Tigress of the King River
Director: Bhandit Rittakol
Year: 2002
Starring: Panu Suwanno, Prangthong Changdham, Sunisa Brown
Time: 1 hour 57 minutes
Mixing the supernatural and an old-fashioned
jungle action adventure, this B film rarely slows down for a minute and is
generally fairly enjoyable on a simplistic lose no brain cells level. In
the back of your mind though you are always aware that the film isn’t really
that well made and at times it feels more like a fun TV show that contains
some atrocious acting (in particular from the Englishman). Even so, a film
with an elephant tromping on people and a man-eating tiger that takes human
female form always works for me! The legendary/mythical mystique that many
of the Thai films seem to aim for is intriguing to me as it opens a new world
of tradition, history, superstition and customs that is fairly fascinating.
This film contains a degree of CGI effects that are far from seamless but
not badly done.
In the year of 1786 during the reign of King Rama I, two forces are battling
on the King River at the Three Pagoda Pass – the clash of swords, the trumpeting
of elephants and the blasts from muskets fill the air. A Yodla slave elephant
rider from Burma is shot from his mount and floats down the river. Back in
his village his wife, Niam, waits for Klom to return and when he doesn’t
she goes to the scene of the battle to look for him. The jungle appears to
be haunted by the dead armies of many past and present wars still fighting
one another. She is raped and murdered by a group of passing men and then
eaten by a tiger. Over the next one hundred years a legend begins to grow
of a demon tiger that kills and a wandering war elephant that travel together.
In the late 1800’s a party from Bangkok comes to hunt for tigers and elephants
– with a drunken British ex-soldier and a half-British half-Karen tribes
woman female guide. Soon the tigress is hunting them as it senses that the
reincarnated spirits of the men who killed her years ago is among them –
and perhaps also that of the husband she never found and is still looking
for. The direction does feel awkward at times and the budding romance between
the Englishman and the guide is acting hell, but the basic themes of revenge,
reincarnation and eternal love play out reasonably well – especially in the
end.
The Thai DVD and VCD have English subs.
My rating for this film: 6.0