Scouts visit an ancient temple to witness a lunar eclipse. Hearing campfire stories of the legendary god who protects the temple, they decide to go on a treasure hunt. Finding themselves lost in a parallel universe, they must find the way back before the end of the eclipse traps them
The teaser:
The poster:
The person most likely to NOT appear in The Scout: Atticus Finch
News from Wise Kwai via 24 Frames per Second
For another Thai film with snakes, check out the info on Deep in the Jungle, aka Naak
Deep in the Jungle stars Jesdaporn Pholdee as a special-forces sniper who goes rogue to protect a young woman (Ploy Jindachote) who is sought by a rival black-ops soldier (Pasin Ruengwut). Sakda Kaewbuadee stars as the woman’s protective brother. The siblings are from an ancient tribe of snake gods who can live in human form. Coherent storytelling and decent special effects made Deep in the Jungle an okay effort from Phranakorn and director Teerawat Rujeenatham.
And thanks to Avery for the heads up on The Scout
2002
Directed by Jaroongsak Vonglaueng
An example of Thai horror from their very numerous killer monsters/spirits genre (combining both!) we get a killer gorilla with glowing red eyes named Kong Koy (spelled Gongoi in the title, but what are you going to do?) that is the ghost of the previous owners of a monkey statue that are driven to kill to regain ownership of said statue. Thus the film gets filled with stupid teenagers who die, but not enough other people die. The long dragging in the beginning followed by lots of padding throughout the film stretch the running time and make it feel like a three-hour long film, and not in a good way. For those of us who just want to see red-eyed monkeys killing teenagers, we get what we want, but have to put up with a lot of annoyances to get to it.
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I could not identify who actors/actresses Pongsakorn Srijun or Sarus Lao Utaiwattana were, and was unable to identify any of the others. So another incomplete filmography thanks to me not being able to ready every language on the planet.
aka Chai lai
2006
Directed by Poj Arnon
Charlie’s Angels left a legacy of countless imitators. The original series spawned many copycats, and the recent movies also spawned copies. As the new movies decided to be action comedies, so did many of the copycat movies. And since the new movies decided to not be very good, the copycats decided to one-up them and be even worse! One of those copies is reviewed here today. The 2006 film from Thailand was originally entitled Chai Lais or Chai Lais Angels, and eventually became known as Dangerous Flowers. I wonder what the “Chai Lai” trying to sound like… Charlie’s Angels copies from Asia are vary common, we even reviewed Asian Charlie’s Angels a while back. We get five beautiful Thai women who fight crime, fail at their missions, and blow stuff up. The film begs you to not take it seriously, yet then throws in a few people getting killed violently just to screw with you.
The film has a few quirks in the subtitles, firstly they refer to the girls as “chai Lais”, notice how the first letter of chai is not capitalized. It never is, but the L in Lai is always capitalized. I don’t know what that means, but it probably means something stupid. So we’ll got with it for the entire review. Take that, bad subtitles!
We got five Angels, excuse me, FLOWERS, who we will just hit the Roll Call for now, as well as the peripheral characters. The film is forgettable, unexceptional, and nothing you haven’t seen before. Unless you are blind, in which case you probably aren’t reading this anyway. Or are you?
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2008
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
Thailand has been making films for a long time. Sadly, their films have not gained much interest outside their home country until recently, which is a shame as some of their older efforts (like Insee Thong for example) are worth checking out. Tony Jaa has helped put modern Thai films on the map. His martial arts films and the stunt therein have given lots of fame to the industry. Many people are unaware of the man behind Tony Jaa, who is also the man behind this film. Director Prachya Pinkaew was Tony Jaa’s mentor, directing him in Ong Bak, and now has a new, female prodigy, the star of this film Yanin “Jeeja” Wismistananda. Director Prachya Pinkaew has been involved in making movies in Thailand for years, but until his recent fame with Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong, most of them haven’t left Thailand ever, now many can be found in VCD format. In addition, some of them can be found in this movie, being watched by Zen in between her own fights.
Setting out to make the film feel different from the start, Zen is autistic, so does not act like your normal fighting chick. But she has the ability to learn to copy movements, which makes her a natural fighter. The storyline of the film works to get Zen from one giant set-piece to another in order to have many well-choreographed battles. This works rather well, and towards the end you just sit back and watch as the stunts get wilder and the choreography gets more intricate. The fight choreographer was Panna Rittikrai, also of Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong fame. Prachya Pinkaew said he went in the autistic direction because Jeeja Wismistananda didn’t have any sex appeal (see Wise Kwai’s Blog.) She has no sex appeal like zebras have no stripes.
Chocolate is in a mix of English and Japanese, but is mainly Thai, so subtitles are on. As the film is not widely available in the US yet, there are bootlegs with terrible subs out there, so be warned. They are not necessary to enjoy the action, but help you follow a bit of the plot. Luckily, I had a real version, so the language barrier was no problem, not that no subtitles has ever been a problem here on TarsTarkas.NET.
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aka แอบ 2002
2002
TarsTarkas.NET is not a website to shy away from new and bizarre film experiences. We are also not one to shy away from bizarre softcore porn from various countries of the world. As we’ve seen odd examples from Hong Kong, the US, and India; we continue the globe-trotting and cart out an example from Thailand. Thailand has gotten somewhat big in the movie-making world due to the popularity of Tony Jaa, and has been seen here before with Brutal River. This time the only brutal thing is the plot, what little plot there is. Even though there are no subtitles, there isn’t enough going on for us to even bother caring about them. What is bizarre is most films have some sort of climax where lessons are learned or revenge is enacted following the weak storyline, in this case the story just wanders off and never resolves. That is one of the two big “Huh?” factors, the other is the life-size statue of Colonel Sanders that makes an appearance. I believe that is what we call some extra-crispy sex.
The problem with the production, aside from the lack of subtitles, is also the lack of clear pictures. Either shot with a very cheap camcorder (which I wouldn’t doubt) or transferred to VCD as cheaply as possible (which I also wouldn’t doubt) the picture quality is horrible. It is hard to get a clear view of the actors during the wide shots. Even many of the close-ups are out of focus or just blurry overall. Another fun aspect is the fact the film has many scenes shot in the street or public places, and you can clearly see people in the background staring at the camera, or watching the actors go about their business. This adds some unintentional hilarity to some of the scenes, and provides a nice distraction while waiting for the people to drop trough and start bumping uglies. It’s not like I know Thai and have any idea what they are talking about. There is some parts of the movie I do understand. That is the songs by Green Day, which are constantly playing in the background during all the outside scenes. As all the sound is dubbed in during post production, they just added Green Day songs for the times they are in downtown Bangkok or wherever they are. That way, you will associate Green Day with Thailand. Because. It is unknown what recent the recent coup in Thailand will do to the adult VCD industry, and from what little information I could find on these girls, it looks like some of them can be found in more adult fare. This seems to be pretty tame for an adult film, actually, so maybe they couldn’t even afford to pay the girls to show off more, or wanted to make their video still accessible to most video renters without them going into the back room (which doesn’t seem to have happened.)
But first the cast. All of the character names are guesses, and we are not sure of who the actors are. Based on one single website listing four cast members in English, and checking other films where those actresses are present, we have some guesses as to who is who, but it is not 100% accurate. Though it is unlikely most of the people reading this will be familiar enough with Thai softcore porn actresses to know if I am right or not, someone has to be far more well versed, and any input is appreciated. We do get some people from Thailand who stop by from time to time if the visitor logs are to be believed.
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