Showing 1 - 3 of 3
Life, love, liberation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/09/2017
» In the sole Thai film showing at Toronto International Film Festival this week, a soap opera star stuck in a loveless marriage tangles with an eccentric hitman and a powerful cult. Samui Song is the latest feature film by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang, who's fashioned a crime thriller that also plays as a critique of many things: patriarchal oppression, faux-Buddhism, public healthcare and the act of cinema-making itself.
Anger must not give way to bloodlust
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/07/2014
» The strangest thing I saw online this week was someone calling for a Buddhist theocracy — in Thailand. For Buddha’s sake, that’s rich. I thought Buddhist fundamentalism is a fad confined to certain parts of Myanmar and Sri Lanka. The benevolent lotus has been plucked from the serene pond and cast into the fires of rage and vengeance. Ta tor ta, funn tor funn — an eye for an eye — that’s the message of the week. If someone slaps you on one cheek, don’t offer him the other: you cut off his head in the town square and hold it up as the blood-lusting crowd cheers.
Film tackles reputed miscarriage of justice
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/10/2013
» One evening in July 1997, Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong left their home on Cebu Island in the Philippines and never returned.