The Mee Noi Thai Movie Review

Fireball (2009)

2012-02-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Finally I can stop complaining about modern Thai action, like I did here and here. Fireball probably has less budget than the two movies I linked to, but is a helluva good little action movie. A while I ago I saw another movie by the same director, Demon Warriors - and I liked it, but felt it ended in an anticlimax. Fireball is the opposite. It starts at full speed and goes more brutal, violent and spectacular until the final showdown.

If I got the story correct, Tan (Preeti Barameeanat) get's his brother killed in an illegal sport where the teams combine basket with Muay Thai. He, himself, gets almost killed and spends a year in the hospital. After he gets out he want to take revenge and starts playing with a new and upcoming team of fighters. The team is lead by a new gangster, who took over the team after his boss died. But who can they trust? The enemy teams are even more brutal, and is not afraid of using weapons to win their games, and with the right amount of money they can be forced to loose a game, and even loose their life to make the boss happy...

This is a raw and brutal movie with a lot of fighting and action. Director Thanakorn Pongsuwan uses his budget well, and creates a dirty and realistic version of the poor part of Bangkok. For once they heroes (and bad guys) aren't honorable country folks or rich well dressed kids. These are the ones that lives under the highway, selling t-shirts to tourists, working hard in the meat district and just are very poor and want to make extra money to get away and get a new life. Pongsuwan has caught the locations very good (I've been there, and lived there, myself - and I feel like I'm there again) and it's just very realistic. Fireball is also shot (beautiful by the way) digitally, which makes the atmosphere even more grittier.

Before I get to the action, I have to say that the actor and script is well above average. These feel like real people, not just caricatures of what people expect from a martial arts movie. They react in logical way, have emotions and the acting is subtle. After the cinematic turds of Hanuman and The Sanctuary, it's a welcome change of quality. Then we have the action. This is hard-hitting and brutal, quite a lot of blood and it feels painful - mostly because all fights are set on asphalt and concrete. The editing is also very rapid, but for once you can understand what's happening and it never becomes irritating. I'm impressed, really.

Fireball is the best modern Thai action I've seen since Tony Jaa's latest, without comparing them - they're totally different in style and mood. But I think you should see it and judge for yourself. I'm already looking forward to the prequel, where the origin of Fireball is explained - which starts during the Vietnam-war. Can be amazing!

Sick Nurses (2007)

2012-02-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

Once upon a while I stumbles over a film that I never heard of, but who seems so twisted and fun that I just have to see it. Sick Nurses is a sick little movie from Thailand, but a sick movie with a lot of humour and tounge in cheek. It's part a parody/satire over the typical Asian long-haired ghosts, and also a very black comedy about how seven superficial nurses get what they deserve!

The hospitals favorite doctor is young, handsome and fucks all the nurses. He's also the leading bodysnatcher in the area, together with his nurses. He steals bodies from the hospital and sells in the black market. But with so many beautiful and egocentrical nurses around, there must be intrigue and fights - and when everyone think one of the nurses is gonna marry him, the other ones kill her and together with him they sell the body. Well, try to anyway. After having the body in his trunk for seven days, he's tired of it.... and so are the vengeful spirit of the dead nurse, who decides to take out her gruesome revenge in one bloody, dark night...

Yes, this movie is about a long-haired female ghost killing people. BUT... it's also a very clever and funny satire where the filmmakers toy with the clichés, twist them around a little bit and makes something that's more of a very black comedy than a pure horror movie. Sure, of course there's plenty of horror elements, but they are often so weird that they become more bizarre than scary. For exampel, one character gets her jaw ripped of and suffocated with a fetus! Another one kills one hundred faceless nurse-ghosts by stabbing them with a pregnancy test. Another one get's stuck in her handbag in a very special way. The ghost is painted black with slightly blonde hair and uses her power to make the characters to do outrageous stuff.

The style of the movie is also very cool. It reminds me more of John Waters, Wisit Sasanatieng and some people with less imagination would say the whole movie is a visual tribute to Mario Bava, and to a degree, even Dario Argento. There's splashes of strong colors everywhere, often red or green, the angles are stylish and there's a European feeling to some of the set-ups: static camera, and a lot of weird stuff is going on at the edge of the framing. Gore? Yes, but not THAT much. The first hour is virtually goreless, but with a lot of bizarre scenes, and then we're treated some delicious splatter-scenes with a lot of blood-spurting and some original digital and physical effects.

I think the movie is quite low budget, but the crew has done a great job making it look fantastic. The humour is fun, and sometimes very subtle with a lot of attention to details. The characters might me shallow, but that's part of the concept in the movie. Everything is about looks, fortune, power and sex. My favorite character is the nurse who tries to loose weight all the time by vomiting, and later she brushes her teeth and eating a suger-donut at the same time!

Fun, fun, fun. This is a small but almost brilliant black comedy, which will make many disappointed by distributors who tries to make it look like a grim and serious J-horror movie. Pearls before swine, to be honest.

Mysterious Object at Noon (2000)

2012-02-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

My love for experimental film has growing bigger and bigger the last years, and one of the movies I've been looking forward most to see is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Mysterious Object at Noon. The director is letting the working class of Thailand improvise a story about a handicapped boy and his strange teacher. We begin with a woman selling tuna from a truck telling her lifestory, until she's asked to tell a story herself and from there the story is told all over Thailand, by different people in all ages.

Apichatpong also dramatizes the story, but also with different people, no actors of course, just normal people trying to tell a story. Sometime the filming is stopped and he even shoot the break or when the actors are rehearsing their lines. There's no rules, except keeping the story moving. The cinematography is black and white, very simple and documentary. The movie was made during three years, and is very abstract but also very free. This is so far from a controlled movie you can come. It's organic, intelligent and very absurd.

The story that's evolving goes from social realism to science fiction, and everything is tied together very interesting in the end. The longer the movie goes, more documentary and less conventional movie.It's hard to explain this movie, and it was quite far away from what I had expected when I first heard about it. But this is that kinda of movie that makes me feel alive again, after one empty movie after another. Not that it's nothing wrong with explosions, gore, car chases, monsters and martial arts - I love that stuff - but if you eat something good over and over again, it will soon loose it's taste.

That's why I'm happy that movies like Mysterious Object at Noon exists - to give me a little vacation until the next rubbermonster falls into my lap.

Scared (2005)

2012-02-20T10:06:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure what to write about Scared, but it's an entertaining piece of thai-cinema with a paper-thin script, all young actors look the same and easily to understand even without subtitles. A school class is celebrating end of school (I guess... maybe it's just summer vacation or something), so they're going out on a bus trip. After crashing with the bus - and the driver gets his face impaled by a big piece of wood - they try to get back to civilization. But something or someone don't want them to leave the countryside, and one by one they died en bizarre and bloody accidents or get hunted down by a very violent killer!

The story isn't much more than that, but except the silly ending, this is a fun and competent splatter movie with a decent budget and actors more cute than good. This project must have been planned to be a summer blockbuster and create poster-stars of most of the cast. I'm not sure that happen, I'm not even sure it became a big success, but still - I like it a lot and I'm surprised that it's not out DVD in the US or Europe. Shot on HD it looks very good without probably costing to much to produce. The actors are all around their twenties and are there to get killed and nothing more. And look cute I guess.

What makes this movie extra special is the generous amount of gore. Most of the killings is very graphic. I think that at least five or six of the victims have their heads impaled, crushed or something else. The head, or at least the top of the head, is sacred in Thailand so I think this makes it even more powerful. But then we have a lot of other nasty killings and the body count is very, very high. But all this is made with a tongue-in-cheek approach and even if I don't understand everything, I realize that the beginning of the movie is a parody of asian ghost-movies. Which is quite funny.

But the big problem is the ending. It's not that bad (like everything is a dream or something stupid like that) and it's possible to accept, but it's also a cheap way to end a very advanced set-up. It's been done before and I hope it will never happen again. But don't that scare you, this is a gory and over-the-top splatter movie which makes the last Final Destination to look like a piece of... crap.

Hurricane (เจ้าพายุ, 1980)

2012-02-04T05:19:00.000-08:00

Released onVHS is

Sweden

has "Thunder Kid", but the title literary means Hurricane (at leastaccording to Google Translate). This is a seldom seen movie from the master ofaction, Kom Akadej. He also directed The Killer Elephants (I've released it onDVD and it's possible to buy here). The Killer Elephants is a bit corny,especially with the ridiculous English dubbing, but Hurricane is a violentpower-package of cinematic action. Like almost every Thai movie from this era(which also characterizes the Bollywood production from that time) Hurricane isa mix of action, some comedy, a lot of melodrama and love story. But Akadejalways knew what the audience wanted: action and action and action!

SorapongChatree grows up as the bastard step-son of hard-hitting cop Sombat Metanee.Sombat is treating him very badly. So our hero grows up to be a hot-heatedyoung man who ends up in prison. There he learns to fight and be a man, and thesole reason is that he wants his childhood love back, the daughter of a localmafia boss. But the mafia don't want him alive, and they're also out to killSombat! What complicates everything even more is that the son of the mafia bossis his half brother! And... yeah, I got lost in the plot twist after thirtyminutes! Sorry!

Yes, thestory is quite convoluted and it's hard to follow all the storylines andcharacters, which is a weakness. But the movie is almost two hours long andkeeps up the pace in a very good way, mixing action and good drama and some verysilly comedy scenes with Sorapong trying to woo a girl with helping her on thefarm, getting stuck with doing the dishes, cleaning the car, doing the laundryetc. On the other hand, those scenes are also quite funny and Sorapong has agood sense for slapstick comedy.

SombatMetanee almost has an extended cameo and he's visible mostly in the beginningand in the end, but he's also excellent in a very complex part as a slightlybent cop. When we first meet him he's violent and nasty, very dark - and nexttime, many years later, he's an alcoholic - and in the end he's a ragingrevenge-filled man! It's a nice part and I guess this was one of the moviesthat built Metanee's career from being the typical hero to an impressivecharacter actor. In other parts we see Nard Poowanai and my favorite baddie, DamDatsakorn! Mr Baldy himself, Pipop Pupinyo shows up, looks angry and gets shotdo death. Like in so many other movies.

I haven'tseen much by Kom Akadej, but this movie proves that he was the Walter Hill/SamPeckingpah/John Frankenheimer of Thai movies. The action is extremelywell-edited and violent, and it just goes on and on without getting boring orrepetitive. The best sequence is the final, a shootout in the cheapest placepossible - an industrial sandpit - where Sorapong, Sombat and another fellowshoots a lot of bullets at each other. With hack behind the camera this couldhave been the most boring scene ever, but Akadej gives us a sensational actionscene with intelligent use of slow-motion, cool angles and rapid editing.Fantastic! Before this we also see a very squib- and slow-motion filledshootout at a farm and a great fistfight up on two logs hanging from a crane!

Hurricane, or Thunder Kid, is a great andhard-to-get action film from Thailand.If you get a chance, see it and love it!

Two rare Thai trailers

2012-01-25T22:08:00.000-08:00

I recently went to a company and transferred an old Thai movie from Betamax to an Avi-file so I could do something I would like to call restoration. The beginning of this tape was two trailers, and after talking with some real experts in Thai cinema we identified both movies. I've uploaded the trailers to YouTube, so I hope you enjoy them!

The first one is เจ้าพายุ, which means Hurricane. The Swedish/English title was Thunder Kid. If I got the information right it was released in 1980 and stars Sorapong Chatree and Nard Poowanai.

The second one is Chompae (ชุมแพ) from 1976, starring another one of my favorites, Sombat Metanee. Like the other movie this is also co-starring Nard Poowanai. The English title was Police Force 555, and in Sweden it just got the even shorter (and generic) name of Police Force.

Click on the videos and you will be redirected to YouTube where you can watch them the best possible way.

Phra Rot-Meri (1981)

2012-01-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

I really don't know what to write here, but I've just seen two hours weirdorama directed by Sir Confusalot himself, Sompote Sands. Phra Rot-Meri is probably a film-version of some old bizarre legend/fairy tale from Thailand, and it shows. What makes it even harder is that I saw this without subtitles! Anyway, a bunch of small girls is living in a ruin. A giant is walking around eating elephants so the blood spurts out of his mouth... The girls is being kidnapped, maybe, by a beautiful witch/princess/whatever and her two henchmen with big teeth and filled of family-fun slapstick.

Family-fun slapstick... until the day that one of the henchmen is giving the girls "something" so they grow up very fast, get pregnant, get their eyes torn out, get babies and becomes cannibals, graphically ripping one of the babies apart! One of the henchmen saves a baby, grows breast very fast and forces the baby, and after a while a little boy, to suck on his tits to get some milk. Lovely. The boy grows up to be a hunky young man, somehow get's involved in the politics and finally the giant black woman with mega-breasts shows up and crushing their beautiful city to pieces... That's it.

I guess it would be a bit more coherent if they dvd had subtitles? I'm not sure about that! Sompote Sands has created something that is far from a masterpiece, but the wicked feeling of the whole production makes it more interesting that it probably deserves. It has a lot of comedy, which ranges from giants beating each other in the head with clubs to little girls taking a shit on the temple wall. But when it get's mean it get's mean. The baby-ripping and eye-tearing is quite graphic, but with very primitive gore-effects, and the breast-sucking is disturbing. It's a pity that people tend to talk inbetween all these fun scenes though.

Two hours is a little bit much even for me. Some good miniature works, some cheesy gore, some silly slapstick plus a lot of talking, talking and talking. Take away 30-40 minutes of this movie and it could almost be a demented indonesian cousin, but now it was way to long.

Jorrakay (1980)

2012-01-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Forget thatawful abomination released on DVD called Crocodile, it's a terrible, re-cut anddubbed version of one of Sompote Sands best movies, Jorrakay. And I promise theoriginal Thai version is superior, even without subtitles, compared with theDick Randall-version. I've seem them both and I will probably never watch theother version ever again. Like that cut this is also about a doctor (NardPoowanai) who wants to take revenge on the huge crocodile who killed his wifeand daughter and his descent into crocodile-killing obsession.

The biggestdifference is of course that Jorrakay seem a lot more serious without thatwacky, silly English dubbing. The pacing is slower, but the Thai DVD also has alot better quality and makes it more enjoyable the visual way than the US release.Much more focus is on the doctor and his sorrow and trouble surviving withouthis dear family, and it's odd how good this work without subtitles. The famousvillage-attack is here in complete for, which means only one attack (the US version hasthe attack divided into two scenes, which makes same actors and extras appeartwice). I'm also pretty sure it's gorier, because I don't remember all the armsand legs sinking to the bottom of the river.

Even if thequality is mediocre, it's like f**king Criterion compared to the VCI version.With this comes a better look a miniatures and special effects, which alwayshas been director/producer Sompote Sands speciality. They look better thanbefore and a couple of the sequences involving a big-size animatronic crocodilelooks damn impressive. I also love the jumping croc attacking the boat in theend, in a funnier and more over-the-top version of the ending in Jaws.

I'm notsure if Sompote directed or just produced Jorrakay, but it's clearly - in thisform - his best movie. The pacing is slow, but good, and the acting is most ofthe time very good. I love how he adds an action scene at the exact point wherethe movie could be boring, saving both his and our skin. Nard Poowanai, whoplays the lead, is a good hero and has both depth and talent to handle aserious character in a quite silly movie.

Bewarealso, animal friends, this movie has a quite nasty crocodile-killing scenewhich could have been done with special effects and not actually cutting thehead of a real croc. Bad Sompote, but I'll forgive you because your awesomeresume of cheap Kaiju knock-offs you produced before making this movie.

Jorrakay isout on good Thai DVD, without subtitles. It's some kinda widescreen and lookedOK on my widescreen 40 inch TV. The story is easy to understand and it hasenough crocodile-attacks and ultra-red fake blood to entertain the mosthardened creature feature fan.

The Golden Triangle (1975)

2012-01-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

The actioncinema of Thailand in the seventies was very different, even if distributorsall over the world desperately tried to make it seem more Hong Kong, more "kung fu" or "karate". But to befair, that kind of action didn't appear in Thailand until Panna Rittikrai madeGerd Ma Lui in the eighties, before that the action was pretty basic and basedon traditional fist fights and car-chases. From time to time Hong Kong and Thailandcooperated with movies and one of those is the 1975 movie The Golden Triangle.It's more of a Thai movie than a Hong Kong movie, even if the Hong Kong cast do their best to get some attention...

SombatMetanee is a street wise tough guy who saves an old opium smuggler in barfight. He joins the smuggler and his companions up the mountains and joins theteam. The daughter of the man, Hung Sun-wu (Ni Tien) is very suspicious abouttheir new friend, but slowly accepts him. This time they're planning to make adeal with a Hong Kong gangster, the nasty and slimyLo Han (veteran actor Feng Tien) who together with his faithful henchman TonyWong (even more legendary Lo Lieh) has more sinister plans. The deal goesterribly wrong and Lo Han and Tony steals the opium when the police attacks...and now Sombat and his gang of hoodlums must get it back!

The R1 DVDfrom Xenon Pictures looks quite terrible, VHS-quality and badly cropped from2:35.1 to 4:3. This doesn't stop the movie from being very entertaining and theambitions shines through the mediocre quality. Director Rome Bunnag(co-credited with Wu Ma) adds a lot of atmosphere to the beginning withhandheld camera and gritty, seedy street- and bar-scenes from some unknown cityby the sea in Thailand.Only the silly dubbing takes away from the movie magic here.

When Sombat Metanee makes his first scene the movie goes from seediness to theclassic Sombat-action with a wonderful bar-brawl and him flexing his muscles,showing who's the boss. I'm not sure how to categorize Sombat, but he's a mixbetween Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Roger Moore and hell, yeah - even Arnold. But a way betteractor than the last guy and without looking silly with his beefy appearance. Hewas 38 when The Golden Triangle was released and looks better than ever! Therest of the cast is really fun, especially the Hong Kongactors. Ni Tien mostly looks angry, but I think the dubbing did a lot of that,but works fine together with Sombat. Feng Tien, who plays the main baddie, isexcellent. God, I love this guy. He was born to play bad guys and do it as amaster! Lo Lieh has a smaller part, and is quite undefined, but gets to fight abit at the end.

The action is good. Lots of shooting - and NO exploding huts (disappointing!).But the bloody shoot-out at the end and the excellent car-chase made of forthose huts. I've seen more than a few Thai action movies from this time now andthe car-chases always been of very high class. I wonder if there was a specialstunt group working with this? They are often quite similar, but very well-doneand looks dangerous. No faking the speed here, they go really fast and make bigjumps!

I wish The Golden Triangle could be released in a better version on DVD, it's worth it and the movie is an excellent example of classic Thai action from the seventies.

Phee Ta Boh (ผีตาโบ๋, 1981)

2011-12-31T14:54:00.000-08:00

Phee Ta Bohhas one of the best and coolest posters ever made in Thailand, with artwork you willremember directly and never forget. It's not that special, but the sight of aman stretching forward his hand holding his own eyes is a good idea, and foronce it's also something that actually happens in the movie itself. I have thismovie on VCD, and decided to finally - the last hours of 2011, finally give ita spin. I heard both good and bad things about, and the good news is that it'sactually quite decent - but could have been much better without some parts ofthe story. Let me tell you...

SaardPiampongsarn plays a mad scientist working in his lab in the jungle. He has astaff of heroine addicts who kidnaps people, mostly women, who he kills andtake the eyes from. Why? Because he once upon a time he married a beautifulwoman and became the happiest couple in the world (which we knows because thescenes with them are in front of sunsets, on the beach and on a wedding).Something happens - illness, accident - and she goes blind. Now his whole lifeevolves around making the first eye-transplantation. One day he sees a handsomeman (Porjed Kaenpetch) who have PERFECT eyes. Saard kidnaps him, kills him andfinally succeeds in making his wife see again. But his stupid staff wants tohave some fun and asks their friend the black magician to do some magic - andby mistake the wake up Porjed again and now he's back for vengeance - and hisbeautiful eyes!

This isEyes Without a Face/The Awful Dr Orloff in Thailand, obviously. But it's abouteyes instead of skin and other body parts, but with a supernatural twist. Now,everything is actually quite good until the second hour starts. Before that, aquite serious horror-drama with some blood and tension and now the zombie/ghostis outside the lab, trying to get in and their defending themselves with magicetc, etc. Then something goes terrible wrong. Someone, maybe the producer,decides that it's enough with this silly horror and introduces us to forty-fiveminutes of very broad humour and slapstick. Every scene is about how some funnyguest actor (for example, Lor Tok and the weird-looking Songthong) meets theghost, not realizing he's a ghost and comedy occurs. This happens four-fivetimes, and first of all: without subtitles it's not funny at all, and second:it's kinda destroys the nice atmosphere that the movie started with.

Thankheavens the last fifteen minutes goes back to the real revenge of the ghost andwe're treated to a lot of fun and sometimes bloody scenes of ghost-action. Likein the miserable Jing Jork Phee Sing (1985, starring Sorapong Chatree) thezombie has the gift of stretching his arms several meters and this guy also canthrow his eyes, when I finally gets them again, and make them hunt down people!Cool.

Without that comedy in the last hour this would have been a blast. Now it'sjust a good movie. The VCD is badly cropped, but the picture quality itself isbetter than usual.

Gunman (มือปืน, 1983)

2011-12-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

Thailand is so much more than martial arts, silly spy-movies, countryside-dramas and musicals. The man who started a new direction of Thai cinema is Chatrichalerm Yukol (a prince by the way). Focusing on gritty reality rather than fantasies he turned the Thai culture up-side-down. Sometimes with pure propaganda, but sometime with a gripping and intelligent crime-drama as Gunman (aka Mue Puen) from 1983. Starring is his favorite actor, Sorapong Chatree, and I think both of them are doing brilliant stuff in this movie.

Gunman begins with a long single take. Someone is sitting at the back of a motorbike, stops, walks into a restaurant, shots an man point blank and walks out again. What follows is a slightly comedic montage over witnesses trying to describe the man. Everyone has a different opinion about his look, but one thing is fore sure: he has a limp.

Ron Rittichai is Inspector Thanu Adharn, an attention seeking police officer who rather kills than ask questions. His life is a mess though, but he tries to play it cool. In another part of Bangkok is Sergeant Sommai Moungthup (Chatree) working as a hairdresser. His son is getting sicker, maybe from epilepsy and now we're starting to realise that behind this kind face is a killer, a gunman. Because the only thing Sommai can do is to kill. He does it without any hesitation.

His dream is to open a small shop outside of Bangkok, far away from the streets and the crime, and start a new life with his son. But the organization that gives him job encourages him to do more jobs, and soon the police is getting very close. Inspector Adharn isn't interested in pursuing Sommai, because Sommai saved his life in Laos once, but his colleagues, wife and press is forcing him to be more and more involved...

The storyline is classic, maybe basic, a gunman wanting to stop and get a new life. But this is so much better than I expected. The style is gritty and raw, but with beautiful cinematography and sharp editing. The Thai dvd is in 2.35:1 and the visuals, the lights and production reminds me of those cool New York-based thrillers that came from the US during the seventies. There's nothing really nice in this movie. Everyone is assholes, except Sommai's sick son. I mean, Sommai might be nice but he's still a cold blooded killer. It's a shit-world and director Chatrichalerm Yukol is eager to show us that. This is not an action movie, but it's still filled with very brutal violence - mostly gun violence - and very crude dialogue.

Yukol gives us the whorehouses, the sleazy bars, the back streets, the illness and disturbed relationships. Far from the typical happy Thai drama. This is raw film making and I'm very impressed. The acting is always a bit uneven and over-the-top in Thai movies, but this flick gives us some excellent performances. Sorapong Chatree is making the performance of his career, and is eerily convincing.

The Thai dvd has English subtitles, has the correct aspect ratio and is a good choice (and probably) to see this movie. The print is a bit beaten up, and it's taken from a video master of some kind - but it's still very acceptable. Buy it from eThaiCD.com for example.

Brutal River (โคตรเพชฒฆาต, 2005)

2011-12-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

I think Anat Yuangngern first movie, the over-the-top Curse of the Sun was a very entertaining and ultra-violent action/horror-movie with zombie-gangsters and lots of cheesy and gory b-action. He tried to do something else with his next movie, Brutal River, and I can't say I'm impressed. Visually it's a nice movie, with classy cinematography and some okey actors, but Anat really fucked up the direction and editing. This true story (so they say anyway) about a killer-croc eating villagers could have been a lot of fun, but something went wrong. I think Anat just wanted to be serious after his last movie, and that was a big mistake.

The script, a very thin script I should say, follows the unlucky bastards that lives in small village in the Chumporn province. One day a crocodile (or alligator?) show up and starts to chew the actors and scenery. One by one some idiot is killed by the monster, fishermen, flirting boyfriends, the girlfriend of the new police, some old chef, two holy men and some other fools. Until they send for the military, who kills it. That's it, nothing more. There's no fun characters, not much gore, not much monster and too much romantic scenes in slow-motion. The bodycount is actually quite high, but everything is so lifeless.

So what went wrong? It's a god damn thai-movie with a killer-crocodile? Well, like I wrote above, Anat Yuangngern tries to be grown up and make something that will send him into the thai movie history. He failed so big! The good looking cinematography don't help at all, and the music is just annoying. Most of the croc-action is CG, which I don't mind at all and a few shots here and there are animatronics... but where's the gore? Where's the excitement? Not in this movie anyway.

But the worst thing, the thing that makes this movie really, really, really annoying is... the use of fade to black. I have NEVER seen a movie that uses fade to black so many times than this movie. It uses fade from black a couple of times to, but those fade to black... God, you just have to see it to believe it. There's so much fade to black that I thought I was going blind at least a couple of times during the movie!

No, this wasn't the brilliant silly killer croc-movie I wanted it to be, and it's nothing worse than a boring creature feature.

Article in Bioscope Magazine, the December issue!

2011-12-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

You who live in Thailand and - most important- know the Thai language, can read an article about mew in the December issue of Bioscope Magazine. It's a great honor to be featured in such a renowned magazine! Here's scans that director and writer Thunska Pansittivorakul did for me, but I kept the quality so low so you're forced to support the magazine to be able to read it ;)

Tsunami 2022 (13-04-2022 สึนามิ วันโลกสังหาร, 2009)

2011-12-21T01:36:00.000-08:00

I usually have no problem with patrotic movies from Thailand. They are alway patriotic in a humble way, and always try to learn the audience that no one is perfect and that every human being is worth something. So is not the case with Tsunami 2022, a slightly (not even that really) futuristic movie about the threat of a huge tsunami threatening Bangkok in the year 2022.

We follow a bunch of stereotypes: a young man who are afraid of the water after his parents died in the tsunami 2004, an old scientist that lost his son in that tsunami, the heroic and stoic prime minister, the evil politician that wants to take his place, the son of the evil politician who's even more evil and are rebuilding a small island to a giant casino and bla bla bla. And yes, there is a lot of female characters to, but they are so badly written that it's hard to tell one from another. Of course the heroes believes that a giant tsunami will hit Thailand, but the evil ones dosen't believe them. Until it happens in the last half hour.

As a disaster movie it's nothing new, and the concept with a futuristic Bangkok falls flat. The only thing showing it's a futuristic city is an enormous golden Buddah-statue standing in the water outside the city, which in the end results in of the silliest scenes in the movie. But I can stand stereotypes, if they are written with some kinda love and maybe self-distance. Here there's just stereotypes. The prime minister is so heroic and GOOD that it's absurd. There's absolutely nothing wrong with him, and in the end he alone saves 20-30 kids from a sinking schoolbus! And when he floats away, he get caught in the golden Buddhas hand and together they float up to the surface, the Buddha on two legs and with the sunshine coming through the clouds! Yeah, there's no doubt that he's Buddha reborn. On the other side we have the EVIL EVIL EVIL capitalistic politician who also happens to be GAY with a taste for toyboys, and there's no doubt here that he's gay is a part of his evilness. To take the other characters serious is also hard, because one of them, a hunky native fisherman, have a tribal tatoo that's being washed away everytime he get's near water and the old scientist has the biggest and most fakest beard I've seen for many years. Small things, but because the movie is so serious this just dosen't fit in.

But the main thing is the disaster, yeah? It's quite a big disaster. Bangkok get's drowned by the huge tsunami, trains and cars are flying everywhere, buildings break and people get flushed away - the boring thing is that they obviously didn't have so much money (or the lack of technology) to make it realistic. I have nothing against computer animation, I love it, but here it looks very crappy. There's a few shots during the big finale that looks fine and gives some credibility to the disaster, but the rest is mediocre. This is a movie only for disaster-freaks like myself.

It's been a Tidal Wave-time for asian disaster movies. First we had 252: Signal of Life from Japan in 2008, Haenudae from South Korea and Super Typhoon from China. All big, fat disaster flicks with a lot of hype and money behind them. I will review them all, but for now Tsunami 2022 was the worst. So I hope I have three better movies ahead of me. Wish me luck.

Tarm Kah 20,000 Miles (ตามฆ่า 20,000 ไมล์, 1977)

2011-12-18T15:46:00.000-08:00

A few yearsafter the big blaxploitation wave the Thai's thought it was time to do theirown funky, "black", flick. The result became Tarm Kah 20,000 Miles,starring (not surprising) Sorapong Chatree and Krung Srivilai as two groovycops (well, at least one of them is an FBI agent I think) with funky clothesand in one case (Sorapong's) a fine, juicy, awesome afro-wig! As usual with meI've been watching a movie on VCD and there was no subtitles. I have no ideareally what the movie was about, but here's what I could decipher:

Krung travels to the United States where he hooks up with FBI agentSorapong. Theyr'e having a ball, beating bad guys and also investigating abrutal murder. But someone don't want them to look to close and Sorapong'sfamily is killed! Furious of revenge he and Krung takes on the baddies andkills as many as possible, but the syndicate behind it all is still after them.Back in Thailandthey dig even deeper and find that a crime organization is doing somethingfishy! More death and mayhem etc etc.

So I have no idea why everything is happening. Drugs? Gold? Military secrets?No idea, sorry, but the crime syndicate really want to stop our heroes andtries everything to make them burn in hell. But come on, it's Sorapong - andSorapong always wins!

Even if youdon't understand the story, Tarm Kah 20,000 Miles is a damn fine action film.It looks like parts of it was shot in the US(but the quality on the VCD was so bad so it could have been shot in

Norway

and I wouldn't notice it!), including a good car chase in good ol' Americanstyle. There's also a shoot-out at a seedy bar and it's both bloody andspectacular I think it is not less than four times as someone jumps through awindow to surprise the bad guys during the whole movie! The action is theselling point of this... thaisploitation and it also delivers in a competentlow-budget way. It's a violent movie and it has it's fair share of squibs andblood, which is a nice surprise. Just the way a real gritty 70's crime movieshould be.

Sorapong has always been one of my favourite actors and he's one of the fewthat one day can shoot a nonsense-movie and the other day do some heavy,impressive acting in a drama. Here he wanders around in a silly wig, butsomehow keeps up appearances and never looses his cool style. Krung, a veryfine actor, has an equally big part - but no wig.

The VCD from Lepso is another thing: just avoid it. I think there's betterrelease out there somewhere. This looks like a third generation VHS dupe rippedfrom television (which it is, fragments of TV-commercials can be seen here andthere) and I'm also 100 % sure it's shortened to fit some TV-slot. But thisdidn't stop it from being very entertaining and it's well worth watching forthose that like this kind of Thai action.

Chocolate (ช็อคโกแลต, 2008)

2011-12-18T01:16:00.000-08:00

2008 was a marvelous year for thai-action. Not only did we see Tony Jaa in the masterpiece Ong-Bak 2 (yes, it was), there was also the charming Som Tum (Released in the west as Muay Thai Giant, more of a family movie, but with great fights and stunts) and the subject of this review: Chocolate, a movie retitled Zen - Warrior Within for the scandianvian release! Terrible "new" title, but probably more easy to sell to stupid teenagers.

JeeJa Yanin plays Zen, an autistic girl that has a real talent: she's extremly fast and learns martial arts quicker than anyone else. Born by a thai woman and a japanese gangster, she's now starving together with her cancer-sick mother and a chubby boy called Mang Moom. First she and Mang Moom starts to have shows on the streets where she catches oranges and other round objects. One day the find her mothers old book where all the people owning her money are written down. Moom and Zen are start collecting the money, and suddenly - with the help of some Tony Jaa-movies - Zen is a martial arts champion, kicking her way through gangsters and other lowlife!

If you fight (no pun intended) your way through the first half hour of thai soft-rock and even lamer popsongs, you will find one of the coolest and most spectacular fight-movies I've seen in a long time. This the second time I've seen it but I honestly didn't remember that it was SO much action in it! The first three fights/chases are vintage Jackie Chan, even if Yanin isn't as quick as a young Jackie or Tony Jaa nowdays. It even get's a bit nasty when people are really getting hurt during the slaughterhouse-fight. One guy kicks to high and get's his foot stuck in a meat hook, looses his balance and get's hangning in it. Brutal and a nice touch! Then it get more serious and quite bloody in a couple of cool sequences, until the stunt-filled finale where people are falling like rain from the walls and roof of a seedy building in the middle of Bangkok.

The only problem is that JeeJa Yanin is quite small and it's hard to believe that she can pull those powerful punches. And the stuntmen are taking it more easy with her than with Tony Jaa or Dan Chupong. But the fighting is beautifully staged and the stunts are wild and painful. This is a movie that deserves much more praise and press than it gotten so far.

A movie that grows and gets better for each time. Good stuff!

Necromancer (จอมขมังเวทย์, 2005)

2011-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

Another thai-movie from my collection that I haven't watched - until now! Necromancer is a very fine, and serious, cop/horror-movie that deals with traditional thai black magic. It's set in world like our own, but the cops are familiar with black magic and has to catch criminals with the same powers. I'm not sure about the names, but Akara Amarttayakul plays Santi - a young inspector that want's to catch a very powerful magician, an ex-cop that has been imprisoned for corruption and murder, but escaped with the help of his powers.

He travels to the south of Thailand and sets up an office in a town where a lot of black magic is going on, and soon he's getting closer to the magician. But at the same time he get's himself more and more involved with black magic and slowly looses his sense of respect towards other people. To catch this magician... he needs to be a master of black magic himself!

The story dosen't seem to be that much, but the actors are very strong and makes very good performances, among the best I've seen in a thai movie! As a horror movie it works ok, but it's like a cop-movie it turns really good. Of course we're treated to some nasty black magic to, and the best one is when one of the characters sends his young son after the magician and it turns very macabre and quite bloody. We also have a skinning and a very gory cut throat. The visual effects are most of the times good, except the computer animated bull (and a dog to!) that's terrible. But on the other hand, it's supposed to be a spirit-animal anyway.

Another reason to see Necromancer is Chatchai Plengpanich, a fine veteran actor who always makes brilliance and intensive performances. For us who appreciates very obscure Thai film he's also the hero in the nasty Cannibal Mercenary. Recently he did some magnificent acting in Slice also. A man who makes every movie he's in a little bit better.

This was just something short about a movie I really think is worth getting. Excellent acting and a few nasty surprises makes this a very solid thriller from Thailand.

Curse of the Sun (สุริยะฆาต, 2004)

2011-12-14T22:23:00.000-08:00

It's strange that Curse of the Sun has got so little attention during the years. It only has sixteen votes on IMDB and just one review in german. Not that it's a hidden masterpiece, far from it - but when a movie that has so much crazy, bloody and gory action, black magic and explosion even isn't available on cinemageddon - then something is wrong. Of course I own the thai-dvd and I gave it a spin today for the first time since 2006.

This is a story about a woman who's married to a famous actor. She's arrested, by mistake, for being involved in some illegal jewel-activies. She's free again and now the police are after the real bad guys. But those want her dead and tries to assassinate her, but she survives. When she's at the hospital her boyfriend is getting killed in car-accident (of course an assassionation to!) and now the hunt for her begins again!

But the thing is: the bad guys are really zombies! They are resurrected by an evil black magic priest and sends them out one after another to kill, steal and destroy! He's also resurrecting the dead boyfriend and sending him out to kill his girlfriend! Lucky she's protected by Bangkoks finest!

Oh, the story and twists are so stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. The girlfriend dosen't know that her boyfriend has died in car-crash for example, a fact hidden by friends and family so she won't die of the shock or something stupid like that. I guess he has to be really surprised in the end of the movie when she sees who the killer is! The cops are acing mega-stupid, there's silly we're-so-happy-flashbacks complete with soft thai-pop and... did I mention that everything is stupid? Hmm, maybe there's a reason that this is a quite unknown movie?

But wait! If everything is stupid, the action delivers! Thank Buddha for that! It's probably not the highest budgeted-movie I've seen, and it looks quite cheap sometime. The director handles his duties quite well, but the confusing editing and very, very thin script probably makes it worse. But at least they spent some blood and money on the action. It's gory and bloody, hundreds of squibs, brutal knife-stabbings (graphic stuff I must say), explosions, motorcross-chases and wild stunts, a very fake car-chase that ends in a couple of very fake crashes, walls and windows shot to pieces. This is John Woo thai-style with black magic and "funny" supporting actors.

If I can recall correct I didn't like this when I saw it the first time. I probably expected something else after watching Tony Jaa ruling the action-scene in Thailand. This is far from that quality, but just watch it and have a lot of fun. Bring out the popcorn. Bring out the beer!

Nuk Leng Pah Suk (นักเลงป่าสัก, 1975)

2011-12-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

A village terrorized by bandits! A man arriving to set things straight once again - a classic tale and another fine action movie with Sombat Metanee kicking ass.

...It's not only about kicking ass of course, even if the movie starts off with the bandits causing trouble in town - including a nasty gang rape and the beating of the friendly hunky farmer. Cue Sombat and another guy who looks like he's a Mexican from the beginning, with a three-four day shadow and ready to protect himself from the first robber that shows up.

He soon befriends Sombat, who in his cowboy hat and with his trademark hair-lock, seem more than willing to protect the town from the evil Kanchit Kwanpracha (sporting a nice moustache) and the woman behind it all - an actress I haven't identified yet. Anyway, together Sombat and the Mexican starts helping the villagers and it leads to a climatic battle during a violent rain...

As usual I've been watching a movie without subtitles, which isn't because I'm trying to learn Thai (but I would love to) but because it's hard to find these oldies with English subtitles. The stories is often quite easy to follow, and this is no exception. There's a lot of talk in-between the action, but everything leads to a visual scene of carnage and it's easy to understand who's the baddie and who's not. The female lead is the beautiful and talented Aranya Namwong, who did a lot of movies together with Sombat. Billed as the new Petchara Chaowarat she carved herself an impressive career and can still be seen in modern movies.

In smaller parts we also see the great, legendary bald henchman Pipop Pupinyo and Sukon Koewliam, the veteran actor with a classic, stylish Hitler-moustache!

But like most movies starring Sombat from this period the action is the most important thing and Nuk Leng Pah Suk delivers on that part. We're not talking modern martial arts, or even inspired by the Hong Kong industry. This is good old fist-fighting, lots of shoot-outs and a few fun stunts here and there. The finale is especially impressive, when our heroes and the baddies meets up out on a field in heavy pouring rain with a ton of guns and protected only by cars and tractors. It's violent and raw, and with a huge body count. It also ends in a big flooding and we're treated to some primitive truck-miniatures drown in the wave of water!

Another fun scene is when Sombat and the Mexican dresses up like female prostitutes and infiltrates the lair to free their girlfriends and other women that are held prisoners there.

The soundtrack is dramatic, and the dance-friendly version of the theme from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly fits better than you can imagine. Another Morricone-track, from Once Upon a Time in the West also adds to the melodrama in the final scene.

Movies like this don't have complicated stories or advanced complex characters. It's all about the entertainment, the "buffness" of Sombat Metanee, the action and the beautiful ladies kicking butt. It might only attract nerds like me and the older Thai generation, but I'm happy a few of these movies still exists. Sombat made (he still works) over 600 productions in his career (he once claimed 2000 productions, but how knows?) and a lot of them comes alive because of his charisma.

A true movie star, a true legend.