The River of Love (2005)

oh the melodrama

Algorithms surfaced this while I was searching for something else. With English subtitles no less. Not in the MDL database and almost no information on letterboxd, so the best way to decide if it was worth the time was to just watch it =D

Was it worth it? There are better films. It's very melodramatic and feels like it belongs to an era far earlier than 2005. I was initially thinking 1950s, but now that I've seen a few from Film Archive Thailand's holdings, it's very different. What it most reminds me of in feel and tone is the 1959 Mae Nak Phra Khanong, although the only available version of that I've found has a very strange redub so perhaps the (unknown to me) redub date is a better comparison? It doesn't feel like anything I've seen from early 2000s Thailand so far, though I do have some leads for possible comparisons. Apologies for geeking out here. I enjoyed the sense of stepping back in time, not just in the content but in the very style of film-making.

It's not long and it moves at a good clip. Lots of things happen even though there isn't all that much story or depth of characterisation. I like melodrama and learning new things, and found it entertaining, so all in all it was worth my time. Would it be worth yours? If you have a spare hour forty minutes and a curious mind, give it a go and find out =D

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