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WannaGo

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WannaGo Newbie

WannaGo

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Anybody here into Thai films? I've seen three recently, and have really enjoyed them. Got another half-dozen in my Netflix queue that I'm looking forward to seeing. Don't know yet whether I'll start to like Thai stuff as much as I do Korean movies, but it's looking good (although technically, most of the Thai movies I want to see have been made by the Pang brothers, who are Chinese.)

These are the ones I've watched so far:

Shutter: This is a horror movie about a photographer named Tun and his girlfriend, Jane, who are haunted by mysterious images that show up in his photos. I ended up giving it 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix. It's got some intensely scary bits, and the ending is creepy and effective, but it has the same continuity and editing issues that I think many Asian horror movies have -- unexplained leaps of logic and too many important developments that occur off-camera.

The movie is slightly confusing because at first, you think the it's about Tun and Jane being punished for a hit-and-run accident. The two are driving home from a friend's wedding and hit a woman who walks out in front of their car. Instead of stopping to help, they drive on. The images begin appearing in the photos soon after. Meanwhile, Tun and Jane can find no evidence the accident even occurred. There's no body, no police report, nothing.

SPOILER ALERT!!! But, as the movie develops, we learn that it really has nothing to do with the crash. The woman from the street, whose face we can see in Tun's photos, actually is an ex-girlfriend of his who died and has come back to haunt him. She appears to be targeting his friends, as well, because they all begin dying mysteriously, although almost all of this happens off-camera. We learn of the deaths in a quick rush of dialogue about 2/3 of the way through the movie.

I won't tell you why the ghost is after these guys, but let's just say that karma sometimes actually is a bitch. The ending, in which we learn the reason that Tun has had recurring neck pain throughout the movie, is meant, I think, to remind us we should never easily shrug off guilt.

Bangkok Dangerous: This is a crime thriller by the Pang brothers that was remade last year into a steaming pile of excrement with Nicholas Cage. Even though the Pangs made that one, too, these movies are not even comparable in terms of quality.

The plot combines two familiar story lines...the brutally efficient assassin who finds love, and the assassin who turns on his handlers (for a reason unrelated to the romance). Kong, a deaf mute hitman in Bangkok, meets Fon, a pharmacy worker, and falls in love about the same time that things go very wrong in his set-up with the crime syndicate that arranges his hits.

But instead of being the same old tired stuff, we get to see nuanced characterizations (except for some of the bad guys, who are played a little cartoonish) and rich emotional lives from the main players, especially in one scene when Kong delivers a letter he has written to Fon.

Plus, did I mention, the Pang brothers make awesome action movies in the John Woo tradition, so there is plenty of stylized violence.

Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior: I'm not usually into martial arts movies (I'd rather just watch real fights), but Tony Jaa is absolutely amazing. Watching this movie knowing that he does all his stunts and fight scenes without the use of wires, special effects or CGI just makes every scene seem 10 times as dynamic.

The story is as basic as the come. Jaa plays Ting, a country bumpkin from a tiny little rural village suffering through a drought. A gangster from Bangkok stills the head off the village's religious icon, and Ting, a skilled Thai boxer, is sent to retrieve it. In order to do that, he has to punch, kick, knee and elbow about half of Bangkok, it seems.

My favorite character in this is Muay, a female con artist that Ting meets in Bangkok. Besides being attractive, she's got one of those cute, expressive faces that can tell a joke without uttering a word.

But the real star of the movie is the stuntwork.

In some places, it reminded me of District B13 or any of the other action movies that feature parkour, except that Jaa puts his own interpretation on urban free-running. As he's being chased by a group of thugs, he manages to fold himself in half and fly through a circle of barbed wire. In another cringe-inducing scene, he does the splits in order to clear a row of sharp metal gardening implements. And when he's finally cornered by the thugs and faces a fight he cannot win...well, you just have to see how he escapes.

Oh, plus he does his patented flying double-knee strike at least two or three times in fight scenes late in the movie. Gotta love that.

I think the next one I'm going to watch is Dorm, a horror movie.

You guys got any favorite Thai movies? I'm mostly interested in horror and crime, and I'd love to hear any suggestions for good ones that I should see.

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Beer Chang Newbie

Beer Chang

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I enjoyed Som Tam and the Thais seem to really like it that the falang is such a moron.

Stupid slapstick but laughing out loud if in a good mood.

I'd like to buy it but can't find it in Pattaya.

If Thai soundtrack must have English subtitles.

If English soundtracj must have Thai subtitles.

If anyone sees it on sale please give a shout.

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WannaGo Newbie

WannaGo

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With free content on TV and the internet, I think spending money on DVDs is a waste of money.

I have a friend back home that wants a collection, spends lots of money on CDs and DVDs yet doesn't have health insurance.

Some people build a nice little collection by renting DVDs, burning the ones they want and returning them. Not saying this is what I do or anything. ;)

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Beer Chang Newbie

Beer Chang

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Some people build a nice little collection by renting DVDs, burning the ones they want and returning them. Not saying this is what I do or anything. ;)

That's what this guy used to do at Tower Records.

And for every 10 rented you get one free. After 10 returned CDs that he burned he'd get one for free, something that he wanted as an original.

He did this hundreds of times.

Tower Records is now out of business.

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Bob Newbie

Bob

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I imagine the closing of businesses related to the movie and music industries has a lot more to do with their insanely overpriced products than customers burning bootlegs.

I'm not so sure of that - especially when you often can buy a dvd ripoff of a movie in Asia (i.e., Thailand) within a few weeks of the movie's release! And for 100 baht (heck of a lot less than going to the movie theater).

Back in the "napster" days, I was looking forward to the release of the new Sek Loso album "Black & White." I happened to download it for free the week before it was released! (yea, I know, I'm bad....)

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Juanito Newbie

Juanito

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Anybody here into Thai films? I've seen three recently, and have really enjoyed them. Got another half-dozen in my Netflix queue that I'm looking forward to seeing. Don't know yet whether I'll start to like Thai stuff as much as I do Korean movies, but it's looking good (although technically, most of the Thai movies I want to see have been made by the Pang brothers, who are Chinese.)

These are the ones I've watched so far:

Shutter: This is a horror movie about a photographer named Tun and his girlfriend, Jane, who are haunted by mysterious images that show up in his photos. I ended up giving it 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix. It's got some intensely scary bits, and the ending is creepy and effective, but it has the same continuity and editing issues that I think many Asian horror movies have -- unexplained leaps of logic and too many important developments that occur off-camera.

The movie is slightly confusing because at first, you think the it's about Tun and Jane being punished for a hit-and-run accident. The two are driving home from a friend's wedding and hit a woman who walks out in front of their car. Instead of stopping to help, they drive on. The images begin appearing in the photos soon after. Meanwhile, Tun and Jane can find no evidence the accident even occurred. There's no body, no police report, nothing.

SPOILER ALERT!!! But, as the movie develops, we learn that it really has nothing to do with the crash. The woman from the street, whose face we can see in Tun's photos, actually is an ex-girlfriend of his who died and has come back to haunt him. She appears to be targeting his friends, as well, because they all begin dying mysteriously, although almost all of this happens off-camera. We learn of the deaths in a quick rush of dialogue about 2/3 of the way through the movie.

I won't tell you why the ghost is after these guys, but let's just say that karma sometimes actually is a bitch. The ending, in which we learn the reason that Tun has had recurring neck pain throughout the movie, is meant, I think, to remind us we should never easily shrug off guilt.

Bangkok Dangerous: This is a crime thriller by the Pang brothers that was remade last year into a steaming pile of excrement with Nicholas Cage. Even though the Pangs made that one, too, these movies are not even comparable in terms of quality.

The plot combines two familiar story lines...the brutally efficient assassin who finds love, and the assassin who turns on his handlers (for a reason unrelated to the romance). Kong, a deaf mute hitman in Bangkok, meets Fon, a pharmacy worker, and falls in love about the same time that things go very wrong in his set-up with the crime syndicate that arranges his hits.

But instead of being the same old tired stuff, we get to see nuanced characterizations (except for some of the bad guys, who are played a little cartoonish) and rich emotional lives from the main players, especially in one scene when Kong delivers a letter he has written to Fon.

Plus, did I mention, the Pang brothers make awesome action movies in the John Woo tradition, so there is plenty of stylized violence.

Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior: I'm not usually into martial arts movies (I'd rather just watch real fights), but Tony Jaa is absolutely amazing. Watching this movie knowing that he does all his stunts and fight scenes without the use of wires, special effects or CGI just makes every scene seem 10 times as dynamic.

The story is as basic as the come. Jaa plays Ting, a country bumpkin from a tiny little rural village suffering through a drought. A gangster from Bangkok stills the head off the village's religious icon, and Ting, a skilled Thai boxer, is sent to retrieve it. In order to do that, he has to punch, kick, knee and elbow about half of Bangkok, it seems.

My favorite character in this is Muay, a female con artist that Ting meets in Bangkok. Besides being attractive, she's got one of those cute, expressive faces that can tell a joke without uttering a word.

But the real star of the movie is the stuntwork.

In some places, it reminded me of District B13 or any of the other action movies that feature parkour, except that Jaa puts his own interpretation on urban free-running. As he's being chased by a group of thugs, he manages to fold himself in half and fly through a circle of barbed wire. In another cringe-inducing scene, he does the splits in order to clear a row of sharp metal gardening implements. And when he's finally cornered by the thugs and faces a fight he cannot win...well, you just have to see how he escapes.

Oh, plus he does his patented flying double-knee strike at least two or three times in fight scenes late in the movie. Gotta love that.

I think the next one I'm going to watch is Dorm, a horror movie.

You guys got any favorite Thai movies? I'm mostly interested in horror and crime, and I'd love to hear any suggestions for good ones that I should see.

"Queen Suriyothai"

This is another movie you should see if you want to know more about Thai culture. It describe the fight between Thailand and Burma when Thailand was known as Siam. One interesting fact about Thailand is that it has been the only southeast Asian country to never been colonized by another country.

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lvdkeyes Newbie

lvdkeyes

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"Queen Suriyothai"

This is another movie you should see if you want to know more about Thai culture. It describe the fight between Thailand and Burma when Thailand was known as Siam. One interesting fact about Thailand is that it has been the only southeast Asian country to never been colonized by another country.

This is almost correct. It has never been colonized by a WESTERN country.
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WannaGo Newbie

WannaGo

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"Queen Suriyothai"

This is another movie you should see if you want to know more about Thai culture. It describe the fight between Thailand and Burma when Thailand was known as Siam. One interesting fact about Thailand is that it has been the only southeast Asian country to never been colonized by another country.

Thanks. Netflix doesn't have it, so I'll have to try to find it elsewhere.

I'm not so sure of that - especially when you often can buy a dvd ripoff of a movie in Asia (i.e., Thailand) within a few weeks of the movie's release! And for 100 baht (heck of a lot less than going to the movie theater).

Back in the "napster" days, I was looking forward to the release of the new Sek Loso album "Black & White." I happened to download it for free the week before it was released! (yea, I know, I'm bad....)

That's kind of my point. If people could buy movie tickets or DVDs at a reasonable price, there wouldn't be nearly so many people pirating them. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to buy or download a legit copy of a movie for the same price you can get a bootleg. The studios have artificially inflated the value of their products and are trying to hold them there, rather than recognizing that the consumers don't place the same value on them.

The other thing they do that drives me crazy is this schedule they have of releasing the movie in theaters, then to on-demand, then onto DVD months later, the finally to cable. They're trying to maximize their profits at each stage, I get that.

But there are a lot of people who only use maybe one or two of those platforms. Personally, I haven't been to a theater in a couple of years and never buy on-demand from the cable company. I only watch movies on DVD or online, and I imagine my movie habits are fairly typical. So people like me have two choices...wait, and wait, and wait for the studios to release a movie onto DVD and for download, or get a pirated copy soon after the movie comes out in theaters.

Again, there's no reason they can't release simultaneously to theaters, DVD, on-demand, and online. If they would give consumers choices that match their lifestyles and needs, I bet they'd actually start making a few more dollars and seeing a lot less piracy than happens now, IMHO.

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