2025 Thai Watch Challenge

Starting off with a favourite discovery from last year. It takes its time to wander around the Northern landscape with no grand plot, just two people becoming friends and figuring their relationship out.

Oh, and ghosts. Because Thailand :)

I think I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt regarding the many abbreviations it uses to tell this story in twelve hours because, in the end, it's very much a love story to history, culture, dance, a few whose names have survived and the many whose didn't.

Excellent documentary, told in a slice of life manner, about the consequences suffered by Karen people in Klity, Kanchanaburi 15 years on from lead contamination of the river they depend on for food and livelihoods. Beautifully filmed, gentle but powerful, well worth seeking out.

Sparse art film, more experience than narrative. Young theatre actors wandering through Kanchanaburi, hanging out near a lake and doing theatre things.
Maybe it was the black & white but it's spareness stripped it of a sense of place for me.

The familiar paradigm of a Thai ghost story where the first half explores the world they've created before it goes into poignancy. The poignancy is well done (for the most part) but the comedy world was loud and often stressful. Perfect for everyone except me.

As gentle as On Sale is loud. Deeper in its emotions too.

A "continuation" of sorts of the 1999 Nang Nak, except it's about the kid. The idea and the last ten minutes or so are good. The rest isn't. Lazy jokes dependent on cheap stereotypes. The emotions of the end deserve a better framing.

One of those Thai series which doesn't sit neatly in any genre but dances between several. Lakorn plot, series pacing, thriller-esque moments, serious issues at its core and a brush of comedy over it all. Casting was perfect for the central roles.

Brevity and familiarity weakened the poignancy and there were times the writing felt like it didn't quite know how to get where it was going in the time allotted (so likely editing). Jamie's character was difficult to shine in. The dual facets of Singto's gave him more to work with.

The first eight episodes are my favourite of the Channel 3 lakorns I've seen. Full of tropes but underpinned by strong statements on sexism, prejudice (Chinese against Thai, Thai against Chinese), privilege and how these affect people's lives. Excellent pacing.
And then it changes abruptly, at first seeming a well enough done too many wives revenge although lacking the balance needed for a good lakorn. It shifts again into a tale of the costs of revenge and a wealthy dysfunctional family dysfunctioning itself and ultimately turns out to be about the dignity of women.
This greater depth and emotion was ambitious and had some awkwardness but overall an excellent lakorn. I ended up loving both halves for very different reasons.

3 hour film, that's a bit long, can take a break or two. No, it's exactly how long it needs to be, with that refuses to be rushed pace I love in Thai movies and intertwining layers which aren't necessarily complicated in plot but rich in emotions.

Slice of life with what is age anyway casting. Really liked Santa's gentleness and caring, looking forward to his growth as an actor. Was not prepared for those last two episodes.

Their commitment to this nonsense is something. There isn't much plot but it doesn't slow down enough during the first hour for that to matter, which is how I ended up not finding something else to do. A lot of making fun of physical differences. I didn't find it funny so much as strange.

loved this even more a second time

Don't mind having ticked this one off the list but there are better. There are also worse. Ae Maneerat is a fav and she's nearly the only actor in the first story. I liked the creepy ultra-low budget claustrophia. The 2nd was a splatter-fest revenge fantasy around bullying, gore and violence. 3rd is a 5 years earlier outing of the quartet of friends from Pee Mak, same names even. Another fav actress, Ploy Laila, carries the 4th. This also made good use of a sense of trapped claustrophobia.

On a run of disappointing movies. Also, The Safari that I couldn't bring myself to put in the database.

Maybe on another day I would have liked this more. Sunny and Linn were good but while I tend to enjoy slow-paced Thai movies I found much of this one dull.

Low budget, but it's Nang Nak redone as modern coming of age so I'm here for it <3

What I loved most is something unexpected. If you've seen it, you'll likely know. They set it up well.

1st 1/3rd - Business practices like an underhanded Apprentice series, rivalry between families and within one, men who menace women to assert their dominance and get what they want, and a dense web of former, existing and potential relationships which invents new geometry. There's a love square with interconnected triangles and additional family and business betrayals and rivalries. Why am I watching this?
2nd 1/3rd - Things start to settle, Pa is a psychopathic arse but the rest of the men are behaving better and the main relationship is quite endearing. Happily rationing one episode per day so it doesn't end.
last 1/3rd - I am so glad I didn't drop this. Continues to shift and reveal new layers and depth. There were a few choices which keep me from giving it a 10, but the directing/writing to make this intertwined labyrinth of story lines come together is impressive.

Acting was good but the story line was more Netflix than Thai.

So much pain in this, much of it from hiding secrets and very little of it cradled in the way I've come to expect from Thai movies and series. Namtan and Film were fantastic but the score was overly synthesised. More Ciize and Earn, or fewer twists, would have helped ease it.

3rd time through, with five additional adaptations fresh in memory, and my predominant feeling is how much love there is in this. Not just the love between Nak and Mak but the love Thai film makers have for the legend.

90% emotions, 10% plot. Likely targeted to a young teen audience (say 13-16), including its call for change in one part of the idol industry. I'm not gotten on with others this sweet and I'm wondering if I liked it because it mostly kept the story simple and light but still heartfelt (rather than fluff with constant complications) or if everything else that's going on made this the right time to watch it.

I may have a new favourite film. So gentle, heartfelt, unrushed. A simple story line but told so very well.

Mixed bag. Some good, but a lot of pain in relationships without much happiness.

It's Baifern and Nine, low stakes comedy with two substantial and well done serious scenes, a tour of nine Asian countries and a lot of fun. Mostly though, it's Baifern and Nine and that was just right.

The story isn't much but Mild and Off going full tilt comedy is.

Maybe others could play Duchess, but Krathing had to have been written specifically for Off.

Some mystery, some substance, moments of slapstick, and a whole lot of violence. It does that Thai thing of grounding the far-fetched (autistic girl with lighting reflexes picks up muay thai from watching movies, playing video games and seeing others) in real emotions, whether they were shorthanding it via tropes or exploring it further through Zen's character.

Half way through and I'm still not sure what to makes of this with its controlling tsundere and delulu sunshine couple. It's clearly aware that the man is treating her badly, including a chorus of his friends who will say that to her but dissemble rather than confront him. She says "she's used to it." Contrast the wife trying to get free of her overtly abusive husband in another plot line.
Comedy lakorn so everything is exaggerated x 10 and it seems to be sending up rom com tropes while also embracing them. It seems to dip into, and back out of, role reversal at times, with the FL actively pursuing the ML.
Done. Finally.

Young people making young person mistakes and learning from them, older people learning from theirs as well, the importance of apologies regardless of age. Always good to see solid roles for young women too, was worried Piploy's character was just going to be someone to laugh at but they gave her a lot of growth.