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Serious social commentary wrapped in comedy wrapped in lakorn
Did all the reviewers panning this for depictions of bad behaviour fail to realise how many of them were called out, whether in the dialogue, reactions, context or consequences? Sometimes the call outs were gentle, like Chon's maa telling him something he did was wrong, sometimes they were bold, like Chon's maa in the last episode. Sometimes through consequences.If you didn't see them, go back and look for them. Keep your eyes open to the variety of ways they're called out, explicitly or implicitly.
The series is a clear critique of toxic masculinity in several forms, including misogyny, objectification, peer pressure, outdated attitudes and of course homophobia. It's full of good messages and positive examples too.
This deserves to be watched with more attention than most here seem to have given it, including those who see it only as light-hearted fluff. It's laugh out loud funny, with the warm, open-hearted generosity of Thailand's best comedy, while also delivering important messages.
There's something else going on underneath, but it's left to viewers to put two and two together. Think about what we find out late regarding a key event in Tonhon's childhood. And then take that back in to something about him which is played for laughs and explained away as his being gullible.... It wasn't an over-used trope and sloppy characterisation, those two pieces fit together perfectly. And when they click into place, wow.
I've seen enough from the director to stand by these readings. He's very concerned with issues around sexism and parenting (another of his themes and the connection in a comment so it can go under a spoiler tag).
And he clearly respects viewers' intelligence too. Bring yours to the screen for this one.
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Wow
This is both a gorgeous pair of love stories and a crime mystery that's so intense it's difficult to watch at times. It goes deep on all the emotions, but it's worth trusting in it and giving it time, attention and patience.The writers, film editors and cast made a complicated plot line harmonize beautifully. I keep trying to talk myself out of writing that it's the best thing I've ever seen, but honestly, I can't think of another. Can't recommend it highly enough.
The site wants 500 words and I have many to go :) So things I really liked about it: great use of the theme music to underscore key emotional moments; that I could feel both Wu Yu's love for Tan Jiao and how she felt being in that love; the secondary characters who had their own growth and change; that as uncomfortable as the lowest lows were I've forgotten about them for the happiness and love; the gentle emotional sensitivity of many scenes.
I've not rewatched it yet but I gave it a high rating because there's plenty of complexity and things to watch out for through all the twists and because I really liked spending time with the four main characters and the music <3
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This review may contain spoilers
Quiet coming of age, pairing normal slice of life school friendships with a month in a very unusual young life. Back stories are mentioned and quietly present, giving it layers for those who will give it attention. The theatre life woven throughout adds more, as well as providing additional interest on its own merits. All in all, this is very well done.And below this is spoilers as it pertains to the very end. If you haven't seen it, please stop now. Seriously - it's a great film. Find it somewhere to watch, preferably legally if you can, to support quality filmmaking. Don't spoil yourself. Go back. Please. Ok, Is that ample warning? =D
The end shifts it from friendship CoA to BL. My first thought on realising this was "Yep, there are even female characters to be rejected for the boy, including an ex who still had feelings." That seems to be important to some BL, that the masculine boy realising feelings of same sex attraction had hetero options. We even learn of this through a young woman's words - before we see the boy's actions.
Many of these sorts of stories are well done, and I count Confetti amongst the best and appreciate the CoA complexity of emotions. Individually, telling diverse stories is so important towards nurturing empathy and understanding. But there is also an ecosystem in which these sorts of stories are the norm, these stories which always make girls and young women secondary, characters to be rejected for the boys' happiness.
So I'm happy for stories of boys growing and understanding themselves, of gay representation in coming of age and I still feel for girls who have this added into the mix of what society tells them it means to be female.
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From a comment on the 1998 original: "New version is nice, but the characters here [1998] are more complex." That fits with my impressions of the remake - that key characters were simplified in the retelling, like the scriptwriter was following a pattern. It's good, but it could have been richer. Instead it's a fairly straightforward young love that cannot be romance set amongst a twisty crime lakorn.
Late twists were great though, with changing alliances (how much of that was copied from the original?), surprises and in the last episode some scenes with more of the emotional depth the premise held. The very end though didn't work for me.
I'm of two minds about posting this because it's probably better if you don't think about it that much. I enjoyed it, I just wanted something which lived up to the premise's promise.
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Jaunty, jovial western music as the soundtrack seems an odd choice for going off to war from today's point of view. The pieces do bring energy to their scenes, a different way of accomplishing with a few cameras what takes many (and a lot of editing) today. I kept thinking the extras must have had fun filming this, with all the running around and shouting.
Moments of surprising humour some of which were clearly intentional, like that song quote.
How much history is in this? There were several rulers given the epithet "King of the White Elephant". It's located to a specific year (1540 CE), king (Chatra) and cities (Ayodhya and Kanburi), but the flattening of the two kings into vice and virtue complicates that. Is it fair to read an undercurrent of chauvinistic nationalism into that binary? Residual (maybe even nurtured) trauma from Burmese invasions still lingering, more recent anxieties and difficulties finding their way out through this, or simply fodder for this and other movies? The King of Ayutthaya in 1540 was not all virtue en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairachathirat
Or was 1540 easy, because it was a tidy 400 years earlier? Long enough ago to become part of malleable mythic memory.
I have so many questions =D
Available on Thai PBS and Film Archive Thailand's YT
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I'm honestly not sure what to make of this.
Legend writ enormously large around a real person who may not have contributed much, if anything, aside from his name, his job and the location.
A Thai take on westerns - like it belongs in the lineage of Tears of the Black Tiger, though not as far afield. Violent, very violent and very stylised, muted browns and dirt, the use of water. Parts felt almost surreal, which is one way of making supernatural powers real within a film, like this was just normal in their world, rare but known.
It was difficult and I took a few breaks, looking this or that thing up. It's like the opposite of the two hour Thai movies I love, where they wander around exploring their wee world before revealing their poignancy and it's gentle and comforting. Only here it's the hour 38 minutes of a Thai action movie, traveling through the violence of its world. And then it shifts, surreal but grounded within the language of the film, and ends in something else. It gave some sense of meaning and closure, satisfying in the moment, but perhaps not all that deep. Exhausting to get there too. Maybe it felt worth it, in the end.
But there were clearly layers I do not have the knowledge to feel, even if I can think my way through some of them. Sometimes my sense of being an outsider is particularly sharp. This is one.
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The plot may gleefully leap into and over plot holes, but the characters are consistent and well-delivered, This, and its abundant energy, is what makes it work - whether it's zinging through one nonsense or another, slipping into lakorn parody, or bringing the family closer together.
There were moments when Carissa and Pingpong were having so much fun bouncing off each other I wouldn't be at all surprised if the entire premise (4 half-siblings with mothers from different countries) was devised simply to let them play phi nong. Kao and Punpun are calmer in their roles, giving it some balance.
It's a VIU Original and available on all of the sites for the different countries they serve. If you're lucky enough to live in one, or have a VPN to pretend you do, look there.
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Some faithful, some reworked. War movie with OTT violence, and then one love story and another, success, betrayal, loyalty, magic, mythical sea creatures and special effects of dubious merit.
This isn't one to watch critically, better to just go along for the ride.
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The art direction shows the intentionality of the filmmaking, with its shifts between organic and artificial. The colours are over the top and glorious, the violence is over the top and fake, sometimes comedically so. The music though, that keeps grounding it back in reality.
And there are so many details to notice along the way. For all that the result feels exuberant, chaotic and free, clearly a lot of care went into it. This is fascinating work.
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The other is an elephant - a large, expressive presence with his own mind and inclinations. Bong isn't in the MDL database and I'm not sure how Adrien would feel about adding him in, but the film itself appropriately recognises him as 2nd lead in the credits.
The movie is set entirely in Thailand, with Thai cast, crew and dialogue, but Singaporean screenwriter/director Kirsten Tan brings a different tone to it. She's also lived, worked and studied in several countries so perhaps this film doesn't truly belong to any one country. The film-making itself is quite capable (it's her debut feature-length). Aside from the elephant, the story is solid but unremarkable - it's a road film. The people they meet along the way are a mix of generic and more realised individuals, though the individuals are also types.
The more realised individuals are treated with respect. As characters, they're both unconventional and obvious, in that indie road movie fashion. I'm of two minds on this - Tan could have done more, but the familiarity of the types also brings a sort of calm normalcy to it, like the mundaneness of a job-induced moment of mid-life crisis and the way life is full of individuals if we bother to take the time to notice them.
At times there's a gentle, dry, slightly absurdist (because elephant) humour. The overall indie vibe tone is familiar - in many ways, I wanted something less generic and a distinctly Thai feel, especially the freedom and spark we see from many Isaan directors. But this is solid indie fare.
With an elephant.
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And the emotions in this are exquisite, sometimes painful, sometimes beautiful, always grounded and real. Score and pacing are superb, acting excellent - everything working together to give it richness and depth, everything coming exactly when it needs to. I really do love the Thai way with a story, especially their two hour movies.
If I could see one piece of media over again for the first time, it would be this.
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Letterboxd reviewers can be quite cynical on gay indie films, while MDL tends to be more generous. But for lesbian indie, it's quite the opposite on both sites.
It's a good indie film, telling 4 short stories, each showing different aspects of relationships between women. The first three are somewhat similar in tone but with distinctive stylisation. From mainstream US-centric reviews, it seems many watched it very superficially, even the fourth which looks at women who seek out dysfunctional, toxic relationships. The tone shift in that was jarring at first with its violence, cartoonish but still disturbing. It doesn't excuse that behaviour, but it does offer compassion for the women caught up in it, those who will never let themselves be happy because they're convinced they don't deserve it.
Together, the four stories ask the question What do you need to be happy, and what's standing in the way of that? A mismatch, society, yourself?
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This review may contain spoilers
This is just gathering some thoughts as to why this comedy-lakorn/series didn't quite work for me despite a VERY promising start and offered here for others who may share them or are trying to work out their reactions. If you haven't finished it yet or adore it, feel free to pass this by. There aren't actual spoilers but I've marked it as such to reduce the chances of prejudicing anyone before they've seen it. There is a lot to like and it will work for many.The physical comedy in the first episode was a delight, especially when it was a giant wink at tropes and conventions and fully committed to the spoof. It settled down of course, that sort of writing is hard to sustain. A strong female lead character, but also a nearly entirely male cast and a heavy lean towards young men's humour and let's call it a western amount of cleavage, swimsuits and ogling camera shots which they kept returning to. Clever play with product placements. And some of the moments which leant into the absurdity of the situations were good fun.
The lakorn set-ups and short-cuts mostly played for laughs mostly worked well initially. But two things stopped it working for me. The easy one to explain is the shift from fun, comedic violence to tense and 'serious' violence with the winks relegated to the denouements. Many will love the action of course but I found the quantity and pacing of it tiring. There was just too much for me, and more and more densely packed as we approached the end. Plus it took up a lot of a very short run time. All of the characters needed to have their moments with it I guess.
(Please note that I recognise action is a popular genre with many fans. If you've decided to take offence because I don't get on with it so well and I am talking about that in public, please don't.)
The second thing is harder to put into clear words, and ultimately more important. Because there was a full lakorn's worth of characters crammed into 8 hours, and a crazy twisty plot, and a fair bit of that was some combination of tropes as short cuts and played for laughs, I never really became invested in the characters. There were moments, but then it would race on to something else. I love lakorns for the characters and emotions, not the plots. The actors played their roles suitably to each moment, there was just too much crammed into 8 hours for me.
Maybe I'm at the wrong level of viewing, I've seen enough there were no real surprises here, including everything to do with the ghost, and the crime/police sides, and the backgrounds/motivations...but not enough to, I don't know. I sincerely hope that the majority love this. If you want to respond, I'm interested to read what you have to say as well. Please spoiler comments if there are specifics.
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It was a wild ride alright.
***
Two days and twenty five minutes later - I remembered a particularly daft scene of a man spanking a fish (literally) and laughed so hard I had to get myself up out of bed to pee so I am very glad I watched this nonsense even if I have no idea how much was parody and how much was a genre with self-parody built in.
***
Trying to work out both plot and intent helped keep me engaged throughout, but its entertainment value was high regardless. I will be watching again, probably on a dark winter night when I need some laughs <3
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young dreams in crowded Klong Toey
Local, personal and real. Well-crafted documentary about life, school and young dreams in Klong Toey, where life is crowded by densely packed neighbours and the very narrow priorities of the education system the young rappers collide against, especially 18 year old Book.The film-making is simple in style but clear and focused, making space for them and giving us time to understand them, or what they understand of themselves.
Very much worth seeking out.
To help that, Director Wattanapume Laisuwanchai has made a public appeal to get School Town King added to Netflix. More information and a link to request the film are in this article.
www.bkmagazine.com/entertainment/director-klong-toey-rap-documentary-wants-your-help-to-get-it-netflix/
If anyone knows how Book and Non are faring now, would you kindly let me know. Thanks. Wishing them well.
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