Life on Mars

I'll admit that, in reviewing Mars Men for Teleport City, I had some reservations about returning to the topic of Sompote Sands. He is a filmmaker about whom I've had some mixed feelings, to say the least, and it often pains me to think that my series Thai-Style Kaiju: The Films of Sompote Sands might have contributed in some small way to his current cult notoriety.

It pains me because said notoriety has insured that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot escape Sompote Sands. Case in point: the screening of The Dwarves Must Be Crazy at last month's Fantastic Fest, which was preceded by a lengthy clip from Magic Lizard. Surely that could not have been presented for anyone's enjoyment: It was clearly me that they were after. I envisioned Sands himself, sitting in the projection booth and laughing as I frantically tore at my eyes.

Clearly a reckoning with Sands--as well as a lot of Effexor--was due. And I thought that Mars Men might provide that opportunity. You see, Mars Men is a Taiwanese film that takes a Sompote Sands film, 1974's Giant and Jumbo A, and gives it the Sompote Sands treatment--in that it takes Giant and Jumbo A, recycled footage and all, and recycles it for its own purposes. The result, according to Todd Stadtman of Teleport City is a "daft crazy quilt of a movie" with "an astonishing global reach." To find out what the hell I meant by that, if anything, read the full review here.

The Dwarves Must Be Crazy, aka Krasue Kreung Khon (Thailand, 2016)

I watched The Dwarves Must Be Crazy not so much because I wanted to, but because I thought I should—in that, of all the films at Fantastic Fest, it was, to my mind, exactly the type my readers would expect me to review. Did I mention that it is a Thai supernatural comedy about a village of dwarfs at war with a gang of krasue? Given that, you might ask whether I now question some of the life choices that lead me to that decision. And, yeah, maybe I do a little.

The humor in Dwarves is of the slapstick variety, largely deriving from the innate hilarity of little people and the myriad ways in which they can be projected, catapulted and hurled through space—all to the accompaniment of Scooby Doo style sound effects. I have a friend who, during America’s cultural obsession with William Hung, posited that Hung’s popularity was due to him providing people with an opportunity to laugh at someone who acted like a retarded person without them actually laughing at a retarded person. Could a similar kind of sublimation be at work behind someone's desire to see little people gone airborne? Could it be that little people provide a somewhat less morally repugnant substitute (unless you’re a little person, that is) for some less socially acceptable target we would like to see chucked into the atmosphere… like, perhaps, babies? Hey, I’m just putting it out there.

The rest of The Dwarves Must Be Crazy’s humor centers around butts and the many things that can come out of, and be put into, them and their adjacent orifices: farts, sharts, shits, shit eating, piss, piss drinking, bumming, and implied krasue-on-dwarf analingus. Yes, I just wrote “krasue-on-dwarf analingus.” Strap in, people.

For those of you who have thus far been spared knowledge of what a krasue is, a bit of a recap from my review of Ghost of Guts Eater:

“The Krasue, as it's called in Thailand, is a horror found throughout the folklore of Southeast Asia. In Indonesia it's known as the Leak, in Cambodia as the Ap, and, in the Philippines, as Manananggal… For those unfamiliar, it is an airborne head with its complete digestive tract, intestines included, dangling freely beneath it as it sails menacingly through the night sky.”

I’ll add here that my favorite things about the krasue are (1) that it is so different from any creature in the Western horror canon (save for, perhaps, this one) and (2) that it manages to be at once terrifying and absurd.

Everything I know about krasue I learned from movies, and none of them seem to agree on just how a krasue is created. In many films, like Mystics in Bali and Witch With Flying Head, they are the product of a curse, but in Dwarves they are the result of little people eating weird glowing bugs that they find in the jungle.

Before that can happen, however, we have a wistful prologue in which the bucolic daily rhythms of the little people’s floating village are established. These, of course, involve a lot of the aforementioned farting, sharting, shitting, and pissing. I would say that the arrival of the krasue disturb these peaceful rhythms, except it turns out that they also fart a lot (albeit more strategically than the dwarfs do, as when one of the beasts forces a dwarf who is hiding underwater to reveal himself by farting into his snorkel.)

By the way, I think that adding flatulence to the krasue’s defining characteristics is at least medically sound, given they possess all of the equipment to produce gas without any of the musculature to suppress it. Keep this in mind the next time you share an elevator with one.

The fateful bug-eating occurs when a group of bumbling hunters from the village venture into the neighboring jungle in search of food. Because I did not take notes during the screening, I can only tell you that these hunters all have names like Hi Ho, Mi Mi, and Ho Ho. I know that sounds dismissive, but it’s true. Anyway, once several of them eat the bugs and subsequently lose their heads, the hunters flee back to the village with the Krasue literally nipping at their taut little hineys. Now where the Krasues’ predilection for ass play comes from, I don’t know; in most krasue movies, the monsters are presented as being exclusively female, and nourish themselves by sucking fetuses straight from the wombs of expectant mothers. Here, as most of the Krasue are male, I suppose that butt munching may have been deemed more appropriate, which I resent. I mean, I suppose it’s true that some men would rather dine on shit than eat pussy, but it’s far from a universal.

The terrified hunters arrive home to find their tale dismissed by their fellow villagers. Until, of course, the krasues arrive and start chowing down on them. This is followed by a flock of gryphon-like creatures that prey on both the krasue and the villagers. When the flying men fly off with one of the hunter’s girlfriends, the little guys resolve to head back into the jungle to settle matters once and for all. Along the way they enlist the aid of an old hermit who looks like a compacted version of a grey bearded sifu from a Shaw Brothers movie.

Ironically, The Dwarves Must Be Crazy, despite its trashiness, is a very nice looking film. It appears to have been shot entirely on location in the lush jungles and archipelagos of Thailand, which director Bin Banloerit films to stunning advantage. I mean, I don’t know how much it costs to take a bunch of little people, dress them in loincloths and set them loose in the jungle, but I can truly say that that money—save the laundry budget for all those soiled loincloths--is clearly all on the screen. The krasue effects, which combine CG and practical elements, are also quite good, although it has to be said that bad krasue effects are the best.

Another post-production aspect of Dwarves that deserves mention, although not for any positive reason, is its music, which consist of two alternating cues that wear out their welcome in the time it takes for a dwarf to fall off a log. One is a plucky, Loony Tunes style, “mischief is afoot” theme that plays whenever a gag is being set up. The other is a jaunty reggae theme that plays once the gag has putatively paid off. Neither of these cues proved of much use to the audience at the Drafthouse, who greeted most of the film with stony silence.

Ironically, the scene that drew the biggest laughs was a corny musical montage featuring the film’s two little lovers frolicking amongst the flora. Ironic, because, to me, that scene was The Dwarves Must Be Crazy’s most politically correct moment. To me it said that little people, being equal to anyone else, are as deserving as any non-little person of being the subjects of an embarrassingly saccharine rom-com montage accompanied by a cloying pop song. That’s what freedom is all about, baby.

In the restroom after the movie, I overheard some audience members expressing utter bafflement at what they had just seen. This caused me to ponder just how vast the distance between myself and the rest of humanity has become. You see, you’re going to hear a lot of people talk about how “weird” and “WTF” this film is. But to me, it’s just another movie with a bunch of dwarfs farting and peeing on one another. Next!

Celebrate Halloween the 4DK way!

Halloween movie lists have become a staple of the season. But one has to admit that there's a numbing amount of overlap between them. I mean, does one really need to cram that much Vincent Price into their cinematic diet all in one go? In response, I have called shenanigans, emerged from my sharecropper's cabin, stumbled down the hill and perched myself in front of the community center's battered old Mac to do something that I should have done long ago. Below is a list of movies that, if you can find them, will guarantee you a Halloween like no other. (Please note that, where I have provided links, they are, in most cases, to unsubtitled versions of the films).

Da Khwar Lasme Spogmay, aka Cat Beast (Pakistan, 1997)

One owes it to oneself to, at least once in their life, watch a Pashto language horror film... before, of course, solemnly swearing to never watch one again. Da Khwar Lasme Spogmay has all of the hallmarks: fat ladies twerking in wet spandex; sound effects that are as incongruous as they are deafeningly loud, men with echoplexed voices pointing and shouting at each other. The works.
READ MY REVIEW

Plenilunio (Uruguay, 1993)

Uruguay comes through with that rarest of cinematic unicorns: a shot-on-video horror film that is not only well directed, well written and well acted, but that also provides some genuine scares... even if its creature effects are as ridiculous as they come. READ MY REVIEW

Sumpah Orang Minyak (Singapore, 1958)

The Oily Man rises from the swamp of Southeast Asian folklore to provide, not only an exotic addition to the usual cast of Halloween creatures, but also a simple and easy costume idea. All you need is a body stocking and a can of STP. READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

The Savage Hunt of King Stakh (USSR, 1979)

Highly recommended by a well-meaning idiot who wrote: "The Savage Hunt of King Stakh luxuriates in gothic atmosphere, putting it in good company with the Italian thrillers of Margheritti et al, the AIP Poe films, and Hammer’s horror friendly take on The Hound of the Baskervilles. In contrast to those, however, it also boasts elements of stark modernism." READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

Nyi Blorong, aka Snake Queen (Indonesia, 1982)

What would a 4DK Halloween be without Suzzanna, the queen of Indonesian horror?--here seen in one of her most iconic roles. As an added bonus for the ladies, we also get a shirtless Barry Prima. READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

Ghost of Guts Eater (Thailand, 1973)

What? You say your seasonal gallery of ghouls does not include an entrails-trailing flying severed head? You are obviously a racist. READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

Haram Alek, aka Ismail Yassin meets Frankenstein (Egypt, 1954)

That oldies-loving friend of yours insisting on yet another Halloween viewing of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein? Why not shake things up and switch it out with this charming Egyptian remake. READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES!)

And finally...

Pyasa Shaitan (India, 1995)

...if watching all of the above in short order does not completely blow your mind,  here you go. The film that will spontaneously give you the ability to spout "WHAT THE FUCK, JOGINDER?" in flawless Tamil, not to mention every other language spoken by sane, decent minded human beings. READ MY REVIEW

WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE

Prae Dum, aka Black Silk (Thailand, 1961)

Ratana Pestonji’s Prae Dum has been described as Thailand’s first film noir. The fact that it kicks off with a monk lecturing us about karma might also make it the first Buddhist noir. Typical of Pestonji’s work, the film, while modest, is still technically miles ahead of most of what was coming out of Thailand at the time, thanks to the director’s insistence on using 35mm film and synch sound, both of which, even in 1961, were far from the industry standard in that country.

The movie focuses on working stiff Tom (Tom Wisawachart), who is in love with Prae (played by Pestonji’s daughter, Ratanavadi Ratanabhand), a young widowed mother who has been in mourning garb so long that her neighbors have taken to calling her “Black Silk”. Tom strikes one as not being the sharpest tool in the shed, and is so fixated on financial gain that he seems incapable of thinking outside the master-slave relationship he enjoys with his boss, the nightclub owner Seni (Senee Wisaneesam). As such, he readily goes along when Seni recruits him in a plan to take care of two hoods to whom Seni is indebted, and even agrees to Seni’s suggestion that he bring Prae along as subterfuge. In the event, the innocent Prae ends up paying witness to Seni’s violent murder of the men and is traumatized as a result. Seni then complicates matters further by faking his own death in order to pose as his twin brother and collect on his own insurance policy. Sharing in the spoils, Tom and Seni live swell for a while, until Seni starts to fear that Prae will not maintain her silence, at which point the two enact a cruel scheme to kidnap her infant child.

As with many old Thai films, most of Prae Dum takes place under the bright sunlight -- something that it appears is in no short supply in that corner of the world -- with those few times it does switch to a nocturnal setting marking a dramatic transition. Pestonji directs with such a cold matter-of-fact-ness that it becomes its own form of stylization. The manner in which he shoots his sets is doggedly symmetrical, stagey and straight on, often with his subjects crowded into one side of the frame. The lead actors perform with a flatness of affect that suggest automatons marching through the story’s karmic paces. Furthermore, the director shows a fixation with process that has him maintain an unblinking camera where others would cut away (at one point, the reading of a trial verdict might fool you into thinking you’d stumbled onto a Thai version of CSPAN). All the while, Pestonji employs the uniquely sedate rhythms of classic Thai cinema, leaving plenty of room for silence, stillness and contemplative space.

At Prae Dum’s conclusion, karma does indeed come calling for Tom, at which point the opening’s Buddhist monk returns to give us a final admonition about the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own actions (something Tom, who continues to insist he was only following his boss’s orders, seems constitutionally incapable of doing). This emphasis on moral instruction would seem to put Prae Dum at odds with the fatalism of classic film noir, which is by no means meant to suggest that the film’s merits are dependent upon it being shoehorned into a familiar genre. In fact, Prae Dum went on to be one of the first Thai films to see international release, playing at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961, and is today considered one of the touchstones of the country’s national cinema -- with Tears of the Black Tiger director Wisit Sanatieng calling it “the film that remains my single major influence”.

Yet, for an outsider viewing it today, Prae Dum seems to assert its authority more through hypnosis than audaciousness. It’s something of a strange ride, alternately haunting and sleepy, and like a lot of classic Thai cinema, seems to be grabbing hold of you, ghost like, through the ether. At the same time, in a world where steady wage slavery is no less promoted as a desirable trade in for personal integrity, its simple lesson is nonetheless worth heeding.

Out of the Darkness (Thailand, 1971)

Out of the Darkness’ status as Thailand’s first science fiction film places it more within its own special realm of obscurity than one of notoriety. For the reason one need only consider the low profile of Thailand -- a country whose taste for film fantasy strays more toward the mythological and supernatural -- as a producer of cinematic sci-fi. The fact that we have to drag in outliers like Yod Manut Computer and Giant and Jumbo A to pad the list speaks volumes.

But what makes Out of the Darkness interesting, as a representative of an under-loved genre within its home market, is the measures that its first time director, Prince Chatrichalem Yukol, took to compensate for that fact. Part of a long tradition of Thai royals who dedicated themselves to the practice of filmmaking, Yukol, who would go on to helm such event pictures as 2001’s The Legend of Suriyothai, claims to have conceived of the project as something of a lark. Nonetheless, his ambitions to play with genre didn’t prevent him from trying to sooth potentially squeamish audiences with a dose of the familiar. As a result, Out of the Darkness, while still clearly a science fiction film, is notable for being a desperately crowd pleasing example of same, amiably folding into its mix of space invasion tropes elements of such popular Thai cinema staples as youth drama, rural action, and musical comedy.

The film sees a very early appearance by Yukol’s favored leading man, Sorapong Chatree, who would go on to Thai superstardom in the late 70s and 80s -- much of it in films that would later, thanks to the vagaries of international film rights, put his acting in the service of nonsensical Godfrey Ho ninja movies. Here Chatree plays Sek, the assistant to an astronomer named Professor Thongchai. When the two men observe the fall to Earth of an oddly behaving meteor, they set off toward the coast to investigate. Along the way, they come upon a mine that is under siege by a gang of bandits who are attempting to rob it. After a protracted gun battle laden with explosions, Sek and Thongchai help drive the gang off, and are rewarded by the mine’s owner, Luang Kosit, with an invitation to his home.

Back at the home we meet Kosit’s spirited young daughter, Chonlada, who’s entertaining a group of her teenage friends from the city with a weekend of wholesome go-go dancing. Chonlada tells the astronomers that she witnessed the fall of the meteor, and offers, along with her friends, to take them by boat to the site, an island called Ra Gam that’s home to a tribe called the Sea Clan. Meanwhile, sparks of attraction between Sek and Chonlada create tensions with certain of the girl’s male cohorts that will later manifest themselves in inconvenient ways.

After a boat ride filled with song and youthful mirth, the gang arrives on Ra Gam only to find the Sea Clan’s village eerily deserted. Deserted, that is, except for the freshly flayed skeletons of the villagers that are stacked like logs inside every hut. The cause for this, it turns out, is a shambling, tentacled heap with a green streetlight for a face that turns its victims into laser-eyed zombies who in turn blast away at every human within radius. The end sum of this game is that all of the Sea Clan has been annihilated except for the Elder’s daughter, Sarai, whom the gang takes back to the mainland with them. Once ensconced back in Chonlada’s home, the group can only pray that the beast does not find its way to shore. But, of course, it’s not long before it makes land and starts slaughtering necking couples on the beach.

Out of the Darkness does not enjoy a high reputation. Chatrichalem Yukol himself has described it as “terrible”. Yet it deserves credit for being, despite the cultural hurdles it faced, a surprisingly enjoyable example of old school creature feature cheesiness. Yukol studied film in Los Angeles, alongside future luminaries like Francis Ford Coppola, and brought to the picture a drive-in sensibility that today makes it companionable to such American classics of 1960s sock hop sci-fi as The Horror of Party Beach and Sting of Death. (It also calls to mind the British Island of Terror, and features some very Hammer-esque -- and possibly needle dropped -- string swirls on its soundtrack.) But, while it is Western in its storytelling rhythms, it equally pays tribute to Thai cinema’s traditionally more leisurely approach to pacing. This means that what seems like it should be an 80 minute B movie gets telescoped into something more on the temporal scale of a Lord of the Rings feature. Certain scenes, such as a climactic cat and mouse game between the creature and the kids that takes place in a subterranean cave, extend to the point of seeming like they’re eating your future before your eyes.

But at the same time, that cave scene looks great, thanks to Yukol’s very Bava-esque use of lighting on some fun and expressionistically artificial looking sets. He also scores high with the scenes of the ravaged Sea Clan village, which, with their minimal music and windswept visuals, convey a delicious, arid chill. It is such things that mark Yukol, whatever his later achievements in hard hitting social dramas and big budget prestige pictures may be, as a true genre fan, an honorary monster kid. And when someone like that is put in charge of a picture like Out of the Darkness, it’s hard for me to hate it.

Tweet the pain away

Sompote Sands' Magic Lizard really is shit. Simply one of the most harrowingly awful things ever committed to celluloid. Of course, to certain types, a fact so unavoidably unpleasant only presents itself as a challenge. Such are Keith of Teleport City and Carol of The Cultural Gutter -- and, wouldn't you know it, those two crazy kids have gone and scheduled a joint viewing of the film, this very Sunday evening at 10pm EST, during which they will be sharing their minute-to-minute reactions on Twitter. (Can stunned silence be tweeted? Quiet sobbing? We shall see.) A number of us who have already been hardened by the experience of watching Magic Lizard will also be on hand to alternately guide, heckle and cajole them as they, for the first time, pay horrible, horrible witness to it. I suppose it's possible that there are others out there who might own a copy of Magic Lizard and, if that's you, you're welcome to join us by using the Twitter hashtag #MagicLizard. It's your life.

Mystery Thai Theater Part 1

The good news is that a pal of mine returned from his trip to Thailand with an armload of VCDs for me. The bad news is that, thanks to the fact that all of the writing on these VCDs is in Thai –- and that the discs themselves are not subtitled -- I have only been able to identify a very few of them. As for the remainder, I’ve decided to go ahead and review them as best I can, under made-up titles that I nonetheless feel reflect 100% journalistic accuracy as far as the actual contents of the films. If anyone, upon reading these descriptions, feels that they can provide any more information on the titles in question, please get in touch.

Punched by a Girl (Thailand, 198?)

This one was a bait-and-switch of the lowest order. The illustration on both the sleeve and the disc itself depicts two women in colorful masks and black cat-suits brandishing pistols, which lead me to believe that it would be a cheesy but potentially fun costumed hero caper. In reality what it is is an utterly generic action film starring Jarunee Suksawat, who made a good many such films back in the day. And because it’s a Thai film made in the 80s, whatever god Sorapong Chatree offended decrees that he also must be in it, and that he must do so swathed from head to toe in acid washed denim.

As far as the plot, I can’t tell you much other than that it begins with Jarunee and her (I think) sister’s (I think) mom being killed by a bunch of thugs, which leads to the (I think) sisters seeking vengeance upon the thugs with the help of the (I think) policeman played by Chatree. To the film’s credit, it jumps right into the action from the get go. Unfortunately, that action consists entirely of tepidly staged fights, shootouts and foot chases set in nondescript clearings. By the end of the film we’ve never seen the masks depicted on the sleeve -- nor have we seen the also depicted giant diamond, or the pick-up truck leaping through a massive explosion while itself also exploding. It’s almost like the makers of this VCD wanted my friend to buy it despite its subpar contents. I suspect some kind of profit motive was involved.

Love Me, Love My Guitar (Thailand, 199?)

A boy and a girl are in love. They talk on the phone, walk through parks very slowly, and rendezvous at gazebos. A guitar is present for much of this, though it is never played. Meanwhile, a goofy kid with an awesome MC Hammer wardrobe returns home to his parents after an apparent long absence. His mom is played by an obvious tranny. (Oh Thailand!) All of this is accompanied by instrumental versions of a scrotum-shriveling assortment of 70s and 80s light rock hits: “Nights in White Satin”, “A Woman in Love”, “All By Myself”, “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again”, Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” and -- oh, what the hell, why not throw in “The Theme from Shaft” while we’re at it.

(Sigh.) High-waisted jeans are worn. A bottle of Black Label is consumed. Sad things, happy things, and even putatively hilarious things happen; life’s rich pageant. Example: a girl is crippled in a car accident -- and the boy is responsible! She becomes bitter and spends the rest of the movie crying. That is (spoiler!), until she suddenly finds herself able to walk again for some reason. I think it has something to do with the power of love.

Despite the fact that the lack of subtitles made it utterly impossible for me to understand what was going on, there is nothing you could say to convince me that this is not a horrible movie. I don’t blame my friend, though, because the VCD sleeve has a picture of a guy rocking out on a guitar while a stock car flies over his head. Fuck you, Thailand.

King Mustache (Thailand, 197?)

The sleeve for this disc sports an illustration of a guy with a truly magnificent mustache. However, once we pop the disc into our player what we see is Sorapong Chatree crawling through a field, trying not to awaken a pair of sleeping gunmen and ultimately doing a face plant in a big pile of animal dung. Dammit, this is that fucking Sompote Sands movie about the water buffalo. There is no way I’m watching that again.

Violence Man (Thailand, 197?)

In this one Sorapong Chatree comes home to the humble shack inhabited by his parents only to find that they have been murdered by a gang of vicious thugs who were apparently seeking information about some kind of hidden treasure or something. And, OMG, you’ll never guess what happens: Sorapong and his fringed jacket set out to bring the thugs to justice with the power of violence. Ears are lopped off, faces enthusiastically spin-kicked, eyes gouged and… well, let’s just say that, this being a Thai action film, no hut is safe from the ravages of fire and various combustibles.

Sorapong finds an ally in his violencing in the form of fellow Thai superstar Sombat Methanee, who has had problems of his own with the thugs. Sadly, those thugs eventually catch up to Sombat, killing his wife and forcing him and his small son to go on the run. At this point the movie develops something resembling an actual plot and thus becomes hopelessly incomprehensible. Somehow Sorapong and Sombat end up involved with different factions that are both competing to find whatever buried thing it is that everyone is trying to find. This gives us the opportunity to witness a Sorapong vs. Sombat throw-down before Thailand’s heavily militarized police force shows up to blow the fuck out of all the huts that have been left undamaged during the previous two hours. (I was weighing the option of giving this movie the alternate title Shack Attack!)

To its credit, this movie has more than its fair share of gore, violence, exploding huts, kung fu, nudity, soft-core sex, and exploding huts. Still, the best thing I can say about it is that it’s the most enjoyable out of this particular batch of films, which is known as either “damning with faint praise” or “conducting a taste test where the only thing you’re tasting is various kind of poo”. If not the actual title, I hope that someone can at least provide me with the name of the Godfrey Ho ninja movie that this film undoubtedly later found itself cobbled into.

That’s all the muddled incomprehension there is for now, folks. But be sure to watch for the next exciting installment of Mystery Thai Theater!

UPDATE 1/1/2012: Well, once again, being loudly ignorant on the internet has reaped rich rewards -- this time as a result of the efforts of the marvelous Ninja Dixon and Regis of ThaiWordView.  Regis informs me that, in the case of the films I dubbed Punched by a Girl and Violence Man, the VCDS are the product of an outfit called Lepso, who are notorious for their misleading packaging, often using text and artwork for either a completely different film or using artwork that is a mash-up of images from several different sources. ThaiWorldView has an extremely helpful page detailing a number of Lepso's releases, identifying both the actual titles of those releases and, where applicable, the titles of the films represented by their packaging.

Though it pains me to let go of that title, Regis tells me that Punched by a Girl is actually a film whose Thai title Google Translate helpfully renders as Crystal Rose, while it's packaging -- featuring the two masked heroines -- pertains to another Jarunee Suksawat/Sorapong Chatree film from 1983 whose title Google Translate was much less helpful with.  A review of that latter film appears on this page of ThaiWorldView. As far as Violence Man, Regis informs me that that is actually a 1981 film whose Thai title Google Translate puckishly asserts would be Tire Scheme, perhaps if coined by an autistic English speaker with an advanced sense of whimsy. Again, ThaiWorldView has provided a review of that film, which can be found on this page.

I will return with another update once I've been gifted with additional information from other parties who, like Regis and Ninja, are not only less lazy, but also considerably more generous and more well informed than myself.

Money Money Money (Thailand, 1965)

So far my coverage of Thai megastar Mitr Chaibancha has -- as you might expect from a blog bearing this title -- focused exclusively on his work in action films. And while the actor’s background as a boxer made him ideal for such roles, his ubiquity during his brief reign necessitated that he be something of a jack-of-all-trades. 1965’s Money Money Money illustrates this nicely, showing that Chaibancha could carry his own in a romantic musical comedy as well as in one of his two-fisted adventures as the Red Eagle. (By the way, the Romanized spelling of this film’s Thai title is Ngern Ngern Ngern -- but before you take on the treacherous task of pronouncing it out loud, please be advised that, within the movie, it’s pronounced “Nun Nun Nun”.)

Money Money Money was helmed by Prince Anusorn Mongkolkarn, a popular director of the era who continued a long tradition of film industry involvement on the part of the Thai royal family, one that goes all the way back to the earliest days of Thai cinema, when King Chulalongkorn’s younger brother, Prince Sanbhassatra, returned from Europe with his first movie camera and took up filmmaking. (Mongkolkarn was the brother of Thai director Prince Bhanu Yukol, and the father of Prince Chatreechalerm Yukol, a well regarded director of the 1970s.) Money Money Money is a musical comedy that’s very heavy on the music, showcasing a wide cross-section of Thai music that ranges from the classical and traditional to the Western pop influenced. And from his handling of it, it’s easy to assume that Mongkolkarn had a sincere fondness for the subject. His involvement might also explain why one of those songs is an almost hymn-like paean to the glory of the king.

Giving us no relief from the tongue-tripping names, Chaibancha here plays Akkaraphol, a Western-educated young aesthete who is called back to Bangkok by his millionaire Uncle, Lord Hiran, to begin his apprenticeship in said uncle’s loan-sharking business. Sent to the village of Bang Ruen Suk to collect debts from the impoverished residents upon whose backs Hiran has made his fortune, Akkaraphol happens to see a local talent show, and is impressed by one of the bands that perform there. He is also impressed by feisty local girl Kingkaew, which is no wonder, as Kingkaew is portrayed by Petchara Chaowarat, the actress whom Americans might call the Hepburn to Chaibancha’s Tracy, and Pakistanis might call the Anjuman to Chaibancha’s Sultan Rahi.

These impressions combined inspire the kind-hearted Akkaraphol to impulsively forgive all of the villagers’ debt, and declare that he will instead open a nightclub in Bangkok where he will exploit the villagers’ musical talents to sensational effect. Soon he has allies in this project in the form of his sister Paradee (popular Thai singer Sumalee Thonglong) and her lover Rangsun (Charin Nantanakorn, another singing star), an underemployed music teacher who moonlights as a pop songwriter. The money-obsessed Lord Hiran, as might be expected, is none too pleased with this plan, and sets out to derail it at any cost. Thus Mitr and crew -- while mitigating the myriad culture clashes encountered by the bumpkin-like village musicians in the big city -- must struggle to ensure that the show goes on in the face of meager resources, crippling debt and the many obstacles thrown at them by the not-correspondingly-hamstrung Hiran.

Money Money Money is a pop film with the emphasis on the populist, although its politics, while manifestly heartfelt, aren’t all that strident. Still, it’s no less heartening to watch its climactic scene, in which Mitr and a crowd of placard-carrying villagers essentially “occupy” Lord Hiran’s lavish birthday party, ultimately expressing their economic grievances in the form of a catchy song. As for Chaibancha, his performance as the gentle and soft-spoken Akkaraphol is an ego-free one conscious of its place within a vibrant ensemble cast, always fading into the background as necessary when it’s a talented co-star’s turn to shine. Underscoring this self-effacement, the film pokes good-natured fun at the more screen-hogging exploits of Chaibancha’s action hero persona, in a scene where three idiotic thugs hired by Lord Hiran sport ridiculous looking parodies of the mask worn by him in the Red Eagle films. All of this really showed Chaibancha in a new light for me, making this film one that I think is essential for anyone who wants to understand the legendary star in all of his dimensions.

It being a musical comedy that clocks in at a full three hours and fifteen minutes, it can truly be said that Money Money Money is absurdly long, with even its epilogs having epilogs and subplots being introduced in the eleventh hour seemingly just to keep the narrative wheels turning that much longer. But, in its favor, you really do end up spending a lot of time with its characters. And at the end, when an MC steps onstage at Mitr’s club to present those of them who have married one another during its course, you really feel like you’re at the closing end of some lengthy family obligation, like a wedding reception at which no tradition -- be it the garter toss, the money tree, the throwing of the bouquet, the conga line -- was overlooked. Fortunately (and hopefully as with those relatives for whom we’ve endured that conga line) both those characters and their stories have proved endearing enough that we are willing to indulge them.