Mini-fest showcases films set in southern Thailand

Hard-core Southeast Asian film enthusiasts will be spoiled for choice this weekend in Bangkok. Not only is the Lav Diaz retrospective continuing, there's a mix of old classics and contemporary Thai features being shown at Paragon Cineplex in "Lae Nung … Long Tai", featuring 10 films made in southern Thailand.

Oldies include 1969's Koh Sawad Hat Sawan (เกาะสวาทหาดสวรรค์, Paradise Island, 1972's Choo (ชู้, The Adulterer) and Euthana Mukdasanit's 1985 classic Butterfly and Flowers (ผีเสื้อและดอกไม้, Peesua lae dokma).

Even among the newer films, there are rarely shown rarities, like Nonzee Nimibutr's sweet 2003 drama OK Baytong. It hit the festival circuit for about a year and was never heard from again, thanks to no English-friendly DVD release.

There is also the historical disaster drama Talumphuk, which I didn't see when it was in cinemas in 2002. And there's a chance to revisit The Tin Mine (มหา'ลัย เหมืองแร่, Maha'lai muang rae), Jira Maligool's lush 2005 historical drama that won awards but washed out at the box office.

How about Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves? Anyone? Well, I liked it.

And, do you want to see the big-screen debut of star Ananda Everingham? It's Anda Gap Fah Sai (อันดากับฟ้าใส, Anda and Fah Sai), a 1997 coming-of-age romantic drama.

Here's the complete schedule:

Friday, August 7
17.00, Koh Sawad Hat Sawan (Paradise Island) – This 1969 musical romantic romp stars Sombat Methanee and Aranya Namwong as rival rich-kid coconut plantation farmers. It was shot on Koh Samui long before the arrival of spa resorts, boutique hotels, beer bars and hypermarket chains.
20.00, Peesua Lae Dokmai (Butterfly and Flowers) – Directed by Euthana Mukdasanit, this 1985 movie is considered a classic and reflects life in a peaceful Buddhist-Muslim society in a small border town.

Saturday, August 8
12.15, Choo (The Adulterer) – This 1972 drama by Piak Poster is about a hermit fisherman (Manop Assawathep) rescuing a young woman and then getting involved in a love triangle. Krung Srivilai also stars.
15.00, Yuwachon Taharn Pid Term Pai Rob (Boys Will Be Boys) – Based on a true story of Thai youngsters who were recruited by the Thai military in World War II, Euthana Mukdasanit’s 2000 drama looks at what happened when the Japanese army invaded Chumphon.
17.30, OK Baytong – Nonzee Nimibutr’s 2003 sometimes comic drama tells the story of a young man who leaves the monkhood for the first time since childhood to take care of his Muslim niece in a town on the Malaysian border after his sister is killed in a terrorist bombing.
20.00 Anda Kab Fah Sai (Anda and Fah Sai) – Ananda Everingham made his big-screen debut in this coming-of-age romantic drama as a young diver in the Andaman. Sinjai Plengpanich and Pongpat Wachirabunjong also star.

Sunday, August 9
12.15, Talumphuk – This 2002 disaster drama is set in Nakhon Si Thammarat in 1962 when Tropical Storm Harriet struck, destroying all but five houses in a village of 4,000 in Laem Talumphuk..
15.00, Maha’lai Muang Rae (The Tin Mine) – Based on the memoirs of writer Archin Panjabhan, Jira Malikool’s historical drama is about a young engineering student who leaves university to work in a tin mine in the Phuket jungle in the 1950s.
17.30, Kam Pipaksa Khong Mahasamut (Invisible Waves) – Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s wryly comic 2006 thriller is about a Japanese chef (Tadanobu Asano) who flees from Macau to Phuket after committing a murder.
20.00 Wonderful Town - Indie director Aditya Assarat’s award-winning, critically acclaimed romantic drama is set in isolated Takua Pha, Phang Nga, where scars of the tsunami still linger.

The event is organized by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Film Archive and the Thai Film Foundation. Admission is free. Pick up your ticket either at the cinema or the Living Gallery in Area 2 on Siam Paragon’s third floor one hour before showtime. Call ( 080) 557 9709, (081) 697 5976, and (02) 800 2716.

Review: Runpee (Senior)

Written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng
Starring Jannine Wiegel, Phongsakon Tosuwan, Sa-ad Piampongsan
Released in Thai cinemas on December 3, 2015; rated 15+
Wise Kwai's rating: 4/5

After a five-year hiatus from commercial filmmaking, Wisit Sasanatieng has been coaxed back to the director's chair by the studio M-Thirtynine with Runpee (รุ่นพี่, a.k.a. Senior), an artfully directed ghost comedy that successfully merges old-fashioned horror thrills with contemporary teen romance.

Penned by Wisit, the story is about an outcast weirdo at a Catholic girls' boarding school. She has a special nose. Unlike the kid in The Sixth Sense, the olfactorily gifted girl Mon (Ploychompoo Jannine Weigel) can't see dead people, she smells them. More specifically, she can sniff out the troubled spirits who are still lurking in our realm.

Her unique talent leads her to develop a connection with a boy ghost (Bom Phongsakon Tosuwan) who was a student when the place was a business school in the 1980s, before it was a church convent. Together, they investigate a murder that occurred there some 50 years before, when the school was the palace home of a princess, who was found beaten, bloodied and very much dead in her swimming pool. Her gardener took the fall for the death, but there was more to the case than met the eye.

It's an old-timey Thai setting right out of Wisit's 2000 debut feature, Fah Talai Jone (Tears of the Black Tiger), and that western's trademark raspberry-jelly blood splatter is evident in key scenes. Runpee also has echoes of Wisit's 2006 Gothic horror Pen Choo Kub Pee (The Unseeable), plus the wry observational humour of his satiric Mah Nakorn (Citizen Dog).

With false scares and other cinematic sleight-of-hand tricks, Wisit keeps the audience guessing as he suspensefully strings along the story of Mon and her ghost friend Runpee, whose name means simply "senior".

Mon's abilities to sense ghosts has made her an outcast among her school's other girls. Everyone already thought she was a bit weird, but since Runpee came on the scene, she's especially bizarre, since she's given to carrying on conversations with her ghost pal, who almost no one except the audience can see. So it appears she's walking along, talking to herself. There are even street scenes, which I'm not certain were filmed on a closed set, in which passersby naturally react with perplexity to the odd girl who is flailing her arms and talking gibberish to an invisible friend.



At one point, Mon is talking and flailing during her French lessons, and the stern nun teacher punishes Mon by having her wear a sign and stand with her arms outstretched. Even then, she continues her conversation with Runpee.

The laws of physics are different in the ghost world, Runpee explains as they sleuth around the school property, searching for clues to the 50-year-old murder. For example, ghosts can't walk walls if the walls were built after they died. Industrial-like animated diagrams help illustrate. And, there are exceptions, of course. It's not quite Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, but then thank goodness it isn't.

Aside from the main story of the old murder case, there are other issues to pad out the tale and give weight to the characters. There's an annoyingly cheerful young doctor friend of Mon's (DJ We Raweeroj) whom Mon strings along long enough for him to be helpful to the murder case. Another subplot has Mon developing a selfie-fueled friendship with the school's other outcast, Ant (Kaykai Nutticha Namwong), who is shunned by the popular clique because she's been seen getting close to the male chemistry teacher – way too close in fact. He's a jerk, and gets what's coming to him in a vividly memorable scene that has him haunted by millions of eyeball-like CGI spirits.

Ant's story has parallels to the 50-year-old murder, which is intertwined with the school's history and the mysterious figure of "Baby Daeng", the heir to the princess' estate and the cause of conflict. What happened to Baby Daeng? That's the question that keeps coming back to haunt Mon and Runpee as they circle ever closer to a truth that was right in front of their eyes to begin with.

Figures from the past include an elderly doctor, portrayed by stage and screen veteran Sa-ad Piampongsan, who is a hoot to watch as he chews up scenes that grow meatier and meatier with each appearance.

Onward and upward, the action reaches its heights with Mon atop a bell tower, rescued by her personal Jesus Runpee.

It's a mix of actors from a bygone era of classic Thai genre films and fresh-faced youngsters making their debuts, which is something of a trademark for Wisit, who has a knack for plucking up fresh talents and dropping them in as the leads of his films.

Here, singer-actress Ploychompoo is an endearing heroine, rebellious and strong, placing her in good company with another superpowered young actress, Punpun Sutatta Udomsilp from another Thai movie this year, May Nai (May Who?), about a high-school girl who releases a strong electrical charge if her heart gets racing. Maybe one day Mon and May could team up to solve more crimes.

In Thai cinemas: Sway

Three dysfunctional relationships unfold between Asians in three cities in Sway, the debut feature by Thai-American writer-director Rooth Tang.

The drama was put together over the course of many years by Rooth, who graduated in film studies from the University of California, Irvine, and has taken part in industry initiatives, such as HBO's Project Greenlight.

For what would become his first feature, Rooth began with Bangkok scenes that were shot in 2010 with Thai stars Ananda Everingham and Sajee Apiwong. He's a well-travelled dreamer who seduces a Bangkok office worker, who then gets pregnant, but she is afraid to say anything.

In Los Angeles, the Caucasian-American second wife (Kris Wood-Bell) of a widowed Japanese-American businessman (Kazuhiko Nishimura) is having insecurity issues, along with problems with her husband's teenage daughter.

And in Paris, a drifter Chinese-American translator (Matt Wu) ponders his next move while renewing a relationship with his girlfriend (Lu Huang), a former Hong Kong TV star who is struggling to make it as a serious journalist. Meanwhile, the young man's parents are on the verge of divorce, giving him doubts about the future of his own relationship.

Sway made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and has also screened in Taipei's Golden Horse fest, last year's Singapore International and this year's Shanghai fest.

Critical reception has been fair so far, and I've got my own review.

It's in limited release at Esplanade Ratchada, House, Major Cineplex Ratchayothin and SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Check out the trailer, embedded below.