Yuthlert Sippapak is known as one of the most active and successful commercial director in Thailand - with two projects a year, transcending various kinds of genres from horror, comedy, and romance. In 2008, he directed the tearful love story of three old friends in The Last Moment, and comedy in E-tim Tay Nae. This year, he goes back to his Buppha saga, combining horror, comedy, and romance in Rahtree Reborn.
In the previous two installments of this saga, Buppha Rahtree: Flowers Of The Night and Rahtree Returns, medical student Buppha commits suicide alone in her apartment after being deserted by her boyfriend Eke, whom she comes back to haunt and eventually kills. The two ghosts then occupy the apartment as their love-nest, which various shaman attempt to exorcise in vain. Yuthlert took a five-year break before making Rahtree Reborn, which takes place ten years after the last installment: Buppha is reincarnated as a young girl who is abandoned by her mother, leaving her with her barber stepfather, who often beats her in his anger. As a result, she becomes a problem child who is bullied by her classmates at school. One day, she takes a razor from her stepfather's barbershop and starts attacking people at school, after which she leaves and goes to Buppha's apartment, where she unexpectedly encounters a man who is masturbating. She is murdered and becomes a ghost which also haunts Buppha's apartment, and she awakes Buppha’s ghost and uses her to take her revenge against all men.
After word gets out that the apartment block is haunted, the unoccupied flats become an illegal casino, and the good-looking Rung, who has a sixth sense which enables him to see ghost, moves in after his girlfriend breaks up with him. The death toll in the apartment block rises, and Rung and his friends are also chased by the girl’s ghost, but one day, Rung meets Buppha, who used to be his tutor when he was a kid, in the communal space in the building...
Sippapak smartly wrote the intertwining sequel, which has complex interrelations between the new characters, including the child ghost, the young man Rung and the apartment block’s residents that move in and out to encounter and run away from the haunted house. Rahtree Reborn introduces a new ghost that is even more fierce than Buppha herself, who, in his sequel, looks more beautiful, nicer and pitiful than in the first two films. While her ex-boyfriend Eke already has another life, the ghost Buppha is still stuck in this vicious cycle. Despite her reincarnation, she is still reminded of her past life and is drawn back to the haunted apartment as the young girl.
The director proved himself to be a master of all kinds of commercial flicks in Rahtree Reborn. He wisely mixes a sense of comedy, the frightening encounters with the ghosts and, in this film, also a sweet romance (albeit unrequited) between Rung and Buppha. The comic scenes brings a lot of laughter thanks to the casting of several comedians in the country and the sharp dialogue composition. Slight flaw: sometimes the sequences are a bit too long and loses its audience. However, Sippapak still succeeds with all the ghostly intrusion sequences ghost, using fast and unexpected cuts. Above all of this, however, was the introduction of romance that suggest a new and true love for Buppha, which might be further explained and intensified in the upcoming sequel Buppha Revenge 3.2. - in fact, the sequel’s trailer shows some clever connections between the murderer who kills the young girl and the complex identity of the new protagonist Rung, who I actually suspect might be psychotic - it is well worth watching Rahtree Reborn before waiting for the sequel Buppha Revenge 3.2.
Anchalee Chaiworaporn