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