O' Lucky Man
Directed: Teerani Tamrongwinichai
Starring: Sam Chotibund, 'Ploy' Lila Boonyasak,
Jutarat Atthakorn, Ackarat Nitipol.
Running Time: 91 minutes
Year: 2003
This movie is just stupid enough to be rather
fun for the first 50 minutes before it unfortunately starts falling back
on traditional romantic plotlines that leave you struggling to get to the
finish line. Once you get there you are rather sorry you did. Tasteless
sexual adolescent comedy has clearly become a cross-border phenomenon as
evidenced recently by Korea’s “Sex is Zero” and now this Thai film. As
tasteless and silly as it is I found it energetically and visually amusing
at times and only wished it had kept at that pace and regimen till the
end. There are also a bountiful bevy of beauties passing through that give
this film an eye candy thumbs up – if that sort of thing interests anyone
of course!
Em (Sam Chotibund) is a software designer working
on a program that allows one to dream whatever you want – his test run
has him in a kickboxing ring against a flurry of stunners – but there is
still a bug in the program apparently as they beat the crap out of him.
The lovely and seductive company owner (Jutarat Atthakorn) gives Em a wink
and a week to fix the program. Em though is as he admits a sexaholic –
one night stands with quick pickups in bars and discos is his operating
model – and this begins causing him havoc in his life.
One evening while attempting to pleasure his latest
conquest under the sheets, he comes face to face with God who tells him
that he has to stop his nocturnal activities and only have sex with someone
he loves – or else. The or else turns out to be things like sleeping with
a transsexual, necking in a car with a mafia head’s wife, a psychopath
with a long blade and a tube of crazy glue that was mistaken for lubrication.
His friend suggests that to break his sexual needs he should start hanging
out with their co-worker Milli. Milli (Lila Boonyasak) is so ugly that
when she comes into the office in the morning everyone has to put on special
glasses that cover her blemishes or they fear they will be cursed for life.
Of course we all know that under that wart and face full of pimples is
a complete knockout just waiting to emerge.
My rating for this film: 5.0
Crazy Cops 191 1/2
Directed: Boonsong Nakphoo
Starring: Danai Samutkochorn, Pairoj Jaisingha,
Buntita Tarnwised
Running Time: 104 minutes
Year: 2003
Cop films don’t get much duller than this.
It was like sitting around a campfire with ten year olds singing “Kumbaya”
and roasting marshmallows. You can only pray it rains and rains hard. An
episode of TJ Hooker would have made me get up and cheer after this. People
who make films as uninteresting, pointless and innocuous as this should
have their own special circle in Hell in which they have to watch each
other’s films for eternity. It wasn’t so much that it was bad - to
be bad you have to attempt to do something and fail miserably – this had
the ambition of a slug on a very hot day. This film has the edge of a melting
stick of butter.
It has a real original premise that you have probably
never seen before - a young cop called Chart (Danai Samutkochorn
– Body Jumper) right out of academy is a by the book energetic little bugger
and he gets partnered with the veteran Sgt. Rueng (Pairoj Jaisingha – sort
of a Thai Ng Man Tat type) who plays loose with the rules and doesn’t ever
seem to be in a hurry. Chart is of course initially offended by the Sgt.’s
apparent dereliction of duty, but eventually realizes that he is a wily
old bird – and they bond. Yippie. May, a young female journalist (Buntita
Tarnwised), rides along with them on their tour and doesn’t do much of
anything. And for some reason that I never figured out, there is a subplot
in which a rural son (the actor who played Phaen's friend in Monrak Transistor)
is asked by his dying father to go to Bangkok to find his long lost half
brother – and he does – but what it has to do with the main story escaped
me. This is a complete waste of time for anyone with a pulse in a non-vegetative
state.
My rating for this film: 2.5
Krasue (Demonic Beauty)
Director: Bin Banluerit
Starring: Lakana Wattanawongsiri, Nak-rob
Traipoe, Ekapun Bunluerit
Running Time: 101 minutes
Year: 2002
The Phii Krasue is a very scary ghost in Thai
mythology. It consists of a flying head with entrails hanging from it and
a voracious hunger for blood and intestines. It uses its long flicking
tongue to lick the dead carcass and sharp teeth to chew on it. It has a
similarity with a ghost type from Malaysia called the penanggalan (“head
with dancing intestines”). This type of ghost has been depicted at least
a couple of times previously in Asian films with Hong Kong’s “Witch with
the Flying Head” (1977) and Indonesia’s “Mystics In Bali” (1981). The krasue
in this Thai film is actually quite a sympathetic figure and this shifts
it from being a straight out and out attempt at horror to something that
takes on more a melodramatic veneer. This probably hurts the film in the
long run. Though this interpretation of the krasue does give it some emotional
impact – it detracts considerably from the horror and gore element that
a film like this is made for. This krasue is just too darn well behaved!
The Thai’s have defeated the Khmer empire in the
mid-1700’s and taken the lovely Princess Tarawatee prisoner. Seeing her
beauty, the Thai ruler weds her, but then later sees her in the arms of
a man. He sentences them both to death – one through a beheading and the
other to be burnt to death. While waiting for her execution, the Princess
hears from a fellow inmate that in a small village not too far away lives
a young woman called Daow who is her exact physical double. As flames start
to burn around her, the Princess sends her spirit to inhabit the body of
Daow – but just as her spirit zips off to find her double, Daow is killed
by a voodoo like curse – and the spirit ends up inhabiting a deceased body
– but it soon springs to life surprising everyone around it. The body is
now partly Daow but also partly vengeful ghost – and at night a painful
hunger comes and it desperately needs to feed on blood and entrails – and
so the head slips away from the body for a little refreshment. This soon
causes consternation among the villagers!
This is generally a rather entertaining film with
decent production values, a bit of solid action – but it gets bogged down
in a soap opera like situation in which romance and gossipy village women
sit around and talk about how strange Daow is acting lately. There is in
fact way too much talk in this film and not nearly enough gore and revenge.
The biggest drawback though has to be the special effects for the flying
head – it looks so fake – like a lit jack-o-lantern flying through the
jungles. On the plus side are the stunning village girls who are the height
of fashion in their revealing halter-tops and a very sympathetic performance
from Princess Tarawatee/Daow (Lakana Wattanawongsiri).
My rating for this film: 6.0