The Vampire (จอมเมฆินทร์, 1985)

In 1973 Sombat Metanee starred in his only, I think, vampire movie. Since then it's considered a lost movie and the last pieces of film probably deteriorated many years ago. What we're left with is posters, lobby cards and the nice photo that I've added last in this review - but maybe most important, the 1985 remake starring Thailand's favourite baddie Rith Luecha. So I decided to take a look at that version, the first Thai vampire movie I ever seen. But first of all, The Vampire is only a title I made up. If I translate จอมเมฆินทร์ it's "Private Cloud", and I have no idea what that means! After discussed it with friends and some thinking hear at home and decided to use this generic title until someone suggests a better one.

A crazy scientist with an eye so lazy it literary hangs out from its socket somehow makes a dangerous vampire, maybe even Dracula (Rith Luecha) comes alive again. Dracula quickly kills the old sleazebag with a bloody spear through the throat and infects another man with the vampie disease, so he can have himself a vampire-slave. Now he wants young female meat and starts to attack women every night until the villagers (it's always villagers in these movies!) decides they have to do something. A holy woman, armed with powerful magic, sets out to kill Dracula once and for all!

This is a very fun and entertaining movie, even if I don't get all of the story. Rith Luecha is not bad at all as the nasty vampire and seem to have a lot of fun with his fangs and cape, and being able to suck the blood from young virgins. The director goes all the way with scary eyes, shadows and jump cuts to make Dracula disappear. It's a good old-fashioned vampire-movie with more interest in entertaining than maybe telling a good story. Except the spear through the throat and a few squibs (in Thai movies from the eighties they always find an excuse for some traditional gun-fighting) it's not really blood, but cozy and silly - just like I expected it to be.

What I miss is maybe a castle, to make it even more old-fashioned than it is already. They could have used the crazy scientist more, maybe made him a slave to the vampire or something - but he's fun while he's alive at least.

Out on VCD from Lepso - and believe it or not, it's the same movie on the discs as on the cover, which with a release from this certain company can be quite rare nowadays. The quality is OK crap-quality. It's possible to watch, but expect a nice brutal headache after ninty minutes of blurry and dark vampire-action.

Tiger Show (พยัคฆ์ยี่เก, 1982)

Another day, another movie without subtitles. But what to expect from me? Here's an interesting film, Tiger Show, obviously a co-production between Thailand and Hong Kong with Sorapong Chatree and David Chiang in the leads. There's another Hong Kong actor playing the bad guy, but I can't for all the booze in the world remember his name or where I've seen him. Probably in a Shaw Brothers production. Pipop Pupinyo and Rith Luecha shows up doing their traditional baddies also, which is a pleasure as usual.

If I get the story right Sorapong is a stage actor, a traditional singer and dancer in a travelling theatre group. David Chiang is somehow involved in this also, or something related. Anyway, they're a rivals and always gets into fights and adventures with each other. But of course there's bad guys nearby and they try to steal (maybe) something from the group, my guess is something valuable they use in the show. This intensifies the attacks and soon it's a matter of life or death! Because the villains is using small airplanes to shoot harpoons from, killing everyone in sight!

A spectacular movie in every sense, this one deserves a restored release - I'm not even sure it's out on VCD or any other format. Maybe VHS? What the movie lacks in story because of lack of subtitles it regains with a lot of action. This actually has some quite impressive, but not original, fight scenes - both from Chatree and Chiang versus an army of henchmen. Like all Thai action movies from the eighties this also ends with a big battle at the bad guys camp with a lot of exploding tents and huts, people falling from guard towers and squibs. It's quite bloody in parts, with a couple of the typical Hong Kong blood squirts when swords hits a body (done by squeezing a bag of blood in your hand when you grasp the wound).

The most impressive stunts is the aerial footage with these small airplanes battling each other up in the sky plus some nice parachuting also! Not bad for a very obscure movie in other parts than Thailand. I think this also became a lakorn, a Thai TV-series 20-25 years later. So it must have been a big hit when it came.

When watching this it also strikes me how often Thai male actors have no problems with playing around with gender, sexuality, or just appearance. Sure, this is about Thai traditional theatre where make-up and choreography is very special, and in some ways effeminate. But I can't even count how many times I've seen Sombat Metanee doing his drag-routine or actors like Sorapong continue to do his more feminine acting style - just for fun, a good laugh, but they always takes it a little bit further than, for example, American movies. Just like when you see action heroes cry in Hong Kong and Japanese movies, it's easy to understand that being a man is not just being cold and brutal - it's about emotions and letting yourself go.

But that's a another story in Thai cinema and I'll leave it for now - or until I find a movie which deals with it specifically. Tiger Show was great movie, recommended. Good action, good actors and a lot of stolen music from Indiana Jones! 

Come Alone (ข้ามาคนเดียว, 1978)

A fast glance as the poster make Come Alone looks like some samurai movie, or something related to native Americans - but this is actually quite traditional action movie with guns, jeans jackets and the usual suspects starring, but with a surprisingly slapstick-filled beginning. What we see on the poster is Sombat Metanee dressed like a crazy hippie, always up for a good song or maybe a fight or two with those who might wanna stop him. I haven't found any English synopsis so I'm not sure what this movie is about, but what I could understand Sombat goes undercover as a hippie, infiltrates an area with gangsters - maybe he wants to take revenge, maybe he's an agent of some kind - and the plan is obviously to take everyone down in brutal fashion, often with knifes or any other sharp objects.

But everything begins with Sombat taking a piss, getting caught by the baddies, then he has to take a dump and makes his guards dance while he's singing at the same time, which also gives him the opportunity to overpower them and be a free man again. It actually takes a while until he takes of his hippie costume and reveals himself, and the gets back on a more serious track again.

The lack of subtitles makes Come Alone a bit hard to follow, especially in the middle when the action takes a break and intrigues and drama takes over. There's a lot of talking, but the story moves along quite OK anyway and finally there's more action and bloodshed to entertain us non Thai-language geeks. Come Alone is also one of the more violent and bloody Thai movies from the seventies I've seen with squibs and bloody knife-attacks, plus a generous amount of good fighting. Most of it is the usual fist fights, but one guy (sorry, just can't remember his name!) goes full-blown Bruce Lee, including a cue from the soundtrack of Enter the Dragon, in one sequence. Not bad at all.

A lot of characters are introduces during the show, but I can honestly say that the one who seem to have the most fun is Sombat. When dressed as a hippie he's just like a totally different actor. Maybe it was something with the ridiculous premise of his characters disguise that set him off? A weird detail is that after half the movie he suddenly wears a wig, which is quite visible. I guess he probably shot another movie at the same time, a movie that demanded that he needed to be either totally shaved or with a crew cut or something similar.

Come Alone is yet another fine, but in the middle a bit too slow, example of traditional Thai action cinema. The whole cast is filled with every actor you expect and the action is violent and quite creative. Just don't expect a samurai and sword epic! :) 

Released by Triple X, which means the quality is slightly better than usual. Only slightly, because it still has scratches and something that looks like water damage during the final reels, but it's also in anamorphic widescreen and the glory of watching Thai action from this period in the correct ratio is always a pleasure out of the ordinary.

The Damned Cruel Sea (ไอ้คลั่งทะเลโหด, 1979)

What I know The Damned Cruel Sea has no official English title, but after trying out a couple of different translation pages this seemed to be a quite accurate title. It could also be "I Love The Damn Mad Cruel Sea", but I have to stop somewhere. Not released officially on either DVD or VCD, this is a bootleg I found in Bangkok - probably sourced from a VHS (and not TV, thank heavens) release. The Thai's produced movies in every genre possible, but it was a very pleasant surprise to find out that this was a classic swashbuckling adventure-tale with a slightly bigger budget than I've seen in other Thai movies from the same time.

The storm is coming! And it is... and it hits with brutal force a small coastal village, ripping it apart with winds and water. A family manages to escapes, but the wife is pregnant and gives birth to a son on the boat. Just when they think everything is great a bunch of pirates shows up, brutally slaughters the family and crew - but decides to adopt the boy. He grows up to be Sorapong Chatree, the best pirate of them all! But others want to be the next pirate leader, among them famous baddies Dam Datsakorn and Rith Luecha! Sorapong realizes that he's actually kidnapped since he was a baby and changes side to take revenge on the man he thought was his father!

The Damned Cruel Sea is a damned fine movie also. The DVD looks kinda crappy, but watchable - but suffers from cropping and low quality and lack of details. But it's still easy to see what a magnificent adventure movie this is, with lots of extras, sea battles, fights, storms and volcano eruptions. Everything well made and with good production values. The disaster scenes looks very good, and I think they actually is made for this movie and not just "borrowed" stock footage from some random Japanese production.

Action is the key word for The Damned Cruel Sea, and it's some good stuff being shown. This was before traditional martial arts became popular in Thai movies and instead we get a lot of very classy fist- and sword-fights, often quite bloody and violent. But I'm a sucker for sea battles, boats ramming each other and pirates falling of the boats in dozens. That's what made Ben Hur such a great movie once, the sea battle - they could have cut the rest!

The story itself isn't bad and gives us a few surprises and twists along the way, very different from what an American production would have done with the same premise. What I find hard to understand is in which era this story is set. Is it modern pirates, just working far from civilisation or is it an historic movie? Some of the ships looks quite modern, but the rifles looks old and clumsy. But it really doesn't matter in the end, because it's a helluva good action movie with a splendid cast. As usual in many of these very "manly" movies the women are in the background, so even here - but at least we have the fantastic and talented Viyada Umarin in the cast!

It's a pity we don't have a restored version in correct ratio out on DVD or VCD, but maybe this is one of those movies that's lost and gone forever? That would be a shame, because The Damned Cruel Sea is one of my favorite Thai action movies from now on. Try to find it. I'm sure you won't regret it.