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! 

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!

A meeting with Sompote Sands

Say his name, and the mention of Sompote Sands makes fans both react with enthusiasm and anger. A controversial man since his days in Japan and he still creates controversy until this day. My first meeting with Sompote was Crocodile, the Dick Randall re-edited and dubbed version that was released in most part of the world – but the original Thai version, Jorrakay, is a superior creature feature and also is one of Sompote’s most even and commercially successful films.

Later I bought was very entertained by Yuk Wat Jang Pob Jumbo A, Hanuman VS 5 Masked Riders, The Noble War, Hanuman VS 7 Ultraman, Phra Rot-Meri, Tah Tien and the legendary Magic Lizard! The work of Sompote is like Toho on LSD, but in a very good way. We’re talking about full-blown craziness, packed with action, monsters and weird comedy. Even of the budgets was quite low, probably between 100000-200000 dollars (the budget for Tah Tien was 120000 dollars and Sir Run Run Shaw bought the Hong Kong rights for the exact same amount).

Sompote first came to Japan in the beginning of the sixties and got Akira Kurosawa as his mentor. He spent a lot of time inside Toho and learned the craft from the masters. When he later wanted to start his own film production in Thailand he worked with the Japanese and Eiji Tsuburaya became a close friend and inspiration. From the early nineties to the late eighties Sompote made moves featuring both local mythological monsters and Japanese characters like Ultraman and Kamen Rider. Sometime here the story about rights and licenses depart depending on which one you talk about, but I leave that to the lawyers. What I know is that I got a chance to meet Sompote Sands and visit his movie studio outside Ayuttaya, Chaiyo Studios – and very few other “farangs” have gotten that opportunity over the years.

I’m afraid I can’t show you so much from the inside of the studio – and a lot of it was destroyed by the recently floods in Thailand – but here’s the front and a couple of photos from the first studio. It’s not much left of it, but it’s still a fantastic place and a piece of movie history.

I met Mr Sands together with his daughter, Fon, and his secretary and together with walked through the inner sanctum of Chaiyo Productions - and boy, I wish I could show you the sights from there. But I can’t. Sorry. Not right now.

Instead I got a few hours of talk with Mr Sands and his knowledge about especially Japanese cinema is impressive. In his belongings is the camera that shot The Seven Samurais and King Kong vs Godzilla (he had a lot of very impressive behind the scenes photos from these movies also) and the love for cinema shines like I never seen it before. Forget all the rumors and talks, Sompote might be a clever businessman – but his love for cinema is so much bigger. What I especially liked about him is his geeky approach to monsters and supermen – he loves them, he cares about them. It’s like watching a twelve year old fan boy when he starts talking about the characters, showing photos and props.

Magic Lizard is one of his most talked-about movies, mostly because it totally lacks a coherent storyline and has a story so wacky that it’s hard to understand how it even came to be a real movie. Well, I asked him and Mr Sompote laughed a lot! Originally Magic Lizard was a TV-movie, a production ordered from a Japanese TV-station – and not intended for cinema in Thailand. “The Japanese has a very odd sense of humor”, Sompote said and laughed even more – joined in my the rest of the staff present. Yes, so even the man himself thinks Magic Lizard is a strange, wacky and odd movie. But there’s the answer, and it says it all: Japanese TV-movie. Nothing like that in the world.

I got a chance to meet Sompote the week, but this visit will still be one of the best memories ever from my geeky movie nerd life. I’m very happy that it happen and I hope and wish that Sompote’s new big plans will come into fruition!

Hanuman and the 5 Riders (1974)

It was in December last year since I wrote something about Sompote Sands, and that's way to long ago! So here we have Mr Sands unauthorized version of Kamen Rider, Hanuman and the 5 Riders - made as a sequel to his absurd Ultraman-movie The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army! The Ultraman-movies where actually official co-productions with Tsuburaya Productions, but when Sands wanted to make himself a Kamen Rider-movie he got a no from Toei... but he just fucked that and made a movie anyway!

To watch this movie with out subtitles is very confusing, and I guess it even will be confusing with subtitles, but the Kamen Riders are driving around on their cool motorbikes, kicking monsters and demons. All these are footage directly lifted from the Toei-movie Five Riders Vs. King Dark! Inserted here and there is another version of King Dark, but this time made of papier-maché and silver tape, sitting in his dungeon with a machine that sucks the blood from virgins (I don't know if they are virgins, but it sounds better) a his very small army of worthless soldiers. So he kidnaps a young hunky scientist that builds a machine to him that creates four (or maybe five) manimals! Yes, it's Thai guys with very crude pig, hen, lizard and so on - masks! One of they even lays explosive eggs!

But soon Hanuman comes to the rescue and fights the bad guys... and a lot of other stuff happens too. Sort of.

It's not easy to blame this movie for being boring, because it's so damn absurd and funny all the time. The original Kamen Rider-footages is fun and with the typical Japanese TV-quality, but the new Thai-footage is even funnier with extremely primitive effects, action, silly comedy, monster-battles and not so good copies of the original Kamen Riders. It's obviously a family-movie, but when you least expect it you'll get some very cheap gore and nudity thrown in your face - which is only good - and it gets downright sleazy in some moments. One of the highlights is when the three robbers from The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army are brought down to hell and there witness naked women being tortured with spears and men being boild alive in a huge pot!

In another memorable scene the hunky scientist is tickled so much that he pee's in the face of one of the evil henchmen! That's comedy!

Hanuman and the 5 Riders is hardly a good film, but it brings some blood, nudity and good family values to us all. We should be grateful to mr Sompote Sands for that!

Phra Rot-Meri (1981)

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)

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

The biggest difference is of course that Jorrakay seem a lot more serious without that wacky, silly English dubbing. The pacing is slower, but the Thai DVD also has a lot 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 without his dear family, and it's odd how good this work without subtitles. The famous village-attack is here in complete for, which means only one attack (the US version has the attack divided into two scenes, which makes same actors and extras appear twice). I'm also pretty sure it's gorier, because I don't remember all the arms and legs sinking to the bottom of the river.

Even if the quality 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 always has been director/producer Sompote Sands speciality. They look better than before and a couple of the sequences involving a big-size animatronic crocodile looks damn impressive. I also love the jumping croc attacking the boat in the end, in a funnier and more over-the-top version of the ending in Jaws.

I'm not sure if Sompote directed or just produced Jorrakay, but it's clearly - in this form - his best movie. The pacing is slow, but good, and the acting is most of the time very good. I love how he adds an action scene at the exact point where the movie could be boring, saving both his and our skin. Nard Poowanai, who plays the lead, is a good hero and has both depth and talent to handle a serious character in a quite silly movie.

Beware also, animal friends, this movie has a quite nasty crocodile-killing scene which could have been done with special effects and not actually cutting the head of a real croc. Bad Sompote, but I'll forgive you because your awesome resume of cheap Kaiju knock-offs you produced before making this movie.

Jorrakay is out on good Thai DVD, without subtitles. It's some kinda widescreen and looked OK on my widescreen 40 inch TV. The story is easy to understand and it has enough crocodile-attacks and ultra-red fake blood to entertain the most hardened creature feature fan.