Taek 4 - Friendship Breakdown
Reviewed by Simon Booth
Director: ?
Year: 1999
Starring: Sornram Teppitak, Tao Somchai, Sutthida
Krasemsun (Nook), Pramote Saengsorn
Time: 94 minutes
I think John Woo has been moonlighting from
his Hollywood-Nicholas Cage-love-ins, because this movie was clearly directed
by him! Either that or somebody who has studied and absorbed every little
ounce of his directorial style, anyway. FRIENDSHIP BREAKDOWN is a Heroic
Bloodshed melodrama that feels very much like a Hong Kong movie, very much
like a John Woo bullet ballet.
The plot's all there in the title. 4 young friends,
very close, happy happy. One of them is training to be a cop and one of
the others gets involved in the underworld. His life of crime soon causes
repercussions for his friends, and their friendship is put to the test.
Will it in fact break down, or is friendship stronger than... other stuff?
The movie is pitched at nearly toxic levels of
melodrama, from start to finish it rams its emotional content down your
throat in a manner that is sometimes a little uncomfortable. A good piece
of melodrama is very tasty when you're in the right mood for it though.
The movie is certainly not wall to wall bullet-fest, far from it, but there
are a few action scenes throughout, and it all builds to a final reel of
major incendiary content. The whole movie is very well filmed - the coloured
lighting and angled cameras with fluid movement all feel very Hong Kong.
The use of rotating cameras and slow mo show a clear influence from Woo's
style - an influence that is explicitly acknowledged when one of the characters
picks up 2 guns and is told "Hey, just like John Woo!". At least they're
not being shy about the influence.
So it's a Woo style Heroic Bloodshed movie about
the stresses placed on the relationship between 4 close friends. Nothing
too remarkable in the concept, but it's always good territory for an entertaining
movie. The question then becomes, is it done well? In most respects the
answer here is "yes". The script isn't brilliant, and some of the acting
is pretty bad - but it's fast paced and includes some very nice ideas,
and the cast all look good at least (the female of the 4 is a major cutie).
The action is the main pay-off here, the raison d'être, and they've
definitely put in a lot of effort and pull off some very well done scenes
that stand up there with the top league of HK bullet ballets.
Nice looking movie, you could probably leave your
brain at the door though if not for the DVD. It's the first actual Thai
DVD that I've watched, and it features a decent PAL letterboxed image,
good 5.1 sound mix, and quite the worst subtitles I have ever seen. I mean,
I'm used to having to re-translate subtitles as I read them, but these
were just awful! Quite a bit just isn't subtitled at all (or minimally
so), and the spelling and grammar make the average Mei Ah subtitle job
look like Shakespeare! (Wait, that's a bad analogy).
I could follow what was going on just by picking
out the nouns because the plot is quite straightforward, and I don't think
there was too much subtlety and depth in there for me to miss. Could be
wrong though, maybe in Thai it is a deeply profound and insightful study
of the human condition. Reservations about the DVD aside, I'm glad to have
the movie. It's a slick and exciting movie that should appeal to fans of
Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed. Technically very good too - my interest in
Thai cinema remains strong.
(Editors Note: As bad as the subs were for
Simon I could not even figure out how to get them to show on my DVD even
though the cover states they are there - so there may be some pirated
or defective versions going around. Even without the subs though this was
fairly easy to understand and I enjoyed it. As Simon says, very John Woo
influenced with bits from A Better Tomorrow I & II, Bullet in the Head
and The Killer present - but sort of junior Woo with young kids (three
of them are also popular singers) pretending to be Chow Yun Fat!)
Hoedown Showdown
Director: Bhandit Thongdee
Year: 2002
Starring: Dao Mayuri (cowboy hat), Koong Suthirath
(son of father), Roong Suriya (juice maker), Sunaree, Apaporn Nakornsawan
(factory worker), Kasem Komsun (lost boyfriend), Yingyong Yodbuangam (the
cop), Looknok Suphaporn (fruit seller) and many more!
Time: 1 hour 56 minutes
It's all about the music here. Though there
is a story of sorts in the film - basically this is an affectionate all-star
salute to a type of Thai music called Luk Tung. As best as I can figure
out this is their version of country music - popular in the rural areas
of Thailand. The songs seem to generally be slow plaintive ballads about
lost love and loneliness and sung with an aching heart. If you have seen
Monrak Transistor, I think the songs from that film would be considered
Luk Tung. I don't know a thing about it, but I did enjoy listening to it.
It's the kind of music you would want to play sitting on a porch in the
cool late night and allow the sad notes to wander out into the darkness.
The cast as I understand it (from this review
on LoveHKFilm.com)
consists almost entirely of well-known Luk Tung singers - and at the end
of the film they identify them all (but in Thai) and it seems that there
are tons of cameos in the film as well. Taking this into account the acting
is more than acceptable and a few of the performances are really quite
good. There is a lot of music throughout as you would expect, but none
of the stars sound all that great - because they are of course not supposed
to be stars! - until the final twenty minutes when they are all finally
allowed to really do their stuff - and its like wow - that person has a
great voice!
The plot is fairly simple but effective for its
purpose of bringing together all these singing stars. An old man believes
he is dying and his last wish is to bring lovers of Luk Tung together in
one place - so he organizes a contest with a prize of 1,000,000 baht (about
$25,000). Every wannabe Luk Tung singer in Thailand descends on Bangkok
to try for the prize money and each one of them has a story. A monk wants
to win the money to fix the temple, another to help his village, another
to prove to his father his ability, another is looking for her man who
left her three years previously to seek his fame as a singer and she never
heard from him again, another is a hostess at a karaoke bar that wants
to get out of that life and so on. The film develops each of their stories
as best as it can with so many strings to pull. Surprisingly, they all
add up to a sweet emotional little fluffy film that I quite enjoyed.
My rating for this film: 6.5
999-9999 (999-9999 Dat Dor
Dai)
Director: Peter Manus
Stars: Chulachak Chakrabongse (Sun), Sririta
Jensen (Rainbow), Paula Taylor (Meena), Thepparit Raiwin (Ar-Chee), Thitinun
Kietthanakorn (Rajit)
Time: 1 hour 47 minutes
Year: 2002
Don't call the number. Don't pick up the phone.
Like at Alice's Restaurant you can get anything you want, but the bill
is much too high to pay. This horror film from Thailand combines the most
popular recent trends from both Asia and the United States - the technology
kills aspect of The Ring and The Phone and the teenage "and then there
were none" aspects of the Scream series. What's rather intriguing about
this film is that you could watch it - and other than the language - you
would barely know this was a Thai film taking place in Thailand. The surroundings
look very much upper middle class American suburbia as does the architecture
as do the actors. This could play at a local multiplex with some good dubbing
and no one in the audience would have a clue. I read an article recently
that the latest fad in Thailand is the popularity of "Luk Kruengs" or half
Thai/half falang in films, TV and modeling. Three of the main cast here
fit into this category - Chulachak and Paula are half Thai and half English
and Sririta is half Dutch.
A group of students who call themselves the Daredevils
learn that a new girl (Sririta) was previously in a school in Ching-mai
where a student had been found impaled on the flag pole. They question
her about this and she reluctantly tells them that it has to do with a
phone number - 999-9999. If you call this number after midnight she tells
them, you can request anything you want and it will come true - but death
will soon make a return call. Of course they all think this is nonsense
and call up jokingly and one of them gets through and asks for a Ferrari.
The next day he accidentally wins one - coincidence or not? - but the second
part of the deal soon comes true as well with an army of scorpions
and a very deadly car wash combining to make mincemeat of him. One might
think this would deter the others - but they only focus on the first part
of the bargain and start dialing 999-9999 as well and asking for their
dream to come true. The film seems to be poking fun at a very materialistic
Thai upper class that has lost its values of hard work and it's parental
responsibilities (this is a completely parentless world the film depicts).
The production values of the film are really first
rate - very well filmed and great color schemes - it really could play
at your local multiplex - but the film itself is a real mishmash of good
and very bad. The deaths are wonderfully staged and quite clever - a few
of them had me chortling and horrified at the same time. The final twenty
minutes of the film is also quite tense and well done as the remaining
few try and solve this mystery before their phone rings and I found myself
being a bit surprised (and delighted) at the ending. There is though a
whole other part of the film that is very bad - idiotic humor around a
fat guy who wants to join the group, fart jokes, poor group dynamics, bad
dialogue, mediocre acting from some and a few truly annoying characters.
Of course this makes watching them go to their deaths in gruesome style
a bit more rewarding! Still, for those into the Scream/Saw You Last Summer
genre, this isn't a bad imitation until the next Scream comes out.
The Thai DVD has English subtitles and has
an excellent transfer.
My rating for this films: 6.0