Kraithong
Director:
Year: 1980
Rating: 6.0
Country: Thailand
AKA - Legend of the Crocodile
This 1980 Thai fantasy film is a big old chunk of moldy cheese that seems
so nutty from our perspective that it is a fair amount of fun. It is based
on a Thai folktale from a few hundred years ago that has had a few film versions
- one that I saw was from 2001 that covers the same legend but didn't feel
as much fruity fun as this one was. And it is nice coming across an older
Thai film that is out there with English subs. The Thai's have done a miserable
job of preserving their films until the last 10 years or so. They have gone
back and restored a number of them but I think there are literally thousands
of films from the prior decades that are just lost. Which of course in any
national cinema is a shame - but if you look at the Thai posters from the
1950's through the 1980's they are fabulous - colorful, strange, fantabulous,
animated and intricate - which are likely much better than the films but
I would love to see them - from the posters they had mythical films, monster
films, romance, spy and adventure films. I doubt if they really had the budget
to do them well - but some are probably a lot of fun.
So this film involves a giant crocodile, his two crocodile wives, his Buddhist
crocodile grandfather, Kraithong, the crocodile killer, two daughters offered
to him if he can kill Shalawan, the Crocodile King and way too much inter-species
sex for most of us. Oh and not to forget a man who has a bird nest with eggs
growing on his rear end. This gets off to a lovely start when a young boy
jumps off a pier right into the mouth of the waiting Shalawan, Hmmm. Crunch
crunch. Good. I want more where that came from and soon the river is a swatch
of red. After filling himself he returns home - a cozy cave with sliding
doors, hot water pools, gleaming stalagmites, beds and two waiting very horney
wives. But as soon as they are in the cave they take on human form and those
wives are honeys. Nice to come home to and he gets down to business.
But the girls get into a cat fight - or would that be a croc fight and Shalawan
tires of them and thinks he needs a human wife and so kidnaps a daughter
of a wealthy villager and brings her back - she resists until he hits her
with some really bad special effects which the film has in surplus and suddenly
she is into crocodile love - or doing the crocodile rock. Granddad with a
long beard who sits in the mouth of a dead giant crocodile disapproves the
eating of human flesh and screwing them too. It can only bring trouble.
And it does as the father of the missing girl hires Kraithong to kill the
crocodile and if possible rescue his daughter - and for this deed Kriathong
asks for the hand of the other lovely daughter who bites into an apple and
gives Kraithong a knowing wink and a nod. In the end Kraithong ends up with
both daughters - but two wives isn't enough so he goes down into the cave
again (by parting the water Moses like) and makes love to one of the crocodile
wives. It's good and so he brings her back but three wives are just too much
to handle especially when the original two wives egg on the village men to
rape her.
The actor who plays Kraithong is Sorapong Chatree, who was a leading man
for decades and is still a well-known character actor today that I have come
across in loads of Thai films, Clearly, a film for those who don't mind bad
special effects and rubber crocodiles - but for its time I guess it was high
tech. One thing to avoid if you ever make it to Thailand are the crocodile
farms where men put their heads into the mouths of crocodiles - drugged ones
I believe and hopefully well fed - but it still kind of freaked me out.
