supported by the church to get a place at the prestigious school. In the Hall of Fame he and his new friends find a photo of Prince Daovadueng, who according to rumours killed himself. They start to investigate the suicide and decides to use an ouija board to contact their dead former school mate - but instead they unleash something much worse, someone who wants to kill everyone at the school! What dark secrets do the school hide?

The story and twists are a bit to convoluted to completely follow, but don't let that stop you to check out this well-made and very visual supernatural slasher. I find it interesting that it uses the same clichés like all movies set on an all girl school (this is a school for boys), including shower scenes and  some not too strong homoerotic undertones (just check out the first scene when two of the boys see each other - it's like from an American romcom!).

That's just a small part of a movie that focuses heavy on the mystery behind the school - what do the priest/principal and school hide? Here famous character actor Suchao Pongwilai make a flawless and complex role as the head priest and Micheal Pupart as his colleague, Brother Wiwat. I guess I'm not the only who noticed the anti-Catholic atmosphere (which I like!) in this movie, from the encouragement of bullying to downright hiding serious crimes and washing away the sins of the past. Its actually very interesting to watch a Thai movie that criticizes the church and very nicely interweave Buddhist faith and traditions from an completely other direction.

The cast is filled with boys who just years later became the brat pack of Thailand and still turns up in genre movies. Most famous of them all is Ananda Everingham who starred in the CRIMINALLY underrated Red Eagle (from director Wisit Sasanatieng in 2010) and still makes the hearts of young girls do somersaults of excitement whenever he show his face. All the grown-ups are very good, much more low-key than usual., Pongwilai of course, but don't forget the always fun Charlie Sungkawess as one of the teachers.

I still don't know what the title stands for or exactly what happens in the movie and it's many twists, but one thing is for sure: it's still a good horror movie that deserves a wider DVD release.

Cat With the Diamond Eyes (เพชรตาแมว, 1972)

During my latest trip to Thailand I bought a bunch of bootlegs from at lady at the Khlong Thom market in Bangkok. This place is also called the flashlight market because you need (or needed, I don't know how it is now) flashlights during the night to be able to see something - must be a dream place for pickpockets! This lady specializes in OOP Thai movies or stuff that's never been released official. But it's still bootlegs of questionable quality of course! Cat With the Diamond Eyes is one of the movies I bought, mostly because the cover - you can see it above - and a guy like me who have no knowledge in the Thai language often buys movies if the covers looks interesting. It starts good...

...with a jungle expedition chasing a big, black cat! And when I say big black cat that's what I mean. No panther or something, this is big ol' normal cat but big as a human and play buy someone wearing a cat-suit. They trace the cat into a deep cave - filled with cats! Small ones! Cute ones! The hunter wrestles with the big cat and cuts out it's eye -  a diamond! Many years later, a colleague to the hunter is in a wheelchair and he has the eye. But his greedy lawyer (that's just my imagination, because he looks like a sleazy lawyer!) wants the diamond and tries to steal it time after time - but the cat, of course a supernatural being, also wants it back and starts to terrorize those who wants his eye!

Oh, did I mention it also have three song-numbers? I have seen very few Thai genre movies who has singing in them, but this one actually starts with an absurd number when the whole expedition sings together and the black cat is screaming of anger somewhere in the jungle.

I know this sound like fun! But it's a long movie, 2,5 hours and most of it is just actors walking around in a suburban villa talking with each other. The start is awesome and weird and fun, but it never really takes off from there. Sure, every time the cat arrives or the sleazy lawyer tries to kill someone it gets more interesting, but it's way too talky! What makes that part better is the good actors with Phairoj Jaising as the male lead and Naiyana Shewanan (unbelievable beautiful) as the female counterpart. There's a couple of veteran actors around also, but I can't identify them. Maybe in a few years when I've become better in recognizing faces.

I wish I could write a meatier review but there's not so much to write about and I can't take screenshots for the moment. I guess you need to be quite into Thai cinema to really appreciate this, or maybe it's hard even for Thai's. Me, for one, would appreciate some more horror to consider it a movie I could recommend. 

Choompae (ชุมแพ, 1976)

Did you know that every single movie Sombat Metanee did was released in 1976? No, just kidding - but that year seemed to have been a very productive year not only for Sombat but for a lot of filmmakers in Thailand. I have no idea why, but it was in the middle of the seventies, freedom probably got bigger and bigger and I'm sure most directors tried to boost themselves into making more and more spectacular movies. Choompae was one of the biggest hits that year and is still considered a classic, but the story is quite much like the other movies from the same time...

Pherg (pronounced Peeh) Chompae (which also seem to be the name of the town) comes back his old village to take revenge on the gangster, played by Kecha Plianvithee, who killed his father. Pherg is also a gangster and he's come back not only for revenge but to take over the crime business in the little town. No one wants him back, not the other bandits and not captain Chaiyo (Nard Poowanai). It won't take long until everyone is out to get Pherg and soon they're also going after his family, his old girlfriend and everyone close to him! It's time for Pherg to really clean up the trash!

What makes Sombat unique is his willingness to take on quite complex roles and his string of anti-heros from the seventies often outdoes both the Italian and American counterparts. Pherg is most of the movie quite un-sympathetic, but we're still willing to root for him. It's not only that he's very brutal, his behaviour towards women are more than nasty and in this movie he threatens with rape not only once but twice. But it's also a play with stereotypes, because he never goes that far - he just like to use the words to gain power. And compared to the real bad-bad guys he's nice in comparison.

Sombat has always been a good-looking fellow, but it wasn't until the middle of the seventies I think he really started to evolve when it came to the art of acting. I think most of it is because of the anti-hero parts he got offered. Not just playing nice and handsome, but doing more complex, multi-layered characters. His hair got wilder together with his performances. The rest of the cast is the usual suspect, all great: Kecha Plianvithee (who always reminds me of Joseph Wiseman), Dam Datsakorn (really nasty in this movie), always the good-guy Nard Poowanai and Pipop Pupinyo always doing his famous henchman with his classic biker-moustache! There's a bunch of other actors also, of course, but I haven't learned their names yet!

Choompae is a good start for you who wants to start watching old Thai action movie. It has everything and is also very well made. The direction, especially in the action and chase-scenes, is flawless and we're also treated to some insane stunts. The highlight being a nice fight on top of a bus that actually looks quite dangerous!

Another reason to start with this one is that the Thai DVD actually have English subs! Wow. It's also uncut, almost 2,5 hours and is correct ratio. It's still possible to buy, for example at eThaiCD. Buy it before it's gone, because these are one of those movies that will disappear sooner or later.

Top Secret (คนเหนือคน, 1967)

I love the armada of James Bond rip-offs that came during the sixties. 1967 was a practically good year with new Bonds from all over the world. Thailand, with their leading man and ultimate movie star, Mitr Chaibancha also had to jump on bandwagon and produced several very inspired movies in this genre. Operation Bangkok, a co-production with Hong Kong might have been the best one, but Top Secret is a very charming and confusing entry. The story is kinda convoluted, but my guess is...

... that super-villain Kecha Plianvithee wants to rob the world of a lot of gold. Maybe to build an even bigger crime syndicate. He has his own army of actually very cute soldiers and the usual easily fooled femme fatale girlfriend that gets dumped in the end. But beware, heroic cop/agent Chaibancha is after him! Thanks to Sombat Metanee, who's undercover inside Kecha's crime syndicate, he gets inside - but gets caught and spend most of the time in a cell, doing gymnastics and flirting with the female guards! Eventually the baddie is traced to his island (what else) and the action starts!

Okay, there is action even before the ending - a couple of fun fist fights and some chases, but the money and time is spent on the low budget spectacular war scenes with tanks, soliders, helicopters, boats etc. It looks good! The movie also starts with some very nice-looking aerial scenes involving fighter airplanes. My wild guess is that the Thai army sponsored this movie both with vehicles and men.

What's interesting is that Chaibancha kinda takes the backseat in Top Secret. He's always there, but mostly talking or looking at other people, and Sombat - who looks terribly young at the tender age of thirty - takes care of most the action and even has a very cute and romantic song-number in honour of some girl he's interested in. And don't forget, his famous curl is always there to set the hearts of teenaged girls (and gay men I guess) on fire:

Even of the story itself is quite generic, Top Secret still have a couple of wonderful and bizarre set-pieces. The song-number by Sombat is nice, but we're also treated to a big song- and dance-number on rollerskates! If every movie had that! Top Secret is also filled with the ancient and prestigious art of killing dummies. Yes, stunt-dummies pretending to me real humans are thrown from houses and cliffs and blown to pieces by hand grenades. Always a welcome sight and during many years a tradition in the real Bond-movies. I mean, we all know they're not killing people for real so why not go all out with limbless dummies? I dig it! You dig it! Another awesome sequence is when Chaibancha falls down a trapdoor and ends up in a really "far-out-man" psychedelic room belonging to the super-villain. And it seems to hurt when he glides down on that metallic slide!

Top Secret is a groovy, action-filled slice of sixties action. Not unique, but it has a lot of entertainment value and not bad production values. I have a bootleg DVD (ripped from the official VCD) and the quality is terrible. It looks like an army of dwarfs first tap-danced on the print for a few hours and then put under water for 25 years. But it's possible it watch it and it's not un-sharp. Just VERY scratched. 

Phra Aphai Mani (พระอภัยมณี, 1966)

MitrChaibancha was undoubtedly THE biggest movie star Thailand ever had, and during thosefifteen years he was active in the movie biz he starred in 266 movies (165 ofthem together with female superstar Petchara Chaowarat). He died during atragic accident during the shooting of Insee Thong in 1966 and has since thenelevated from not just a movie star, but almost a holy man. Still people aretraveling to his shrine in Pattaya to show their gratitude, put flowers and incensefor good luck and look at the magnificent statue of him posing with a knife anda gun. I've been there of course, what else did you think?

Phra AphaiMani is based a part of Sunthorn Phu's epic poem with the same name and tellsthe story of Kramon (Chaibancha) who after studying abroad is stranded on anisland together with his brother and their friends. He starts playing his fluteduring the night a female giant, Yak, with the teeth of a wild boar, hears himand falls in love instantly! She sneaks up to the island and kidnaps him to hersecret island, keeping him prisoner inside a mountain. To make him moreattracted to her she transform herself to a beautiful young woman (PetcharaChaowarat) and seduces him. Life there is quite nice and soon she's pregnantand gets a son. But after a few years Kramon starts missing his family againand with the help of his young son he escapes... but Yak won't let him go soeasy!

Phra AphaiMani is one of the cheapest fantasy movies I've seen. It's not a surprise. IfChaibancha made 266 movies in fifteen years I guess not all of them would looklike Ben-Hur! It starts of quite good with the lady giant kidnapping him, butafter that it's mostly talk for an hour until they escapes and there's a littlebit of adventure and then more talk and talk and talk. I guess it would be moreentertaining if there was subs, as usual. But it sure has it's highlights. Ireally adore the cinematography, clothes and actors - even if the only excitingprint is in pretty bad shape. Both the pre-credits and probably some scenes inthe middle of the movie is lost for example and the print has a lot of damagesand scratches. But it's amazing of Triple X, as the Thai company is called, tohave released this! s

When thereis action it's fun and cheesy, with unconvincing - but charming - specialeffects. The Yak is, for example, destroying a big boat and drowning theseamen, which looks cool. But the best thing is that this is probably the firsttime underwater-zombies made an appearance on film! Yeah, what we have here areliving dead guys with skeleton faces and looks like they're dressed in burialshrouds! Very cool!

It's niceto look at and has cool actors and underwater zombies, but Phra Aphai Manidrags a little bit too much without subtitles for me to recommend it to folkswho hasn't that extreme interest in odd genre movies. It's out on a very niceDVD in Thailandand I've also scanned the other side of the cover to show you the gorgeousposter they printed there.

Enjoy!

The final appearance of Thep Thienchai?

I always enjoy movies shot in Thailand, and even if I actually didn't watch Surf Ninjas, I had to check if it's correct that veteran Thai comedian Thep Thienchai makes an appearance as "Gong Man". The movie itself is a dreadful, unfunny, mainstream crap-heap starring some unknown "talents", the non-talent of Rob Schneider and Leslie Nielsen cashing in another easy paycheck during his golden years. But to be fair, it has some glorious locations - among them, I think, that fantastic cave from countless of Thai action flicks from the eighties (it was a popular location of Philip Chalong). 

Anyway, it took some time and some logical thinking - and I found the five seconds Thep Thienchai appears, doing is trademark silly grin to the camera and then running to the gong and performs his... gonging. That's it. But it's also the best in the movie. Could this be his last feature film performance? Maybe, and I like it. He takes over the screen totally, does his job and then leave the disaster to the rest of the unfortunate cast and crew. 

Lets end with a vintage grim from one of his most famous productions, James Band 007, a movie everyone must see before they die. Seriously.

The Three Tigers from Suphan (สามเสือสุพรรณ, 1981)

The influence of westerns, both American and European, is hard to deny when watching Thai action movies. Most countries have tried their hands one this very American genre, but except Italy few have succeeded. What's interesting with the Thai westerns is that they never pretend to be set in the US. They still keep Thai traditions, environments, religion and music (well, not always - how many times have Morricone's music been "borrowed" for Thai movies really?) but still manages to sneak in lone gunslingers, bandits, thrilling duels and bar fights? Wisit Sasanatieng's masterpiece from the year 2000, Tears of the Black Tiger both celebrated and poked fun at Thai westerns - but it's mostly a loving tribute to the past of Thai cinema (going so far with casting Sombat Metanee as the bad guy, a brilliant choice). The Three Tigers from Suphan is supposedly based on a true story, but I don't know so much about it. So don't ask me.

The story revolves around a band of thieves and criminals, bandits, dressed identical uniforms and cowboy hats - only in black of course. They call themselves "The Black Panthers", and they steal from the rich and give to the poor (I think). Most of the story is centred around three of them, one of them played by Thai movie stalwart Sorapong Chatree. But the group, led by en elderly man, seem to lose focus on their moral and some of the members starts to give themselves little treats - for example attack innocent villagers, stealing and raping. This is not the only problem of course, because the police is near and wants to stop them once and for all!

I saw a bootleg-version, ripped from TV. So I guess this is a bit shorter than the supposed to be. The story goes very fast sometimes and I'm not sure about the exact storyline because of this (the one above is just a guessing, because as usual there's no subs). It's still an pretty engaging movie with one big action sequence, the money shot of the movie: a very spectacular ambush of a train, filled with nice stunts and a high body count - and one juicy chopped of arm by sword! I'm not sure who they're attacking, but it almost looks like a Japanese army or something!

The rest of the movie has some shoot-outs and fistfights, but the train-sequence is very hard to beat when it comes to action here. Because of the quality of the DVD it's hard to say what the budget was, but somewhere behind that lousy VHS-quality it looks like a quite expensive and ambitious movie. I mean, if they can afford squibs it's usually a bit more money in the bank. One sub story is quite interesting and I wish I had could understand the dialogue. One of the three tigers keeps contact with his wife and mother, and the drama around this is good and gives some depth to the bandits. Because usually it's hard to keep an interest in criminals who have no strong motive for robbing people - but I'm sure that would be much clearer with subs.

Yeah, I know.  A pretty pointless review of a movie I could understand to 50 %. But because there not other English info someone needs to write something. Please correct me if you feel that the storyline is way wrong and if there's something more I should add about the movie or the history behind it. 

Land of Grief (แผ่นดินวิปโยค, 1978)

In July 2011 a disaster would strike Thailand. Triggered by the tropical storm Nock-ten, flooding destroyed properties to a value of 45 billion dollars. 65 provinces was affected by the water and over 500 people died. It's the fourth most costly disaster ever. It ended in the middle of January 2012, but when me and G visited the country in March this year we could still see damage and it was something that caused a national trauma that won't be forgotten for a long time. When disasters happen in Thai movie it's often water involved. Sompote "Sands" Saengduenchai's 1978 disaster-drama Land of Grief is probably his most serious movie, even if I had a hard time following the story without subtitles. I don't think it's worth even trying to, but what we have here is Sorapong Chatree playing a the hero. It's set around a small town plagued by a gang of bandits, killing and robbing people. It all ends in a disaster, a terrible disaster, cleaning the land like an act of god. In the centre of it all is an ancient pagoda and the last we see in the movie is how it's rebuilt (it's a real pagoda) and reconstructed after what once happened. 

It takes 75 minutes for something to happen in this movie. Ah, I'm sure a lot of things happen in the first hour also - but the lack of subs made it virtually impossible to understand what was going on. It's drama, some comedy, some romance and of course the sadistic gangsters doing their evil deeds. It all ends when they brutally kill a family, executing them one by one, and maybe that's what sets of the disaster. A fury from mother earth herself.

First strikes winds, a nasty storm. Then an earthquake and finally tidal waves... and yeah, then some more store another earthquake! This is old-school disasters. Miniature houses and landscapes ripped apart by thundering earthquakes, families flushed away in slow-motion from the tidal wave, lightning attacking the bad guys and one character dies a bloody and graphic death when he's impaled by a tree! Sompote learned from his mentors at Toho, from Kurusawa and Honda. To make the audience suffer he must make the characters suffer - and with delivering a lot of character-development in the first hour it feels a lot more engaging when they die one after another in the last half. The effects is fairly well done also. Like always, it's easy to see that their are miniatures - but works fine considering the probably very low budget.

The mood also changes during the last hour. It's darker and nastier, far from the family friendly thrills in the beginning. Sorapong Chatree, an excellent actor, does his traditional hero - a free spirit who walks from village to village. Hardly anything new from him, but he's good - as usual. Like always, the only bad things in this movie is a couple of scenes with animal-killings. Well, I don't think we actually see them kill the animals (snakes and a lizard), but it's enough for me seeing them getting ripped in pieces by medicine men and chefs.

I was prepared to just skip this movie, but the last half made it so much more interesting. It also reminds me of what we saw in Thailand. One day me, G and Tong visited Sompote in his office and home outside Ayutthaya. After a couple of hours talking and walking around we left, but we asked if we could stop by the studio close to the entrance. "Of course", which was good - I wanted to take a photo of the giant crocodile we saw on our way inside.

The studio was more or less wiped out by the floods. Thousands of posters laid out on the floor to dry. Many of them melted together from the water. But there, leaned against a wall, the pagoda stood. The original miniature used in the movie. This time it made it.

It defeated the disaster...

Tah Tien (ท่าเตียน, 1971)

Fresh after many years in Japan under the supervision of both Kurusawa and Ishiro Honda, Thai visionary and all around monster-fan Sompote Saengduenchai (aka Sompote Sands) came home to Thailand with a whole new concept: Kaiju, something that's never been done in Thailand before - and Sompote had to be first. I manage to collect a budget of 120 000 dollars (which was quite much in bath during this time, as you can imagine), hired hot star Sombat Metanee and set out to do the ultimate first Thai monster movie. The result became Tah Tien.

It's a bit hard to follow the storyline, but it seems to be a mix of Thai mythology and just the wacky imagination of Sompote. A giant snakes swims ashore, vomits an egg and swims away. A frog crawls out from it's cave, eats the egg and vomits it again! The egg explodes and a small woman appears. She then transfers her soul (or something like that) to the frog who not long after this befriends an old and they smoke huge cigarettes together. Just look at this:

Anyway... the snake (or maybe we should call it a serpent?) transforms into a man who starts searching after his egg...woman...frog. At the same time Sombat Metanee is a hunky jungle-adventurer with his trademark curly hair and muscular, manly arms (sorry, got carried away there...). He and his team meets a gorilla, a rhino and in the end even a couple of dinosaurs fighting each other! Their adventure leads back to Bangkok where one of two statues outside Wat Arun, Thosakan the demon guardian and a Chinese old man with a club becomes Godzilla-size and starts tearing down the scenery and slowly fighting each other!

Tah Tien is one of the most bizarre monster movies ever made, mostly because it completely lacks a coherent storyline and it seems like Sompote and his team just created scenes that I wanted to see in a movie, ignoring basic dramaturgy. Now, this is what I like. I like the chaos, the freedom. Sure, it's cheap and sometimes not very smart - just watch the comedy scenes - but that's the whole point. And it was a big success, not only in Thailand but in the rest of Asia. Just don't expect something of Toho-quality. This was Sompote's first movie and he was trying everything for the first time.

The monsters are very simple rubber constructions, some of them are probably just papier mâché (for example the rhino). The are stuff and hardly movie - but I think in the case of the statues at Wat Arun it's the meaning, because they are statues and not traditional living creatures. Yeah I know it's a movie, just trying to force some logic into everything here! ;) The miniatures are also very primitive, but it didn't stop Sompote from filming them in close-up and really showing us the goods. I like that. I hate when miniatures are used in the background. Even if they are primitive I want to see them!

Most people would probably loath Tah Tien but I can't get enough of stuff like this. It brings out the eight year old boy inside me - or at least his happiness over seeing a movie which just is fun, bizarre and fun. I'm not saying it's a movie for children, because it has both blood and nudity - but mixing that with family entertainment makes this movie even better!

When I was in Thailand I actually visited the area where the final of Tah Tien was shot, and I got a chance to meet one of the statues... but the wrong one!

In the last shot you can spot the one, on the right,
that's not doing anything in the movie!

I'm doing my best posing in front of the wrong statue.
Well done Fred!

Tiger from River Kwai (ข้ามาจากแม่น้ำแคว, 1975)

I smell a co-production here. Tiger from River Kwai is a western movie (probably) shot in Spain with an Italian crew starring a Thai movie star and a Hong Kong nobody as heroes plus an American actor doing his usual bad guy routine. And that's cool! Krung Srivilai is the Thai actor and Kam Won Lon, who I never heard of in my entire life, plays the other hero in this light-weight western-adventure directed by Franco Lattanzi. The Spaghetti Western Database mentions a Hong Kong producer, Fu Sheng, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was Thai money involved also. Why would they use a Thai actor and shoot scenes in Thailand? Like I wrote above, I can smell an international co-production miles away and here we have one.

Krung is playing a nice Thai guy who goes to America to deliver the ashes of a dead friend to his family. Well, not only that, but also an elephant statue filled with gemstones! Somehow a gang of bandits have heard this and they decided to rob the "Thailander", but they make a mistake and tries to rob a Chinese restaurant owner instead, Kam Won Lon, and this makes him involved in protecting his new Asian friend. But the bandits won't give up, and the leader (Gordon Mitchell) does everything in his way to get the stones... including innocent families and fucking around with the wrong sheriff... Luigi Montefiori!

Tiger from River Kwai is a quite entertaining western, but neither original or creative. Putting martial arts in westerns is nothing new and the odd thing for me is just putting a Thai and a Chinese together against Gordon Mitchell. THAT's original, but never makes any sense. It's even hard to understand why they would hook up and fight together. But Krung is a good actor, and one of the finest action actors from Thailand. He had a bit rougher look than Sorapong and Sombat and also played more unsympathetic characters (at least before Sombat decided to go more dark later in his career). Here he's very good in a western environment and his fistfight against Gordon Mitchell is hardly unique, but very good entertainment. What makes him more bizarre is the strange English dub they given him - some very odd accent, it's not Thai, that's for sure. But that Chinese dude has it even worse. He's dubbed by someone who sounds like a valium-drugged child-molester! Yeah, it's a very slimy and weak voice.

Also watch out for Luigi Montefiori, but his character is more of a cameo than anything else - but he's a nice addition to the cast if nothing.

Tiger from River Kwai is an interesting East meets West, but lacks the personality and spectacle it needed to be something special. Why not use more traditional Thai stuff? Why just let Krung kick around like some normal drunk? Why choose such a pale Hong Kong actor as... I already forgot his name? It's never boring, or badly made, it just needed that extra boost of... something. If I was the producer I would have taken Gordon Mitchell and his gang to Thailand, followed by Montefiori - and letting them be confused over a much more exotic and interesting country than the US. That would have resulted in some pretty interesting action sequences.

But hey, that's just my imagination! To see this movie you either have to own the VHS or download an VHS-rip, but rumour says that MYA Communications will release it on DVD, which would be awesome. I would be first in line to buy it!

The Thai actors in The Man from Deep River

I'm a big fan of Italian exploitation and today I watched Umberto Lenzi's groundbreaking cannibal-adventure The Man from Deep River. Shot in Thailand - the beginning in Bangkok and then the hero travels with train to the countryside (and I can spot a sign saying Wang Poh) and after getting himself he guide to travel out in the jungle he gets caught by a local tribe and... romance and cannibalism occurs. Like life itself.

Shooting in Thailand means Thai actors and there's a whole bunch of what I think is experienced, professional actors. The only one I know about is Pipop Pupinoy and he's hard to recognize without his trademark biker-moustache!

Here's the other Thai actors with bigger or more advanced parts. Their name is in the credits, but if someone can tell me more about them I would be grateful! 

I can swear I've seen this guy before - but where and what's his name?

Prapas Chindang

(?)

Song Suanhud

Sulallewan Suxantat