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Showing 1-8 of 8 results
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Of Naga and political dissidents
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/09/2021
» The Naga is real but the murder is not. Or is it vice versa? What history chooses to remember and relegate to oblivion, what it enshrines as story and what it buries as hearsay, is how the narrative of a nation is forged in a mould of clay or a furnace of fire. Or in this particular case, in disembowelled bodies stuffed with concrete blocks. The murder is real but the Naga is not. This sounds more like it.
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Horror film does double duty as social satire
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/04/2017
» Hot on the trail of the Oscar-winning Moonlight and half-a-century after Katherine Hepburn gasped at her daughter's black fiancée in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, here comes Get Out, a "social thriller" about a black man trapped in a white horror. These weird white folk voted for President Obama -- they keep repeating that to assure themselves and others -- but their exaggerated civility is more creepy and menacing than ever in Trump-ruled America.
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A patriotic romp
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/01/2017
» Smooth, slick and unabashedly patriotic, Korean spy thriller The Age Of Shadows has cooked up a winning formula. It's the 1920s, the oppressive Japanese army rules over Korea while a band of stylishly dressed resistance fighters lurk in the shadows, rattling the colonial sabre. The Japanese -- a villain du jour given that this week at the cinemas we also see Jackie Chan fighting them in World War II-set Railroad Tigers -- are punishing and manipulative, meanwhile the Koreans are clever and heroic (and fashionable). There will be a final explosion so huge the cinema shakes, and you know who'll get blown to bits.
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The non-Hollywood contenders
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/12/2016
» Thailand has submitted the monk drama Arpatti to compete with 84 other countries in the Oscar race for best foreign-language film. Here we look at some highlights from around the world before the nominations are announced on Jan 24.
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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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A crack in the foundation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/06/2014
» The idea that, in horror films, you can smuggle poor storytelling under the cloak of the night is silly, unless you are Dario Argento or Andrzej Zulawski (or recently, Under The Skin’s Jonathan Glazer). More nails are driven into the coffin when that darkened mood, that low-key lighting of the long night, those contrivances for sultry spook, don’t pay off with a few good scares. People go to the movies for three reasons, said The Exorcist director William Friedkin — “to laugh, to cry or to be frightened”. Without those, I add reluctantly, a cinema is a cemetery not worth visiting.
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As the storms rage, try anger management
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/09/2012
» The world was so full of rage in the past week that I felt exhausted and small. The Chinese were so mad at the Japanese. The 47% "victims" according to Mitt Romney's strange world view, were enraged by Mitt Romney. The red shirts were infuriated by the Truth Commission's report. The pro-army camp was infuriated by the Truth Commission's report. Motorists were furious at the cold-hearted downpours, and the sky was so furious at everybody that it kept spitting water. Isn't hell supposed to be some sort of fire and not liquid - hot and not chilly?
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Silence, please!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/03/2012
» Silence has now joined the Bengal tiger on the list of endangered species.
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