KING NARESUAN (2007) - Thai epics finally hit America as KINGDOM OF WAR

KINGDOM OF WAR - PARTS 1 and 2

(2007, Thailand, King Naresuan)

It's been a long wait for these two historical epics to get English-subtitled releases in the west, while many more recent Thai movies like Tony Jaa's and various Thai horrors have wasted no time. King Naresuan parts 1 and 2 have presumably been waiting to tie-in with the delayed release of part 3, which premiered in Thailand in March this year. Raising the unprecedented budgets for these films has been a battle in itself, relying partly on the director's connections with the royal family.

The whole story tells of the birth of Thailand's fight for independence from it's neighbouring countries and brings to life a famous period of history. But if it's epic war action you want, I'd reluctantly advise you to skip to Part 2. If you want the whole story and to wallow in the sights and culture of 16th century Thailand and Burma, then start with Part 1. The events of these films even follow on from the same director's earlier epic Legend of Suriyothi (2001), which was presented in America by Francis Ford Coppola in 2003.

The DVD and blu-ray releases have been retitled as Kingdom of War for the US release by Magnet. Be careful not to confuse it with the Donnie Yen epic, An Empress and the Warrior (2008), which was also renamed Kingdom of War in some European countries.

I reviewed both films after seeing them in the cinema in Thailand in 2007. I'll report back on how the blu-ray compares.

King Naresuan Part 1 - Hostage of Hongsawadi review

King Naresuan Part 2 - Reclamation of Sovereignty review

The Making of King Naresuan documentary and merchandise review

Kingdom of War Parts 1 and 2 blu-ray on Amazon.com

4bia (2008) - patchy Thai horror anthology

4bia
(2008, Thailand, See Prang)

I'm quite reluctant to write this review. I want to encourage Thai movies internationally, especially since the country is so keen on the supernatural genre. But I'm duty bound to write an honest review, to compensate for the growing hype, from both the east and the west. 4bia may have been successful in Thailand, with a sequel in the works already, but most of the good reviews seem to be saying 'this is very good... for a Thai movie'. Yes, 4bia has elements that are rare in Thai cinema - car stunts and CGI characters, for instance. While this might be impressive in Thailand, I don't honestly think it'll be at all satisfying for regular horror fans. 4bia only has one story out of four that I can recommend.

It's made up of four short horror stories, all by different Thai directors. While the title is a twist on phobia, the common thread is ghosts, as is usual with Thai horror.


The first segment is called Loneliness (though the onscreen title on the Malay DVD was Happiness). I was disappointed that the story centred on a mobile phone, now a ragged Asian horror cliche. The pace also started quite slowly, as a young woman with her leg in a cast starts getting text messages from a mysterious admirer. Just as I was getting restless, the tale started to get successfully creepy. This was interesting considering the director's previous films included The Iron Ladies films, basically feelgood comedies. But the carefully built atmosphere was shattered by a clumsy shock moment from a shoddy video effect and a confusing sting in the tale.


Second up was Tit For Tat, an example of the more gruesome wave of Thai horror that aspires to ladle out bloody shock effects. A schoolboy is victimised by a nasty gang of bullies and takes revenge using black magic. But this is presented with fast-cutting, shaky camerawork, pumped-up colours and a barrage of computer-generated effects, some successful (a whirlwind of paper) and some definitely not (CGI characters). The uneven special effects distracted me from the already flimsy story.

Best of the lot is the third story, In The Middle. Directed with a sure hand, from a director of Alone and the superb Shutter, Banjong Pisanthanakun. This is well-paced, well-acted and largely original. Four boys are on a camping trip in the forest, scaring each other with ghost stories in the tent at night and teasing each other about which horror films they've seen, (cue some smart in-jokes). But next day they have a Deliverance-style accident and the trip turns into a nightmare. This was easily the best - well made, scary and didn't insult horror fans.


Lastly is Last Fright where a stewardess attends to royalty on a specially chartered flight. But the princess starts ill-treating the attendant and everything escalates rather alarmingly. In the story's mission to scare, logic goes completely out the window in order to create any scares. Like part two, the director cheats the viewer every whichway, in order to get the shocks. The premise of royalty of any country (in this case a fictitious one) hiring a huge passenger jet all for one person is far-fetched to begin with. An appalling CGI plane sabotaged the segment, while the interior set was just about convincing.

So, a mixed bag, above average horror for Thailand, just about good enough as a TV film, OK for DVD. It's an accurate overview of Thai approaches to horror, with some over-familiar subjects. I'd like to see the directors of Dorm and Victim invited to the next batch.

The Malay DVD from Golden Satellite (pictured at top) is non-anamorphic widescreen. The English subtitles were well-translated but non-removable. Any curse words were censored with a silly black blob over the offending words. This could indicate that the gore had also been cut down for Malaysia. Maybe the promised UK DVD release later this year will have more gore (in the second story?).

As I'm still feeling guilty, in the name of balance here's the gushy review that inspired me to write this, and a far more balanced and informative review from Wise Kwai.

THE VICTIM (2006) - superior Thai horror

THE VICTIM
(2006, Thailand, Phii khon pen)

This popular Thai horror has just been released on DVD in the US, and a rave review in Video Watchdog prompted me to finally watch my Thai DVD, which was easy enough to follow despite the lack of subtitles.

Bright young Ting helps the police by acting as the victim in murder re-enactments, staged for the press in the hope of gaining further information on the crimes, while adding drama for the press and TV news. But as she researches her roles more thoroughly, Ting begins to connect with the victims, saying a prayer and lighting incense at each murder scene. Unwittingly, she starts to accumulate their unhappy spirits who are waiting for justice to be done...


While The Victim has many startling shock moments and effective creep-outs, the early scares have a tinge of comedy - in line with the popular Thai horror comedies like the Buppah Rahtree films. There's also some successful comedy moments in the non-scary scenes, like when Ting's acting proves so convincing in a reconstruction, that the public pile in to beat up the actor playing her 'murderer'. The scares are still numerous and solid, ranking this as a far scarier and inventive Thai horror film than most, especially the laborious, badly-acted Thai slashers, like the Art of the Devil series. I was also very impressed with the central plot twist, which the publicity cleverly avoids hinting at...

Overall, this is very satisfying, and director, Monthon Arayangkoon, is now forgiven for inflicting the patchy monster movie Garuda (2004) on the world. The Victim is different enough to be set apart from other Eastern horrors, with superior acting and cinematography, and appropriately creepy camera moves subtly enhancing the scares. My only reservation is that some of the more ambitious effects look a little too digital, but maybe that was a budgetary limitation.

The end credits are at pains to show supposed evidence of spirit photography lurking in several shots in the film. The 'making of' documentary takes the phenomenon seriously, interviewing the cast and exploiting the same superstitions as the previous Thai horror hit Shutter (2004).


By the way, is it me or did the grey ghosts and scary posters from The Victim have an influence on the publicity art for the recent US remake of Pulse, with more dark grey hands reaching out of the darkness...

David Kalat's very positive review in Video Watchdog reports that the US DVD (from Tartan) has poorly translated subtitles and, more damagingly, no translations at all for the numerous headlines and signs. This is a shame because The Victim is easily one of the country's scariest offerings.

Instead, I'm considering getting the Korean DVD release, which usually have very good English subtitles. Though when shopping around, buyers should beware of the many other films, from both East and West, that are also called The Victim.

THE EYE 3 (2005) - the third Eye is the weakest

THE EYE 10
THE EYE INFINITY
THE EYE 3
(2005, Hong Kong/Thailand, Gin Gwai 10)

How many second sequels can you name that are better than the first?

I love The Eye (2002) and was surprised at how good The Eye 2 (2004) was. Now I'm surprised at how bad The Eye 3 is - an unfunny comedy-horror from the Pang Brothers (who directed the first two films) is sneaking around under several titles, usually as The Eye 10 and The Eye Infinity, and is finally being released on DVD in the USA, under the more accurate title The Eye 3.


So beware – the cover art may look like a horror film, but it’s really trying hard to get laughs, with the directors aiming to spoofing their own films. They only get it half right – some of the scares work, but the humour doesn’t. For instance, the opening scene of a Buddhist exorcism. Inside a circle of monks, a young girl begins to levitate and act like a Linda Blair possessed. Her tongue begins to loll out of her mouth… But they take it a step too far and have the tongue slap the monks around, Three Stooges style! The scene was working fine until the gags crept in. Guess they haven’t seen Repossessed.

Another problem with the film is its completely disjointed nature, with a far less focussed plot than the first two films. Four friends on holiday in Thailand are telling ghost stories, and their Thai friend convinces them there are actually 10 ways to see real ghosts. The first two ways having been explored in the first two films - “yeah, we heard about them”.


As they work their way through the next 8 ways, there’s an uneven cross between Thai horror and broad Chinese comedy. The film works in places, like one scene when they are sitting in a deserted street at night trying to lure ghosts out with food.

But rather than a series of spoofs, this looks more like leftover, under-developed ideas. There’s also a constant assumption that seeing ghosts means danger. Surely, the ghosts are around all the time – they are only in trouble if the ghosts have a motive to do the characters harm.

By far, the worst scene is when a possessed human gets mistaken for a body-popper by two B-boys, who then try and engage in a challenge dance. No, no, no.


The cinematography is colourful, moody and predictably green for ghostly scenes. But unlike The Eye 2 where the editing was calm, the cutting style here is fast and random. The special effects start off well with some ghastly make-up effects, but then there’s an over-reliance on an easy electronic ripple effect over many of the ghosts – obscuring their features.

The whole mess certainly explains why there haven’t been any more Eye sequels since…


The Eye 3 is getting released in the US at the end of June, with that misleadingly scary cover… It’s already out in the UK and around Europe.

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THE EYE 2 (2004) a solid sequel from the Pang Brothers

THE EYE 2
(2004, Hong Kong/Thailand)

The Eye 2 has renewed my interest in the Pang Brothers. After really enjoying The Eye (2002), I cooled off after seeing their Bangkok Haunted and The Tesseract, both of which failed to grip my attention.

The Eye 2 succeeds as a well-conceived sequel, faithful to the premise of the original, without copying it. There’s a new set of characters and a whole new haunting.



Reversing the locations of the first film, the story starts in Bangkok as Joey (Shu Qi) tries some shopping therapy to get over a messy break-up. After her ex refuses her phone calls, she attempts suicide. Her near-death experience activates her ability to see ghosts…


As she returns to Hong Kong she discovers she’s not only pregnant, but haunted. When she's trapped in a hospital lift, a terrifying incident convinces her that a ghost is trying to kill her unborn baby.

This could be the worst film to watch if you’re expecting a new baby. Shu Qi gives a sustained and emotional performance, spending much of the story terrified that she’s going to lose her baby. It’s difficult not to sympathise with her enduring this gruelling ordeal, despite some revelations about her character.


The haunting scenes are imaginatively shot and cleverly conceived. Though I didn’t find as many scares as creepy as the first film, there are some powerful and grisly shocks. The only real mis-step in the story was when a rapist attacks her, the character looked more like a sitcom geek. The next scene didn’t work for me, as he appeared again covered in comedy bandages.

Considering that the Pang Brothers former careers were in grading (tweaking the colours of film for continuity and a stylised look) and editing, they avoided the trend for flashy editing and surreal grading.

Oxide and Danny Pang are currently in the US, directing a remake (is that called re-directing?) of Bangkok Dangerous, starring Nicolas Cage. Perhaps they found time to go see Jessica Alba in The Eye remake that's just been released.

Meanwhile, I’ve got to catch up on their Ab-Normal Beauty, Omen and Eye Infinity, the third of the original Eye films.

The Eye 2 is on DVD in the US and UK, though I watched the Hong Kong disc which has DTS sound and an alternative ending.

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HANUMAN vs 7 ULTRAMANS (1974) Thai Ultraman movie madness

Hanuman vs 7 Ultramans

(1974, Thailand/Japan)

aka The 6 Ultra Brothers Vs. the Monster Army

If I’d gone on holiday to Thailand, immersed myself in the usual tourist sights of monkeys, temples and statues of Buddha, got a bit homesick for my usual diet of Japanese TV, then taken some bad acid, I might have dreamt something looking like Hanuman vs 7 Ultramans.

It’s psychedelic, often makes no sense, and fuses the Japanese Ultraman universe with Thai mythology. You couldn’t make this stuff up anywhere else.

Ultraman is very popular in Thailand, so much so that this film was specially shot with the cooperation of Japan's Tsuburaya Productions, which extended to lending out the Ultraman suits and monster suits and helping with the special effects. Unwittingly, this started an international battle over the rights to the Ultraman characters outside of Japan. The lawsuit has only just been settled (see this Sci-Fi Japan news item for a July 2007 update and some great Hanuman v Ultraman posters).

The plot, if you must... 2 young Thai boys try to stop 3 nasty crooks from stealing the head off a statue of Buddha from a ruined temple. (Shades of Ong Bak). One of the boys is killed, but instead of going to heaven, he becomes the monkey king Hanuman in giant form, or something like that. (It looks like two of the boys can transform into giant Hanuman - it’s confusing, and all in Thai.) Thus Hanuman takes his bloody revenge on the nasty crooks. Slow fade to black.

But that's not all! Nearby, scientists are testing rockets that could spark rainfall in areas of drought. All very noble, but not very wise to have thirty fully fuelled rockets all on launchpads so close to the mission control buildings… in an earthquake zone.

We inevitably get a spectacular rocket accident that causes an earthquake and wakes up five monsters who were living underground. Six (or is it seven) Ultramen then join Hanuman to save the day. Cue fighting, explosions and more monkey-dancing.

It’s almost like the plot of two TV episodes stretched over 100 minutes. Especially because there is a LOT of padding. At the start there are two unfunny soldiers mucking around in a jeep, acting like circus clowns and going for a swim in what look like girls bathing suits. More padding comes from the boys and their friends doing a lot of Hanuman-type monkey-dancing at the temple.

More padding comes from Hanuman himself doing a victory monkey-dance in front of the six bored Ultramen. At the end of it all, Hanuman kisses every Ultraman goodbye. All very friendly but they don’t look at all impressed.

I enjoyed the psychedelic special effects. All the intricate optical compositing and trippy backgrounds looked to me like they were done by the Japanese crew. On the other hand, the modelwork is not at all convincing, the rocket base looks exactly like a model. In fact, some of the outer space sequences look so bizarre, using no slow-motion at all, that the effects look like a George Melies fantasy from 100 years ago.

The action gets pretty extreme. One of the boys gets shot in the face! In close up! The baddies get their come-uppance in a bloody style too – getting squished or stomped by the giant. For something I presumed was aimed at 5 year olds.

The music stretches the patience – sounding exactly like a Thai tourist trap cultural evening (been there, done that), rather than a superhero action film. Similarly, Hanuman looks exactly like the famous statues in the Kings’ Palace in Bangkok, no effort has been made to tweak the character into an action hero. It’s a traditional Thai character, traditional music, traditional monkey-dancing.

Like many Hong Kong films (up until the late eighties) all the dialogue is post-synched. That is, no location sound is recorded. All the voices are synchronised in later in a sound studio. This makes every scene sound like a small radio play. The acoustics are of a small room, the lip-synch is loose, the sound effects are sparse. The impressive-looking Hanuman and a sky god he meets in space have no processing on their voices – they just sound like normal people. Lazily, one of the monsters sounds exactly like Godzilla.

There’s also stock footage from the TV series to pad out the Air Force attacks on the monsters. Though the film has been shot in a very wide 2.35 anamorphic widescreen format (which has been crammed onto this DVD without letterboxing), the TV shots haven’t been cropped at all. The resulting effect is that shots intercut between normal-looking widescreen footage, and some very flat looking airplanes.

Hanuman transforms in the usual air-punching Ultraman style - though the mask is scary in the extreme!

It’s a staggeringly strange film. I’m still don't get how all that monkey-dancing rates as entertainment. But, for fans of Thai pop culture, Ultraman completists, or seekers of the truly way-out, this is for you.

It must have been popular too, in Hanuman's next movie he met the 5 Kamen Riders.

Chaos at the rocket base

Hanuman vs 7 Ultramans (don't blame me - that's how they spell it on the cover) is still available on Thai PAL DVD in a very, very ropey transfer more suitable for VideoCD. It has obviously been mastered on a multi-generational VHS tape, though because it’s Thailand, it still might be an official release! The picture is very soft and dupey, and there are lots of tape creases thoughout.

Like I said, the 2.35 aspect has been squeezed into a normal 4:3 frame, resulting in very tall thin-looking people. But, because of the legal status of this title, I don’t think it’ll be digitally remastered any time soon...

The VCD version, split over two discs, is available from eThaiCD. I got the DVD from Max Renn's eBay shop, which I've visited online many, many times.

By the way, I've unsqueezed the frame-grabs above, to show you how wide the picture has to be. It looks wrong even on a widescreen TV.

Do you want to know more?

Asian movie expert, Mark Simpson has a fuller plot summary, and much more enthusiasm for the film - read his review here...

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GHOST GAME (2006) reality TV Thai horror

GHOST GAME

(2006, Thailand, IMDB Laa-thaa-phii)

Region 3 Thai PAL DVD (Premium Digital)
No English subtitles

Looks good but not recommended

The premise looks promising enough - 11 contestants are locked inside a the site of a wartime prison in Cambodia, where many prisoners were tortured and killed. If they stay in this supposedly haunted site long enough, they stand to win a lot of money. How scared are they willing to get, before they give up? If it really is haunted, are the ghosts dangerous? Whatever happens, everything is live on TV...

But this location is based on an actual prison and the film opens with what looks like actual photos of the real-life atrocities in Cambodia, from the time of the Khmer Rouge. These provide the kind of horror that the ensuing ghost-train level of scares can't hope to compete with. The movie also deeply upset the people of Cambodia, who subsequently didn't allow the film's release in their country.

In the film, the contestants are literally sent up the river to a remote jungle setting and taken through the rules. They are locked in the prison and told to explore. Sure enough ghosts soon start to appear to some of the party. But that's when I started struggling with the internal logic of this particular ghost phenomenon. The ghosts close in on people, touch them, scare them and then... leave. Sometimes everyone can see it, sometimes not. What's the ghost up to? Surely it's not taking directions from the TV director? It's certainly playing the game.

With the gamers strapped into torture chairs, or lying in crates filled with skulls, this is a reality TV show that I'd watch, as long as it was my least favourite celebrities.

The scares certainly build up effectively, but mostly because of ear-splitting sound-effects that guarantee the jolt. The ghosts get more violent, things start going wrong and the fact that it's on nationwide TV is quickly forgotten. As the gamers start dying off, the most gruesome action is edited around, almost like it's avoiding being too intense. After a tight opening volley of scares, the pace falters halfway through.

The saturated greenish hue and contrasty lighting certainly adds to the morbid atmosphere, but when everything looks green, you can't easily see the colour of blood. Also the scenes are sometimes too dark - there's one with a hanging corpse that you could easily miss. The shot has been electronically darkened so much, that it's almost invisible in the shadows.

The clips from the film that are used in the trailer, included on this Thai DVD, look considerably lighter than the finished film. The trailer looks more like the TV show it's supposed to be. Someone's obviously made everything look more filmic in post-production, at the expense of the action being visible!

The cast are the usual crowd of good-looking teenagers, a similar ploy used in Thai horrors Scared and Art of the Devil, and their acting is at least better than the average Friday the 13th movie, or is that faint praise?

A potentially strong and interesting premise is frittered away with a simple story with few scares, constantly interrupted by the daylight scenes between rounds of 'the game'.

Do you want to know more?

If you want a second opinion, Slasherpool has another review and some screengrabs.

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MEKHONG FULL MOON PARTY (2002) Thai Buddhist comedy

MEKHONG FULL MOON PARTY
(2002, Thailand, IMDB: Sibha kham doan sib ed)
Thai all-region PAL DVD (Mangpong)

Yet another Thai movie that has a basis in fact, like The Iron Ladies, Beautiful Boxer, and even Shutter. Apparently, every year, just after Buddhist Lent, strange fireballs shoot into the sky out of the Mekhong river. These are supposedly sent by the naga, snake-like spirits that live in the river. Likenesses of naga appear everywhere in Buddhist temples – usually as dragon-headed snakes.

The photo that appears in the movie, of a US army squad holding what looks like a gigantic water snake is an actual event cited as proof of the existence of naga . Because the naga in this case later died, it's said that the squad were cursed and many of them died soon afterwards.

So while I was expecting a film about the infamous Full Moon parties of Koh Phangan, I instead got a comedy drama about the possible causes of the fireball phenomenon. The comedy side is lightweight fare, with the members of a small town by the river having its livelihood threatened – they make their money from the tourists who flock to see the fireballs every year.

But the dramatic element worked better for me. University student Khan, played by the gorgeous Keanu lookalike Anuchit Sapanpong, usually swims and plants the fireballs in the river for the local monks. But after his hometown comes under scrutiny from the national press, Khan has a crisis of conscience. With the week of the river festival approaching, can the monks persuade Khan to plant the fireballs in time?

It’s certainly a well made film for Thailand. Lightweight comedy isn’t usually what I seek out, but I enjoyed the lush location and the likeable cast, which includes a little person playing a comedy sidekick mini-monk.

The Thai DVD is still available and includes good English subtitles.

Do you want to know more?
The actual Naga fireball phenonenon is expanded on in this website, which includes that photo of the captured naga…

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Movie magazines in Thailand - spoilt for choice

Film & Stars - a movie magazine from Thailand

When I was in Japan in 2004, I had no luck finding any magazines that concentrated on the latest in Japanese cinema, even in the largest bookstores. Their only movie magazines seem to centre around Hollywood stars.

I've since found Newtype (which is now translated into the English and republished in the US), which at least covers anime and tokusatsu (special effects heavy TV - usually superheroes or monsters) series. But does anyone know of a Japanese mag that highlights Japanese movies? Or any from south Korea? Obviously I'm really interested in offbeat films and horror movies.

I can't read Japanese, but their magazines are so beautifully produced and laid out. I love the photos and get clues about DVD and cinema releases. There's usually a little English in there somewhere.

The UK is spoilt with the wonderful NEO magazine which is going from strength to strength and ambitiously aiming to cover anime, manga, cult movies from the Far East, with an emphasis on Japanese culture. It feels a little like it's aimed at teenagers sometimes, and it's limited to covering what's available in Europe. Therefore it's at least a year behind what's happening in Japan right now.


So anyway, Thailand. A country with a far smaller, far newer film industry than Japan, but gearing up for international success. Now they know how to produce good film magazines. Umm yes, I can't speak or read Thai either, but the photos are nice to have and very useful as guides as to what looks interesting. Again, there's only a smattering of English words and captions.

Here's the mags I found in Thailand, in alphabetical order...

Bioscope magazine covers international cinema, and includes arthouse films and retrospectives of classic world cinema. Their subtitle is "moving image, moving life". About 116 thick pages.

This February 2007 issue looked at the use of design in Pedro Almodovar's Volver, the films of Satayajit Ray, the films of Chan-Wook Park as well as the latest cinema releases, mostly from America. The accent is more on artists and film-makers. Fairly text-heavy, high-quality paper but no glossy pages. Bioscope website here.

Film & Stars magazine, like MovieTime, is about 80 pages long, glossy cover, and concentrates on pushing the latest movies and DVDs. Only the first 8 pages are glossy, and these can be mostly adverts. It's photo-heavy coverage and does always have marvellous spreads of all the different posters used in current campaigns. The photos of the stars are noticeably sexier too! Good for the poster layouts and edgier coverage.
MovieTime magazine just looks at the new releases and is relatively slim at 80 pages. But it's photo-heavy coverage, with the first 20 pages on glossy paper. There's a couple of pages of Hollywood gossip, a page on every film on release in Thailand and then in-depth coverage on the major films. This issue has a well-illustrated article on King Naresuan - Part 2 at the front, coverage of Blood Diamond, Flags of Our Fathers, and Perfume, as well as a retrospective look at De Palma's Scarface and a five page spread on the films of Hilary Swank.

Good for photos. Includes a fold-out double-sided poster page.

Pulp - the movie magazine is a more in-depth look at current films. 164 pages long, but a smaller format magazine (about comic book size). It includes in-depth articles as well as reviews. This 2007 issue includes a look at the actual history behind King Naresuan, the director of Babel's other films, current movie special effects, and censorship of Thai DVD releases. Over 100 pages are glossy and the mag is about half-and-half text and photos. There's a good DVD release section with cover shots.

Starpics, the February 2006 issue

Starpics magazine covers all the latest releases, with a better accent on Thai-produced cinema. About 164 pages. Interviews with cast and crew are well-illustrated and half the magazine is printed on glossy paper, providing good reproduction of stills, posters and one-page adverts for Thai, Japanese and other SE Asian releases. There is a whole section looking at Thai DVD releases, with useful cover shots. They extensively cover Thai film awards and the Bangkok International Film Festival.

Not as text-heavy as Bioscope, the 80 glossy pages are a big plus. Good for current poster art. Includes a fold-out double-sided poster page. Thick-carded cover, like Bioscope. Starpics website is here.

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KING NARESUAN - the merchandise

Besides the mugs, the pencil cases and the baseball caps, there are some more substantial King Naresuan goodies to be found.

There’s an excellent value souvenir magazine, titled All Exclusive, which is all in Thai, but filled with colour stills, behind the scenes photos, with several pages of glossy, high quality colour in the pages inside both covers.

Far rarer is the book of the making of the film. 176 pages long, with 14 full pages in English, summarising the lengthy production process of the trilogy, it’s full of fantastic photos of the action, the costumes and sets. Throughout the book, the project is referred to as The Legend of Naresuan, while the cover of the book is King Naresuan, as is the film’s website. This information, probably now superceded by the marketing machine, also refers to the three films' titles as Part 1 - The End of Freedom, Part 2 - The Price of Freedom and Part 3 - The Price of Keeping Freedom.

You can still get the book in softcover or hardcover online here from eThaiCD.

The project has been filming for three years, with four years of research before that. The director, M.C. Chatreechalerm Yukol, has created the films for the current King and Queen of Thailand on their request, to specifically give the people of Thailand a deeper understanding of their country’s history. What a spectacular way of doing it!

Incidentally, IMDB has some marvellous trivia about Yukol, the director: he went to the U.S. in the 1960s to study geology (!) and film at UCLA, sharing classes with Francis Ford Coppola (who recently supervised a version of Legend of Suriyothai for U.S. release). Yukol then went on to work as an intern for Merian C. Cooper, the producer of the original King Kong! Presumably his autobiography will be titled From King Kong to the King of Khong.

The Making of the Film is available everywhere on VCD. This VideoCD is region-free and playable on most DVD players that can handle the PAL TV system. The format is still more popular than DVD in Thailand and is very cheap, retailing at under £1 ($2 USD).

The disc starts with a trailer and leads into a 65 minute documentary about the making of the first two films. Again all in Thai, it’s a very visual account of the making of the film. The director is shown researching the existing historical sites from the period, by flying around to see the remaining buildings and ruins in Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.

His team’s biggest job is to recreate the city of Hongsawardee with a full-size reconstruction… The site, near Bangkok, has to be levelled and a moat dynamited around it. The buildings, palaces and temples, together with the iconic giant lions at the palace entrance is an awesome undertaking.

Extras on the set of Naresuan spend a lot of time hanging around

The actors are cast, and trained to fight with their respective weapons. They have to learn to ride hands-free, steering their horses with their knees. The extras, partly boosted by actual soldiers, have to be drilled like an actual army.

Horses are trained to fall over on command, to portray being blown over by cannon fire. It’s a stunt that the horses can do, by leaning forward and folding under a front leg, until they roll over onto soft sand. It’s a far cry from the trip wires (now outlawed) that were used to achieve the same stunt in past westerns and historical epics.

We get a glimpse of the special effects – on the set, the explosives are set off to mimic cannon fire. In post-production, we see digital compositing before-and-afters.

Finally, there's a little English as British composer Richard Harvey talks about the music and the huge orchestra used for the soundtrack. Harvey has spent much of his career working on music for television (Gerry Anderson’s Terrahawks (1983) being an early credit!). But obviously his work on The Legend of Suriyothai impressed the director to allow him onto this even bigger gig.

Not that I can find the Naresuan soundtrack on CD anywhere...

...but I did get the postcard set.

Presumably, much of the footage from this documentary will make its way onto the forthcoming DVDs of the first two movies - these may be released in Thailand as early as April.

Or you can get the VCD here from eThaiCD.

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KING NARESUAN - PART 2 (2007) the epic battles on

KING NARESUAN - PART 2

(Thailand, 2007)

My memories of this holiday in Thailand already feel like a dream. Watching a movie on holiday feels like a dream within a dream.

But I saw Part 2 of the King Naresuan trilogy during the opening weekend. It was released in Thailand cinemas on February 15th for the Chinese New Year holiday weekend. (My Part 1 review is linked here). Part 2 is 150 minutes long, but doesn't feel like it.

About 10 years have passed since Part 1 of the story. Prince Naresuan is now a young adult. With King Bayinnaung of Hongsa (Burma) dead, the alliances he worked hard to maintain quickly start to fragment under the war-mongering rule of his son. But the King was well-prepared, ensuring that Prince Naresuan, good at both warfare and wisdom, is still set to inherit the throne of Siam (now Thailand), hoping that he may be able to bring peace to the whole region.

As the power game continues, now using brute force, it’s kingdom against kingdom. A simple insult can spark all-out war between territories. As the uneasy Hongsa alliance closes in on the mountain fortress of the rebellious King of Khong, Naresuan is unaware that some of his allies want him dead. As he joins battle for the alliance, his real intent is on freeing his people from Hongsa rule and returning them to their homeland.

Most of Part 2 is warfare, 16th Century-style. There are occasional flashbacks to pivotal moments in Part 1, and enough room for an unlikely romance, but it’s mostly preparation for war and epic battles. Swords, muskets and cannons are the weapons of the day. Burning oil and arrows are optional.

As an action film from the Far East, this is very different from what we’re used to seeing. It’s not like the flashy Chinese epics, where warriors have perfected their martial arts to the point of weightlessness, it’s just people fighting. There are no fighting styles, it’s just wading in with swords and trying to incapicitate the enemy. It’s more like the Japanese Kurosawa epics, where we see the force of numbers and the importance of strategy. Even so, there are no superhuman samurai here. There are a few warriors who can handle two swords simultaneously, but generally it’s bravery, tactics and the accuracy of the cannons that win.

It doesn’t compete with the high-excitement of Hollywood action movies – the fight choreography and the stuntwork are solid but unexceptional, but this all makes it look more realistic. The importance here is the drive of the story and what happens to the characters. Having said that, the carnage of the cannon blasts was something that I’d not seen in a movie before – people and horses are sent flying in all directions.

In short, this looks like an epic. Epic in scale and numbers, but without Hollywood’s reliance on far-fetched stunts and CGI. Just because you can paint a picture of an epic in a computer, doesn’t mean to say that you’ve made one. Epics are mounted. With large numbers of people, huge outdoor sets – I’ve not seen one so impressive since the 1960s.

The sparse use of CGI makes this more convincing. The establishing shots have been extended in the computer, like traditional matte paintings, where real action is at the centre of frame. Digital compositing boosts the numbers of soldiers. The important thing here is that all the people you see are real - what you don’t get is unconvincing CGI people running around. Up close, buildings have been built full-size from scratch – there are no swooping shots around non-existent fake-looking structures. Mostly, the sets, the people (and the elephants) are all real. It looks fantastic.

The character of the Prince starts off being boringly accurate in his battle strategies in the early part of the film. But even he starts showing cracks, like when his sister defies him. Thankfully, good advice is still available from his mentor the Head Monk, one of the best characters from Part 1.

The adult Naresuan is played by Wanchana Sawatdee, actually an officer in Thailand’s royal cavalry! The director wanted an unknown to personify the legendary Prince, and a real-life actual soldier who could effortlessly ride a horse isn’t a bad choice. Like the three central children in Part 1, he's a newcomer to acting, but still convincing. Many other established actors had to learn to ride and fight (simultaneously!) and underwent extensive training, as did the extras.

Whereas, the first film laid on thick the necessity for the Siamese bloodline to continue, the second film shows that the allies are made up of all different races, from Africa to Portugal. When the baddies need silent assassins, they even bring in headhunters, whose methods are far from subtle…

The violence is fairly family-friendly in tone, apart from some capital punishment dealt out to traitors (the hanging seen in some trailers), and one fight where blood sprays and heads come off - rather out of tone with the rest of the movie.



Both entertaining and fascinating, the films breathe life into the roots of Thailand’s culture. The scale of these films are new highpoints in Thai cinema. Once more, I hope that they'll find a wider audience. They are the most expensive Thai films to date. I’m just worried that audiences will be put off by the lack of action in Part 1 and might then miss out on Part 2.


Do you want to know more?

The Bangkok Post review is here, but full of spoilers.

Part 1 reviewed here.

UPDATE June 2007 - Parts 1 and 2 released on DVD and blu-ray in the US.