Taek 4 - Friendship Breakdown

Reviewed by Simon Booth

Director: ?
Year: 1999
Starring: Sornram Teppitak, Tao Somchai, Sutthida Krasemsun (Nook), Pramote Saengsorn
Time: 94 minutes

I think John Woo has been moonlighting from his Hollywood-Nicholas Cage-love-ins, because this movie was clearly directed by him! Either that or somebody who has studied and absorbed every little ounce of his directorial style, anyway. FRIENDSHIP BREAKDOWN is a Heroic Bloodshed melodrama that feels very much like a Hong Kong movie, very much like a John Woo bullet ballet.

The plot's all there in the title. 4 young friends, very close, happy happy. One of them is training to be a cop and one of the others gets involved in the underworld. His life of crime soon causes repercussions for his friends, and their friendship is put to the test. Will it in fact break down, or is friendship stronger than... other stuff?
Sornram Teppitak and Tao Somchai
The movie is pitched at nearly toxic levels of melodrama, from start to finish it rams its emotional content down your throat in a manner that is sometimes a little uncomfortable. A good piece of melodrama is very tasty when you're in the right mood for it though. The movie is certainly not wall to wall bullet-fest, far from it, but there are a few action scenes throughout, and it all builds to a final reel of major incendiary content. The whole movie is very well filmed - the coloured lighting and angled cameras with fluid movement all feel very Hong Kong. The use of rotating cameras and slow mo show a clear influence from Woo's style - an influence that is explicitly acknowledged when one of the characters picks up 2 guns and is told "Hey, just like John Woo!". At least they're not being shy about the influence.
Sutthida Krasemsun (Nook) and Tao Somchai
So it's a Woo style Heroic Bloodshed movie about the stresses placed on the relationship between 4 close friends. Nothing too remarkable in the concept, but it's always good territory for an entertaining movie. The question then becomes, is it done well? In most respects the answer here is "yes". The script isn't brilliant, and some of the acting is pretty bad - but it's fast paced and includes some very nice ideas, and the cast all look good at least (the female of the 4 is a major cutie). The action is the main pay-off here, the raison d'être, and they've definitely put in a lot of effort and pull off some very well done scenes that stand up there with the top league of HK bullet ballets.
Nice looking movie, you could probably leave your brain at the door though if not for the DVD. It's the first actual Thai DVD that I've watched, and it features a decent PAL letterboxed image, good 5.1 sound mix, and quite the worst subtitles I have ever seen. I mean, I'm used to having to re-translate subtitles as I read them, but these were just awful! Quite a bit just isn't subtitled at all (or minimally so), and the spelling and grammar make the average Mei Ah subtitle job look like Shakespeare! (Wait, that's a bad analogy).
I could follow what was going on just by picking out the nouns because the plot is quite straightforward, and I don't think there was too much subtlety and depth in there for me to miss. Could be wrong though, maybe in Thai it is a deeply profound and insightful study of the human condition. Reservations about the DVD aside, I'm glad to have the movie. It's a slick and exciting movie that should appeal to fans of Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed. Technically very good too - my interest in Thai cinema remains strong.

(Editors Note: As bad as the subs were for Simon I could not even figure out how to get them to show on my DVD even though the cover states they are there  - so there may be some pirated or defective versions going around. Even without the subs though this was fairly easy to understand and I enjoyed it. As Simon says, very John Woo influenced with bits from A Better Tomorrow I & II, Bullet in the Head and The Killer present - but sort of junior Woo with young kids (three of them are also popular singers) pretending to be Chow Yun Fat!)


Hoedown Showdown

Director: Bhandit Thongdee
Year: 2002
Starring: Dao Mayuri (cowboy hat), Koong Suthirath (son of father), Roong Suriya (juice maker), Sunaree, Apaporn Nakornsawan (factory worker), Kasem Komsun (lost boyfriend), Yingyong Yodbuangam (the cop), Looknok Suphaporn (fruit seller) and many more!
Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

It's all about the music here. Though there is a story of sorts in the film - basically this is an affectionate all-star salute to a type of Thai music called Luk Tung. As best as I can figure out this is their version of country music - popular in the rural areas of Thailand. The songs seem to generally be slow plaintive ballads about lost love and loneliness and sung with an aching heart. If you have seen Monrak Transistor, I think the songs from that film would be considered Luk Tung. I don't know a thing about it, but I did enjoy listening to it. It's the kind of music you would want to play sitting on a porch in the cool late night and allow the sad notes to wander out into the darkness.

Roong Suriya and Koong Suthirath
The cast as I understand it (from this review on LoveHKFilm.com) consists almost entirely of well-known Luk Tung singers - and at the end of the film they identify them all (but in Thai) and it seems that there are tons of cameos in the film as well. Taking this into account the acting is more than acceptable and a few of the performances are really quite good. There is a lot of music throughout as you would expect, but none of the stars sound all that great - because they are of course not supposed to be stars! - until the final twenty minutes when they are all finally allowed to really do their stuff - and its like wow - that person has a great voice!
? and ? and Looknok Suphaporn, Dao Mayuri
The plot is fairly simple but effective for its purpose of bringing together all these singing stars. An old man believes he is dying and his last wish is to bring lovers of Luk Tung together in one place - so he organizes a contest with a prize of 1,000,000 baht (about $25,000). Every wannabe Luk Tung singer in Thailand descends on Bangkok to try for the prize money and each one of them has a story. A monk wants to win the money to fix the temple, another to help his village, another to prove to his father his ability, another is looking for her man who left her three years previously to seek his fame as a singer and she never heard from him again, another is a hostess at a karaoke bar that wants to get out of that life and so on. The film develops each of their stories as best as it can with so many strings to pull. Surprisingly, they all add up to a sweet emotional little fluffy film that I quite enjoyed.
Apaporn Nakornsawan and ?

My rating for this film: 6.5


999-9999 (999-9999 Dat Dor Dai)

Director: Peter Manus
Stars: Chulachak Chakrabongse (Sun), Sririta Jensen (Rainbow), Paula Taylor (Meena), Thepparit Raiwin (Ar-Chee), Thitinun Kietthanakorn (Rajit)
Time: 1 hour 47 minutes
Year: 2002

Don't call the number. Don't pick up the phone. Like at Alice's Restaurant you can get anything you want, but the bill is much too high to pay. This horror film from Thailand combines the most popular recent trends from both Asia and the United States - the technology kills aspect of The Ring and The Phone and the teenage "and then there were none" aspects of the Scream series. What's rather intriguing about this film is that you could watch it - and other than the language - you would barely know this was a Thai film taking place in Thailand. The surroundings look very much upper middle class American suburbia as does the architecture as do the actors. This could play at a local multiplex with some good dubbing and no one in the audience would have a clue. I read an article recently that the latest fad in Thailand is the popularity of "Luk Kruengs" or half Thai/half falang in films, TV and modeling. Three of the main cast here fit into this category - Chulachak and Paula are half Thai and half English and Sririta is half Dutch.

Sririta and Chulachak
A group of students who call themselves the Daredevils learn that a new girl (Sririta) was previously in a school in Ching-mai where a student had been found impaled on the flag pole. They question her about this and she reluctantly tells them that it has to do with a phone number - 999-9999. If you call this number after midnight she tells them, you can request anything you want and it will come true - but death will soon make a return call. Of course they all think this is nonsense and call up jokingly and one of them gets through and asks for a Ferrari. The next day he accidentally wins one - coincidence or not? - but the second part of the deal soon comes true as  well with an army of scorpions and a very deadly car wash combining to make mincemeat of him. One might think this would deter the others - but they only focus on the first part of the bargain and start dialing 999-9999 as well and asking for their dream to come true. The film seems to be poking fun at a very materialistic Thai upper class that has lost its values of hard work and it's parental responsibilities (this is a completely parentless world the film depicts).
The production values of the film are really first rate - very well filmed and great color schemes - it really could play at your local multiplex - but the film itself is a real mishmash of good and very bad. The deaths are wonderfully staged and quite clever - a few of them had me chortling and horrified at the same time. The final twenty minutes of the film is also quite tense and well done as the remaining few try and solve this mystery before their phone rings and I found myself being a bit surprised (and delighted) at the ending. There is though a whole other part of the film that is very bad - idiotic humor around a fat guy who wants to join the group, fart jokes, poor group dynamics, bad dialogue, mediocre acting from some and a few truly annoying characters. Of course this makes watching them go to their deaths in gruesome style a bit more rewarding! Still, for those into the Scream/Saw You Last Summer genre, this isn't a bad imitation until the next Scream comes out.
Paula Taylor

The Thai DVD has English subtitles and has an excellent transfer.

My rating for this films: 6.0