Sin Sisters

 

Director: Sukit Narintr
Year: 2003
Starring: Claudia Chakrapan, Chutima Every, Kamolchanok Verochana, Solaya Pinnarin, Thorfun Jittharatit
Time: 77 minutes

Well, the women are good looking anyway! I hadn’t expected a lot more than this, but I suppose it would have been nice to have surrounded them with a story of sorts. Basically this film plays out like an anthology of five short stories on the Playboy channel – except this being a Thai film, the actresses never display any nudity. It does have a little spice and a little comedy but not a lot of brains and there is a bit of a twist at the end  - but it’s mainly about five cuties that look pretty darn good.

They all go out to a country house to see a friend they haven’t seen in a while and as women are wont to do they change into sexy lingerie and sit around smoking pot. When the lights go out they decide to tell each other the most embarrassing sexual thing that has ever happened to them. It sort of reminded me of that scene in Peking Opera Blues with Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh and Cherie Chung! So they take turns and take the viewer with them on their little sexual misadventures. One of them is a nurse who takes her duties too far with a handsome patient, another seduces one of her young students after the vegetables don't satisfy her, one woman ends up at a swinging party by mistake and then leaves only to find even worse ahead of her, the fourth is an uptight advertising executive who finds herself in a scandalous video tape and the final woman has an even bigger surprise awaiting her friends.
It seems rather odd to make a film like this and leave the nudity out – like forgetting the peanut butter in a p&j sandwich – the scenes do have a nice glossy mild eroticism to them but nothing you haven’t seen in a million cable TV movies. There is also a strong message regarding safe sex that they push and behind this perhaps an even bigger message that sex will get you into trouble so stay far away from it.

My rating for this film: 3.5

Pii Hua Kaad / Pee Hua Kard

Reviewed by Simon Booth

Director: Komsan Teepong
Year: 2002
Starring: Tah Boyscout, Note Chernyim, Thep Phongarm, Jaturong Mokjok
Time: 120 minutes

Pii Hua Kaad, Pee Hua Kard, spell it how you like, you won't find it in IMDB but ethaicd tells me the movie won "best comedy movie 2002", which was reason enough to pick it up. Strangely, it's not that much of a comedy... or rather, in places it is and in (more) places it's not. The DVD cover makes it look like a horror comedy - not an uncommon genre these days. But it's not a horror movie. Except in places it is, and in (more) places it isn't.

I can certainly see the dilemma the cover artists were in though, because trying to put Pii Hua Kard in one genre is very difficult, since it jumps around all over the place. It might be said it's a mess, but it turns out to be the movies greatest strength, so I prefer to say it has an unusual structure. At the final call, all you can say about the movie uncontroversially is "it's a story about some guy". But isn't that enough?

Some guy in this case happens to be called Diew. He's a young and handsome kick boxer whose father has recently died. His father tells him to head to this particular village and seek out Mr Groan, his former trainer, who will take him in. Diew arrives at the village, falls in love with a beautiful local girl and makes enemies of the local hoodlums. Then a bunch of other stuff happens. Much of it is quite interesting.

PII HUA KAAD is one of those movies that probably works best the less you know about it, since it keeps feeding you surprises. That includes, if possible, not looking at the DVD cover at all. The first scene of the movie actually does very well fit the "horror comedy" category. A group of villagers are digging in a graveyard late at night, exhuming the corpse of a pregnant woman from which they can make a powerful love potion. The leader accidentally casts the wrong spell though, and all the bodies in the graveyard rise up and begin harrassing them. Their escape involves some dubious toilet humour.  It's not a terribly good opening scene, but then the movie totally changes direction after 5 minutes and the whole thing proves to have just been the setup for a running joke with one of the side characters.

There are quite a lot of characters in the movie, each with their own little piece of story. This is one of the reasons the script covers so much territory. Comedy does run through the film, intermittently but never too far away. Some scenes are genuinely funny, whilst others are just silly. One running gag is that one of the characters always mis-hears everything that's said to him. Unfortunately, if you don't understand Thai the humour of this is mostly lost because it just seems random.
Performances in the movie are all good. I haven't seen the lead actor anywhere before, but he has a great screen presence and is in good physical shape - I expect him to go fairly far.  Besides the comedy and the few moments of horror, the movie contains drama, romance and action. There are some fairly well filmed bouts of kickboxing and a great race that I won't describe in any detail. There's a fight towards the end that has to be one of the strangest fights put on film (which reminds me that the movie also employs some pretty good special effects). The movie starts out quite weakly, but builds up in an elliptic way until it becomes much more interesting and enjoyable. The diversity of scenes is the greatest strength, as there's always something new happening. At heart it's still just a story about a guy, but it's a good story and he's a likeable guy :)

Recommended.

Death Trap

Director: Kitti Pakdeewijit
Stars: Michael Pupart, Champaign X
Time: 89 minutes
Year: 1993

Everyone who would have bought this film based on the DVD cover should reach into their pockets and send me a dollar. This is as tepid as English tea and cucumber sandwiches. There seems to be a recent explosion of Thai films being released on DVD - often with English subtitles - but many of them are flimsy low budget attempts to wring a few dollars from unsuspecting consumers. In truth, it is hard to resist a DVD with a cover that shows a pouty red lipstick sultry siren, a knife to her throat and enough bulging cleavage to sink a battleship - at least it's hard for some of us! - but this would be a good place to learn some discipline. I would say this is straight to video quality but even that would be giving it high praise - it is dull, it is obvious, it is full of pointless filler and it has acting that might give a third grade class a run for its money. Of course, for those who like a taste of Champaign it still may be difficult in the end to say no.

Champaign X that is. This lovely actress who throws off heat like a Thai curry made an enjoyably cheesy appearance in Krai Tong as one of the cute croc women and was sexually alluring in Dang Bireley as the glamorous girlfriend, but here no matter how often she bites her delicious lower lip she is unable to generate any sparks whatsoever. She does her best to ooze famme fatale but with a script that is moldier than the bread in my fridge she doesn't stand a chance.
She is married to a wealthy older man that she met as a nurse in the hospital when his wife died - not one to waste time - she sees an opportunity and takes it and is soon the lady of the house. One late rainy evening she and her husband run down a young man on the road and bring him home and you can take a pretty good guess where this one is going. What is hard to understand is why she goes to such depths to try and kill her husband when one would think she could do it by just walking around in her bikinis and sitting on his lap. The film spends much of its time focusing on Champaign X's red lips and curvy body - all fine with me - but unfortunately they tried saddling them with a plot.

My rating for this film: 1.0