Chaya
Director: ?
Starring: Wannasa Thongwised, "Boom" Panatda
Wongpoodee, Nattanun Khunawat
Running Time: 91 minutes
Year: 2003
One of the few things that I have learned in
life is that if you pass someone anywhere and suddenly have a flashback
to a previous incarnation with this person, it is time to get out of town.
Nothing good ever comes out of it. Another thing I should be learning but
clearly have not done so is to avoid these low budget Thai horror films
like a weekend in Atlantic City. Nothing good ever comes out of them either.
This film is generally a very dull outing that moves along like a sleepy
snail that would rather be napping. The only redeeming factors are the
two attractive actresses, some cute outtakes at the end and a final fifteen
minutes that finally has a smidgeon of gore and contains some mild emotional
depth.
In current day Bangkok, Sa (Wannasa Thongwised)
works in an antiquity store and she has a fondness in particular for the
ancient art of Cambodia. One afternoon Sarot (Nattanun Khunawat), an archeologist
who specializes in Khmer history, visits the shop. As soon as they come
into contact – zap – both get struck by images of historical scenes whirling
around in their heads. Sa gets a nosebleed while Sarot sees someone who
looks like himself cutting his own throat. At the same time an ancient
burial site has been discovered and the coffin uncovered. Little do they
know that by doing so they have released the vengeful spirit of Princess
Mayawantra (Panatda Wongpoodee) – a pissed off spirit for very good reason
as she was buried alive hundreds of years ago with a final oath on her
lips to forever hunt down her killer in their many future lives. Now she
is back and looking for a little payback. The story itself isn’t a bad
one as it comes at this formulaic plot from a slightly different angle,
but it is done in a painfully plodding manner with little cinematic style.
My rating for this film: 4.5
Seven Days in Coffin
Director: ?
Starring: Surachai SaengArkard, Khemmasorn
Nookaaw, Panida Worrabutr
Running Time: 97 minutes
Year: 2003
O.k. so I bit again on a low budget Thai horror
and the taste was not pleasant. This is so monotonously bland that I almost
wanted to climb into the coffin and take a long sleep. The acting is awful,
the music is annoying and the film would have felt stretched at thirty
minutes. At ninety-seven minutes it felt like it would never end – though
oddly some of the filler was the best part of the film. This is your basic
the dead come back for revenge motif, but never has a ghost done it in
such a lackluster and leisurely manner. The ghost union should object to
this type of tedious portrayal of themselves. Have a work ethic damn it
- kill people, don't just loiter about!
Mali is dead – drowned by an unknown assailant
in the river. It turns out in the follow up investigation that Mali was
the village pin cushion – she seems to have slept with just about anything
that moved while she was alive and even manages to seduce the undertaker
after she is dead! She was also two months pregnant and was demanding that
everyone she had slept with to take responsibility for the child – none
of the men were thrilled with this and thus many had a motive for killing
her. Her corpse is laid out for burial rites for seven days and during
this time her ghost comes and goes as it pleases. She chats with various
people and promises revenge, but annoyingly keeps forgetting to tell anyone
who murdered her. If she had done so it would have saved everyone a lot
of trouble and a few lives as well and me from having to watch this film
– but some things you want to do for yourself I suppose. At one point her
baby pops out and starts running after one of the suspects and it looked
like this might get fun – but the baby was never spotted again though there
are reports that it became a DJ in a Bangkok hiphop dance club.
Now the real highlight of the film was complete
filler that came out of nowhere and made no sense in the context of the
film, but I was only too happy to see it by that time. The investigating
cop wanders down to the river with his very large-chested girlfriend (who
we had not seen previously nor ever again after this scene) and she decides
for no particular reason to walk into the water thus creating the equivalent
of a Thai wet sari scene – but with the cop looking bored as if he
has seen this show before, she decides to take it off and take him into
the barn. Wow – a murky Thai nude scene – still quite rare in Thai commercial
film, but I have noticed an easing off of their restrictions in this regard
as of late – though possibly these were straight to video films and thus
ducked under the very stringent censor radar. In an amusing out take at
the end, the busty girl was having a heck of a hard time raising the wet
shirt above the two rather large obstacles in its path and she breaks down
laughing!
My rating for this film: 2.0
Narok sao Ta-ru-tao
Director: ?
Starring: 'Nicky' Theerakol, Dawan Singhwee,
Cherry Intira
Running Time: 110 minutes
Year: 2003
The good news is that Thailand has “Women in
Prison” exploitation films! The bad news is that Thailand has “Women in
Prison” exploitation films. If this is as good as they can do it, please
leave that genre to the experts! This is an amazingly bad film in every
way – bad to such a degree that I could only watch it in pity for the people
involved. I could imagine these actors being signed up – excited about
starring in a film - and then they go to the location for the first day's
work. The initial questions that probably popped into their heads were
“Where are we? Where are the sets? Where is the prison?” Prison? We don’t
need no stinking prison. This may be the first WIP film without a prison.
Avant-garde concept? A statement that life itself is a prison? No, I don’t
think so – there just wasn’t any money and they hoped no one would notice.
The correction facility is having a problem with
the female inmates escaping on a constant basis. It is not too surprising
since the prison has no fence. Oops – we never thought we would need one
of those. It also has no jailhouse and makes do with a small makeshift
stockade of wooden poles tied together by rope in which all the prisoners
are herded into. The administrators and guards don’t have it much better
as their “offices” consist of straw and plywood stapled together. A strong
wind and the prison would blow away. A light misting rain and the prison
would float away. So it is no wonder that the inmates attempt to escape
the bad food, poor décor, peeing behind the bushes, the brutish
guards and having their faces in this movie.
As the film begins three females have broken out
– ok not exactly broken out – they strolled away and are on the run – ok
not exactly on the run as they decided to stop for a nap - and the guards
nearly catch up with them. They leap over a cliff into the water below
and the guards follow suit – oddly the blonde head guard’s hair color changes
to black as he jumps. Move quickly to another scene in which the female
guard, Irada, is leading three new prisoners to their new home and two
of them push her and try to run away – great escape plan as she calmly
shoots them both in the back. It turns out she has something going with
the blonde guard – a little daily ritual in which she accuses him of messing
around with the inmates – he then calls her “bitch” and slaps her across
the face and follows this up with a deep dive kiss. Then at night she comes
back to his place for a little whoopee.
My kind of woman - a stone faced killer in the
day and a warm waiting hussy at night. In fact, as many romances break
out here as do prisoners - between the whiskey swizzling doctor and one
of the inmates, between a couple of the inmates, between an inmate and
Irada, between an inmate and the blonde guard, between the blond guard
and Irada - in fact this might be a cheaper option for those looking for
romance than a Club Med vacation. The film does include some basic WIP
elements – whipping, lesbianism, torture, rape and bad dialogue – but done
with the style and energy of an afternoon soap opera. In the end, all the
sets are blown up and I thought – geez what a shame – there goes $50 in
material up in smoke.
My rating for this film: 1.0