Showing 1-10 of 33 results
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For a ghost of a chance, use your talisman
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/10/2016
» On Wednesday Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha talked for 135 minutes at the Bangkok Post Forum, more than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Monday combined. And this isn't even an election campaign. A good soldier, he's unfazed by the presence of enemies and microphone. From the podium, arms outstretched, the PM touched on a lot of topics: Thai education, the economy, Section 44, Thailand as a "developed" country, the 20-year prophecy, etc. But what struck me like a hammer was when the general mentioned ghosts.
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Lessons from the hitmaker
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/11/2015
» Surprise, shock and awe greeted the news that GTH, Thailand's most commercially successful movie studio, will close shop at the end of the year.
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In search of the next hit
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/06/2015
» A string of box-office failures, an absence of hits, an onslaught of Hollywood blockbusters, an economic slump, the vacillating, unpredictable taste of audiences — all of this has plunged the Thai film industry into a gloom in the first half of 2015. Home-grown cinema can barely compete with the American juggernauts, but the past six months have been particularly wounding. Usually, Thai films take around 25% of the ticket sales, with Hollywood gobbling up the rest (the total box office value was around 4.5 billion in last year). This year, so far, local movies took a paltry 10%, according to industry analysts.
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The big picture: prizes vs popularity
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/03/2015
» When Birdman won Best Picture at the Academy Awards last week, a New York Times headline read: "Oscars show growing gap between moviegoers and Academy", referring to the fact that a small, semi-art-house film that wasn't seen by many people received the industry's highest honour. The article goes on to quote film historian Philip Hallman, who says "most people have to finally accept that the Oscars have become elitist and not in step with anything that is actually popular".
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2023 ROUNDUP A vintage year for Thai cinema?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/12/2023
» There were cheers of jubilation and gasps of disbelief as Thai cinema found itself awash with excitement in 2023. This has been the most successful year for mainstream Thai movies in a decade, a box-office triumph far exceeding all expectations. To many, the 2023 coup de theatre calls for celebration. "We are back!" cried optimistic pundits. But also: "Really? Is it just a one-time cinema party and can we keep the ball rolling?"
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A tale of two films
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/12/2014
» Two Thai films are playing in the cinemas, and their fates couldn't be more different. The mega-hit I Fine, Thank You, Love You is lighting up the till and on its way to becoming the year's top-grosser at a projected 250 million baht (if it hits that mark, it will join the pantheon of the country's all-time top-three hits, surpassing each of the King Naresuan films and behind only Suriyothai and Phi Mak Phra Khanong).
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That's entertainment!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/12/2014
» The year in Thai movies, music and theatre
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Force-fed film belongs deep in dark vaults
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/12/2014
» Strange things have happened at the cinemas. First, Hitler showed up in a Thai short film sponsored by the government (meaning by taxpayers), the radioactive gatecrasher into a party of virtuous citizens. Second, another Thai film featuring, among other things, a joke about the anal cleft — it's funny as long as it's not your anal cleft — is raking in a huge amount of money at the multiplexes, likely surpassing the 100-million-baht mark as you're reading this, which is after just four days of release. Cinema enlightens, even in the dark forest of swastikas and bodily bergschrunds.
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It's alive!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/12/2021
» Doomsayers will have to hold out a little longer. Cinema -- as in people sitting in the dark taking in a communal experience of audiovisual sensations -- is still breathing, moving, enlightening.
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Fierce and pitiful
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/03/2019
» Krasue is a Thai ghost beside whom vampires -- and other blood-lusting Western monsters -- pale in comparison. Basically a detached head of a woman floating around in the dark, lit up by a phosphorescent glow from her still-beating heart, and with her bloody entrails dangling below the head like an infested creeper, krasue feeds on, naturally, filth, blood, corpses and carcasses. Sometimes it's compared, for the sake of convenience, with Gothic-era will-o'-the-wisp or jack-o'-lantern. But seriously, please, that is a gross under-characterisation that discounts the supreme grotesqueness of krasue, born by the pulpy fantasy of our equatorial folklorists.
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