Some minor changes took place in the Thai film industry in 2018, in both mainstream and alternative circles. The box office picked up as another big movie company, M Pictures, joined the scene, along with several of its affiliates. Its success was triggered by a restructuring and its collaboration with Channel 3, the second biggest television operator in Thailand. As a result, popular TV stars began to cross over to the big screen. Many of these stars are also famous in neighbouring countries, and consequently the Asian markets for Thai cinema have been expanding, especially with regards to China. On the alternative cinema side, the birth of independent theatres has opened a space for some less experienced filmmakers like students or teachers. In other words, contemporary Thai cinema has reached a new high thanks to the fusion of all possibilities.
Around 48 movies were released last year. To find the actual figure is complicated, as many movies have been screened just once, perhaps for a special occasion. The 48 titles are diverse, including work from amateurs and master filmmakers, and genre films and arthouse films, fiction and non-fiction, folk tales and high concept movies. Although the Top 10 hits still stick to established genres, there was some variety.
The number one film was Nakee 2 The Movie (Pongpat Wachirabunjong, 2018), a film version of the hit television drama which provided part 1. Channel 3 decided to collaborate with M Pictures, an affiliate of Thailand’s biggest multiplex operator Major Cineplex, to make the sequel into a big picture. They hired the top crewmembers in Thai cinema – cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, editor Lee Chatametikool – and four big stars as the lead protagonists. Director Wachirabunjong himself is also a famous actor and director, having worked in television and movies (Me Myself, 2007; Happy Birthday, 2008). The story was a fantasy romance about human beings and creatures.
Nakee 2 The Movie was not the only hit for M Pictures last year. In fact, half of the Top 10 list featured productions by the studio and its affiliates, which are M-Thirty Nine, Transformation Films, M Talent(formerly known as Talent One), and CJ Major (a collaboration with South Korean studio CJ Major). Their productions are diverse, and include high quality films (by Transformation Films, CJ Major) and lower budget local products. Even some of its local films made it into the Top 10. As well as taking the number one slot, they also grabbed four other positions in the charts.
The third runner-up Bikeman, produced by M Thirty-nine, is a comedy about a taxi motorcyclist who wishes to be a banker, but can never attain his dream. So he must survive by running a taxi motorcyclist service instead. This is the first movie to reflect the lives of taxi motorcyclists – one of the most popular careers for the working class in Thailand – and the film brought in four million euros. Other blockbusters included the animation The Legend of Muay Thai: 9 Satra, and the comedies Oh My Ghost 6 and The Last Heroes. The Legend of Muay Thai: 9 Satra is a fantasy about a young man who fights against his enemies by performing muay thai in a fantasy world, while the other two films portray the lives of a transvestite group – the trademark of cult director Poj Arnon. All these products did well outside of the Bangkok area, taking at least triple the amount of the Bangkok revenues (see table).
The ghost horrors Reside and KRASUE: Inhuman Kiss, both of which were produced by Transformation Film, were the best of M Pictures’ genre films. Reside is the latest masterpiece by Wisit Sasanatieng, the New Thai Cinema pioneer, and is about an exorcist who encounters a ghost family in a remote house. Director Sasanatieng wakes up the audience from the very first scene when the exorcist tries to call up a mysterious spirit to visit her place. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a family of ghosts that have strayed from the jungle. Sasanatieng cleverly creates a spooky ghost family – a father, a mother and a teenage girl – by referencing the shape of trees. The plot twists at the end to explain why an unidentified body is so important.
Sasanatieng also created another horrific Thai figure called krasue, a hybrid human-turned-ghost who pulls out her intestines during the night and flies to eat fresh meat and babies. With the trio co-productions by Transformation Films, CJ Major and M Pictures, KRASUE: Inhuman Kiss, is delicately crafted by Sittisiri Mongkolsiri. Instead of chase-and-run theme like many other versions, it is about friendship and triangular love. The script is cowritten by Chookiat Sakveerakul (13 Beloved and The Love of Siam).
Former box-office champion GDH has gained momentum with two features, Brother of the Year (Vithaya Thongyuyong, 2018) and Homestay (Parkpoom Wongpoom). The former tells of the love/hate relationship between a loser brother and a clever sister. Homestay welcomes the return of Shutter (2004) co-director Parkpoom Wongpoom, after a fourteen-year absence. He returns with a thriller, adapted from a Japanese novel, about a high-school boy who commits suicide and comes back to life in another body. The boy tries to find the answer to a secret about his new body, and must deal with several harbingers of death who appear in the bodies of others. Brother of the Year and Homestay took second and fourth place at the box-office respectively, taking 6,993,000 euros and 3,676,000 euros.
GDH made a breakthrough in the Asian market. After the global success Bad Genius (Nattawut Poonpiriya, 2017), GDH attempted to make a similar film in a different genre. Brother of the Year also been released across Asia, screening in Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan and China. This type of heartwarming relationship is rarely explored in Asia cinema, and it became one of the region’s high achievers. This year, GDH also tried the formula in Friend Zone (Chayanop Boonprakob, 2019), a love story between two lifetime friends. Shot in several locations in Asia, including Bangkok, Myanmar, Malaysia and Hong Kong, the film confirms its pan-Asian appeal by inviting pop singers from nine Asian countries to sing the theme song, including stars from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and China.
GDH also produced two documentaries BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry and 2,215, both of which detail the lives of popular bands and singer in Thailand. BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry highlights the hopes and dreams of Thai idol girl group BNK48, and is originally adapted from the story of a Japanese idol girl group, AKB48. Director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit smartly focuses on the successful members who were selected as the “front team” at the very beginning and the “failures” who are still waiting to be to join as the next idols. Both encounter the same hardships – either as stars or as hopefuls.
Though many parts of the documentary use a talking-head style, the director designs the mise-en-scene to reflect their burdens. For example, the interview scene was shot in a limited space, resembling to a toilet in an airplane to show how fan pressure affects these young stars. Another documentary, 2,215, by Natthaphol Boonprakob, follows Thailand’s top male singer Toon Bodyslam as he pursues his dream to finish a three-month charity run which stretches from the southernmost part to the northernmost part of Thailand.
Other studios were less active, putting out a mere one to three releases each. Sahamongkol Film International released the action thriller Khun Paan 2, the romantic drama 7 Days the Movie, and the horror The Viral. As the sequel of first blockbuster, directed by Kongkiat Komesiri, Khun Pan 2 is the only achiever at the box office, taking 3.6 million euros. In some violent and spectacular action choreography, the policeman Khun Pan disguises himself to join some gangsters to find out the truth about a betrayal involving the team leader and a government officer.
The romantic drama 7 Days The Movie (Punjapong Kongkanoi) portrays a love story between two chefs who encounter a strange situation one appears in different bodies for seven days – he’s a fat man, an old jazz musician, and an egotistic chef. The horror The Viral (Manasanan Pongsuwan) tells of a group of friends who challenge a ghost by visiting a deserted school. But after taking several strange photos, they come back home and encounter a murder.
T Moment, GTH’s former co-investor, seems to be on more solid ground this year, with romantic comedy App War (Yangyong Kuruangkool) and the thriller The Pool (Ping Lampraperng). App War tries to reach a young adult audience by detailing careers and romantic journeys, while The Pool reflects the struggle of a middle-aged man who is stuck in a three-metre pool with his pregnant wife and a dog.
In general, studios are still restricted to horror, ghost movies and comedy, with some exceptions. GDH now tries to include other genres that can be released in Asian regions, such as romantic comedy. Part of its success is down to its experimentation in television series production. The Thai TV drama market has been expanding throughout the Asian region for several decades, leading to the casting of regional performers in some series. GDH’s Friend Zone is one of the earliest productions to use this strategy in the cinema. But the strategy is rarely successful.
Today’s independent filmmakers come from all walks of life in Thailand. They can be classified as amateur indie, commercial indie, and arthouse indie. Amateur indies come from film schools and include students and teachers. They also include non-industry directors who make films for special occasions. In the past, this group of filmmakers rarely had the opportunity to release their work in a commercial theatre. But after the independent theatre Cinema Oasis opened, such opportunities grew. The theatre is owned by filmmaker Ing K, who has long suffered from censorship.
Commercial indies refer to those who make genre films with their own money. Normally, these filmmakers are industry-based but can’t get studio funding for particular projects. Some of them come from other entertainment circles such as television, and others are simply outside the mainstream. The northeastern filmmakers, whose works are be mainly targeted at their northeastern area, the poorest and biggest region in Thailand, do well in this group. Many northeastern people migrate to find work, which helps expand the audiences for this group of films. These movies are distributed straight to the northeastern region without a nationwide release, but some of them gain so much attention they are screened in the major cities of Bangkok. The Thai Ban The Series sequels are good examples. The sequel 2 and sequel 2.2 took 1.57 million euros and 3.30 million euros respectively, coming in at number 10 and number 6 in the box office chart. Only 30 to 40 per cent of the gross came from Bangkok.
The third group is the arthouse independents, who take investment from diverse sources like television producers, the Ministry of Culture, and from festival funds like those provided by the International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR). In 2018, a number of these movies travelled the world before domestic exhibition. It started with Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Samui Song – a film about the life of an actress who is forced by her rich foreigner husband to devote her life to his cult leader. A stranger offers to help her by killing her husband, and this results in a strange relationship between the actress and the murderer. Ratanaruang goes independent by this movie, receiving foreign fund and co-production. But, with due to a complicated plot and subpar storytelling, it became his poorest box-office performer and least prestigious performance.
Ratanaruang’s compatriot in the advertising industry Wisit Sasanatieng also directed a section in the political omnibus film Ten Years Thailand, together with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Aditya Assarat, and Chulayarnnon Siriphol. Following Hong Kong’s s portrayal of politics in Ten Years, the four-part Ten Years Thailand speculates about the political situation of Thailand a decade from now. Assarat’s Sunset highlights governmental control of the country by exploring a one-day incident in a gallery exhibition – a military leader, his naive driver, the maid and her niece, signify the hopeless situation of the of the country.
In Sasanatieng’s Catopia, a last man still stands in a dystopia where only cat people survive.
Siriphol’s Planetarium depicts a dictatorial school where all the students are brought under control by the female head of the Ministry of Education. Weerasethakul’s Song of the City tells of the daily lives of people around a park in his home town of Khon Kaen, where a statue to former dictators is being constructed.
The New Thai Cinema of a decade ago has at least helped to build up quality audiences who need more than cheaply produced movies, and this has helped the industry move forward. Despite a recent decline, there were many good films among the bad ones the last year.
1. Nakee 2 The Movie
€11,930,000
2. Brother of the Year
€6,993,000
3. Bikeman
€4,059,000
4. Homestay
€3,676,000
5. Khun Pan 2
€3,598,000
6. Thai Ban The Series 2.2
€3,293,000
7. The Legend of Muay Thai: 9 Satra
€3,174,000
8. Oh My Ghost 6
€1,908,000
9. The Last Heroes
€1,872,000
10. Thai Ban The Series 2
€1,573,000
Anchalee Chaiworaporn