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steve-rosse
Reviews
Kawao tee Bangpleng (1994)
Sad end to a wonderful career
MR Kukrit Pramoj, who "wrote" the novel on which this movie is based, was one of the truly noble figures of modern Thai history. It was a terrible shame that at the end of his life this movie was made, and not until its release did anybody notice that MR Kukrit had stolen the whole plot from the classic s.f. novel "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham. The Wyndham book had already been made into a movie called "The Village of the Damned," and it is just amazing that the Thai film makers who spent years of their lives and millions of dollars in the production of "Cuckoos" never came across the English novel or movie. It was hoped that this would be the first Thai movie released internationally, but of course once it was publicized that the movie was in violation of international copyright laws, these hopes were dashed. The movie did not do well in Thailand, and journalists had a field day digging up others of MR Kukrit's many books that were obviously "lifted" from Western sources. It is truly sad that this event was the last chapter to a wonderful, colorful, brilliant career.
Anna and the King (1999)
Beautiful, but dumb, dumb, dumb.
Kudos to the costumers, and to the scenic artists who recreated Bangkok's palaces in Malaysia. But shame, shame, shame on the writers and producers for spending so much money on a stupid fiction and wooden acting. The reason they had to work in Malaysia is one reason this movie fails: the story is so outlandishly false that even viewers not familiar with Thailand's unique history cannot willingly suspend their disbelief long enough to enjoy the movie. The Thai people have been for generations so enraged by the lies Anna told in her memoirs that the previous two films and the stage play cannot be produced or shown in the Kingdom, and they did not allow the producers of this most recent film to shoot a single frame in Thailand. But again, even if you don't know that the real Anna had been the mistress of a travelling preacher at the age of 14, had no teaching experience before she lied her way into the Royal household, and was the widow not of a heroic soldier but of a private who was cashiered out of the Army for drunkenness and ended up an innkeeper in Penang, would you really believe that this King who has dozens of wives, platoons of children, and a Kingdom to keep out of the hands of the greedy British, French, and Dutch empires is going to fall in love with an employee? He's got his choice of any woman in Southeast Asia, but he's gonna go all googly over a middle-aged white woman, an EMPLOYEE, with a kid and a burden of Christian hang-ups?. (She actually had two kids, but her books, the plays, and the movies have all ignored the daughter.) And then this king, who spent half his life as a Buddhist monk, is going to face down an entire army alone on horseback with a charoot clenched in his teeth like John Wayne in "Rio Bravo"? Come on. King Mongkut was an amazing man, head and shoulders above his European monarchical peers. All Western treatments of his life so far do him disservice. In an aside, someone should make a film about Louis Leonowens and King Chulalongkorn, the boy king who succeeded King Mongkut. They were friends throughout their lives; Louis became incredibly wealthy dealing in teak and ivory; had a harem of his own; and saved the Kingdom by putting down the Makkassar revolt, becoming the first Westerner to ever receive a military commission and medal from the hands of a Siamese king. And he was a second cousin to the actor Boris Karloff! (Anna and Karloff shared a common Indian grandmother. That's why Anna couldn't marry an officer in India, she wasn't considered "pure" English.) Good stuff there, Hollywood. You listening?