Bangkok Cinema Scene special: Bangkok Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, June 10-19, 2016

Twelve films, many of them award winners, which deal with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes from 10 countries will be shown at the Quartier CineArt during the second edition of the Bangkok Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It’s organised by Attitude magazine.

With the theme “Love Wins”, the BGLFF opens next Friday with Tomcat, an Austrian drama that earned accolades at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The story of an orchestra musician and his boyfriend who live with their pet cat, Tomcat won the Berlinale’s best feature Teddy Award, a prize given by an independent jury to films with LGBT topics.

And the Teddy Award audience prize from this year’s Berlinale, Paris 05:59, is the BGLFF’s closing entry. It follows a young gay couple as they meet in a Paris bathhouse and pursue a relationship into the early morning hours.

In a move to boost the festival’s visibility, organisers have chosen a new venue, shifting from the hidden-away Esplanade Ratchadaphisek to the ritzy Quartier CineArt in the Em Quartier downtown.

“Last year was the first year for the Bangkok Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and we were really happy with the turn-out. All sorts of people came out to support us and our films,” says organiser Marut “Nume” Prasertsri, a senior writer at Attitude magazine. “This year we’re working hard to increase the visibility of the festival to non-LGBT audiences. The films we’ve picked are all quality, well-made films with a wide appeal. We’re looking forward to sharing them with a broad audience of people, not just LGBT folks.”

Along with the prize-winning opening and closing films, Marut suggests a French entry, the lesbian romance Summertime (La Belle Saison) as one film the “straights” might embrace. Set in 1971, it’s the story of a young woman from the countryside who moves to Paris and is attracted to a strong-willed older feminist, who then follows the girl back to her farm. “Non-LGBT folk will better understand what it means to grow up different and they’ll enjoy the romance scenes,” says Marut.

Several of the films in the BGLFF are from Asia, such as Japan’s A Cappella (Mubansô), which takes place during campus protests in 1969 Sendai. South Korea offers a documentary, Weekends, about a gay men’s choir in Seoul. Directed by Lee Dong-ha, it placed third in the Panorama Audience Awards at Berlinale this year.

Further Asian themes are explored in Spa Night, in which a young Korean-American man struggles to reconcile his obligations to his immigrant family with his life in the underground world of gay hookups at Korean spas in Los Angeles. Spa Night star Joe Seo won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance at Sundance.

And there’s an award-nominee from India, Loev, about a businessman who heads out of town with an old friend, leaving behind problems with his boyfriend in the city. It was up for prizes at festivals in Jeonju, South Korea, and at the Black Nights of Talliin in Estonia.

The Asean bloc is represented by Miss Bulalacao, a quirky independent comedy about a drag princess who gets pregnant following an alien abduction. He is elevated to the status of a cult leader following rumours of immaculate conception. Directed by Ara Chawdhury, Miss Bulalacao won the festival prize at Manila’s Cinema One Originals Digital Film Festival and best first feature from the Philippines Young Critics Circle.

Latin American flavor comes in two entries, From Afar, from Venezuela and Four Moons from Mexico. Winner of the top-prize Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year, From Afar is about a 50-year-old man who pays for the companionship of young men. A meeting with the teenage leader of a street gang changes their lives forever. Four Moons, which won prizes in Montreal, Monterrey and Barcelona, has four stories of gay desire, love and self-acceptance.

And there are high-profile offerings from the U.S. and Canada, with Nasty Baby, which has Chilean actor-director Sebastian Silva working with Tunde Adebimpe in a story about a gay couple trying to have a baby with the help of a surrogate mum, played by former Saturday Night Live star Kristen Wiig. They have a violent run-in with a thug (Reg E. Cathey from The Wire).

And Closet Monster won the best Canadian feature film award and other prizes at the Toronto festival last year. Directed by Stephen Dunn, it’s the dramatic coming-of-age story of a high-school teen who dreams of being a special-effects makeup artist and finds new inspiration.

The Bangkok Gay and Lesbian Film Festival runs from June 10 to 19 at the Quartier CineArt at the EmQuartier mall. Films will have English and Thai subtitles. For more details, check www.Facebook.com/BGLFF or Attitudethai.com/s/bglff

(Cross-published in The Nation)

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening April 6-12, 2016

Luang Phee Jazz 4G

Today's Chakri Memorial Day public holiday kicks off anticipatory celebrations of next week's Songkran Thai New Year, which is a three-day public holiday from next Wednesday to Friday. So, this week and next, the movies are being released a day or two early in hopes that the idled government workers, corporate staffers and bank employees will want to spend their time out of the office paying to see new movies.

The big Thai tentpole is the Songkran-flavored Luang Phee Jazz 4G (หลวงพี่แจ๊ส 4G, a.k.a. Joking Jazz 4G). It's about a bespectacled, gauge-eared, tattooed hipster with a checkered past who is hiding out as a monk at an isolated mountaintop temple. He's played by hipster comedian Phadung “Jazz Chuanchuen” Songsang. He and his temple-boy friends have an adventure as they are sent to Bangkok on a mission during Songkran.

Directed by Poj Arnon, Luang Pee Jazz 4G is the first release under the prolific producer-director's rebooted Film Guru production marque, which has been relaunched in a new partnership with Major Cineplex, the Kingdom's biggest movie-theater chain.

Poj and Film Guru were formerly associated with Phranakorn Film, a film studio owned by the Thana Cineplex chain of upcountry cinemas. Phranakorn released a string of hit country comedies in the early 2000s, including the original Luang Phee (Holy Man) movie in 2005.

Originated by comedian, actor and director Note Chernyim, the first Luang Phee Teng starred ubiquitous comedian and TV host Pongsak "Theng Terdterng" Pongsuwan as a former street hood who has entered the monkhood and ministers to colorful residents in a provincial town. Other Luang Phee Teng installments followed in 2008 and 2010, with rapper Joey Boy and actor-musician Krissada Sukosol Clapp taking respective turns as the saffron-clad lead character. As each movie stands alone, with different characters in the lead, they aren't really sequels but are part of a franchise all the same.

The Nation has more on this latest Luang Phee movie, which is the fourth in the series. Rated 15+

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Also opening

The Huntsman: Winter’s War – Universal Pictures is borrowing more than a couple pages from Disney as it attempts to spin its 2012 live-action Snow White and the Huntsman film into an epic franchise. A bit like Frozen, though likely not near as much fun, this new picture is the tale of cold sister royals in a wintry realm. Charlize Theron returns as the Evil Queen Ravenna, who is joined by her sister, the Ice Queen Freya, played by Emily Blunt. They ban love from the land and are cruel. So it's up to one of the Evil Queen's former soldiers, the huntsman Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and his comrade-in-arms (and secret lover) Sara (Jessica Chastain) to fight back. In addition to conventional 2D, it's in converted 3D, including IMAX. Critical reception is mostly negative. Rated 13+

The Himalayas – This fact-based adventure story recounts the bond between famed South Korean mountaineer Um Hong-kil and plucky younger climbers, culminating in the risky scaling of Everest by the senior climber, who comes out of retirement for a very meaningful ascent. Critical reception has been mixed, but it beat Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the South Korean box office. It's in Korean with English and Thai subtitles at the True Screen X at the Quartier CineArt. That's the panoramic 270-degree cinema in the ritzy EmQuartier mall. Rated G

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, Robert Redford is a young CIA analyst in over his head in 3 Days of the Condor. Tomorrow, it's Bruce Lee's The Way of the Dragon, which has him in Rome, helping a relative defeat Italian mobsters. A fur-covered Chuck Norris is a featured fighter. On Friday, it's Static, an early feature-film effort by Mark Romanek, the innovative director of many classic music videos. Saturday has dystopian time-travelling by Bruce Willis in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys while Sunday is Akira Kurosawa's mystery thriller Rashomon. Please take note of the Club's new policy on smoking, which snuffs the butts from 7.15 until the movie is over. If you've visited before and were bothered by the smoke but didn't say anything except to vote with your feet, maybe give the place another chance. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Alliance Française – I now have a belated clarification on the programming changes at the Alliance, which last Friday began weekly screenings of French films with Thai subtitles. That's in addition to the usual Wednesday screenings of French films with English subs as well as a "kid's movie" on one Saturday each month. This week, owing to Chakri Day, there is no English-subbed screening. Friday has Rengaine (Hold Back), about the taboo romance between a black Christian man and an Arab Muslim woman in Paris. It's at 7pm. Again, it will screen in French with Thai subtitles. Also, there is now a cost for these movies – 100 baht for non-members, 50 baht for members and Alliance students. Take note that there will be no films at the Alliance next week, because of the Songkran public holiday. The films resume on April 20 and April 22.

German Film Series – In East Germany in 1989, as the Berlin Wall is set to come crumbling down, a little girl wants to build a machine to bring home her uncle who escaped to the West. Meanwhile, an East German police officer tries to keep order. It's Sputnik, part of the German Film Series put on monthly by the Goethe-Institut. The show is at 1pm on Sunday at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and at 6pm on Tuesday in the little FA Cinematheque on the second floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Center (not the fifth floor auditorium). For details, check the Goethe website.

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Take note

As mentioned at the top of this week's post, the movies are being released a day or two earlier during the Songkran holiday period. Usually, new movies are released on Thursdays.

Next week, there will be program changes on Tuesday, Thai New Year's Eve, with the much-anticipated Stephen Chow comedy The Mermaid. and sneak previews for the Emma Watson Chilean coup drama Colonia. More new releases are set to follow next Wednesday on the actual Songkran Day with the Thai horror Take Me Home, Disney's live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book and the Terrence Malick head-scratcher Knight of Cups. So see you next Tuesday.

Looking past Songkran, the FCCT will have a one-two punch of screenings in its Contemporary World Film Series, with Deepa Mehta's Earth on April 19 and the Pakistani drama Dukhtar (Daughter) on April 25.

And there will be a second edition of the Asean Film Festival, organized by the Culture Ministry, which is keen to promote Bangkok the hub of Southeast Asian art and culture. According to a source, this year's fest runs from April 21 to 26 at SF World, with plans is to show classic films from neighboring countries, including the serpentine fantasy romance Pous Keng Kang from Cambodia, 1954's After the Curfew from Indonesia and Lino Brocka's Manila in the Claws of Light from 1975. I hope to have more on that soon.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening December 10-16, 2015

Sway

Three dysfunctional relationships rock back and forth between Asians in three cities in Sway, the debut feature by Thai-American writer-director Rooth Tang.

The drama was put together over the course of several years by Rooth, who graduated in film studies from the University of California, Irvine, and has taken part in industry initiatives, such as HBO's Project Greenlight.

For what would become his first feature, Rooth began with Bangkok scenes that were shot in 2010 with Thai stars Ananda Everingham and Sajee Apiwong. He's a well-travelled dreamer who seduces a Bangkok office worker, who then gets pregnant, but she is afraid to say anything.

In Los Angeles, the Caucasian-American second wife (Kris Wood-Bell) of a widowed Japanese-American businessman (Kazuhiko Nishimura) is having insecurity issues, along with problems with her husband's teenage daughter.

And in Paris, a drifter Chinese-American translator (Matt Wu) ponders his next move while renewing a relationship with his girlfriend (Lu Huang), a former Hong Kong TV star who is struggling to make it as a serious journalist. Meanwhile, the young man's parents are on the verge of divorce, giving him doubts about the future of his own relationship.

Sway made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and has also screened in Taipei's Golden Horse fest, last year's Singapore International and this year's Shanghai fest.

Critical reception has been fair so far, and I've got my own review.

It's in limited release at Esplanade Ratchada, House, Major Cineplex Ratchayothin and SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Rated 18+

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Also opening

Point Break – Kathryn Bigelow's cult-classic 1991 action drama is remade for the new extreme-sport generation, with Luke Bracy in Keanu Reeves' role as FBI agent Johnny Utah, who goes undercover in a gang of thrill-seeking surfers who are committing a series of high-stakes heists. Edgar Ramirez steps into Patrick Swayze's role as the philosophical Bodhi. Kurt Wimmer (Ultraviolet, Equilibrium) provides the script, which delves more into the spirituality, mythology and motivations of Bodhi and his gang. And Ericson Core, helming his second feature after the fight flick Invincible, pulls double duty in the director's chair and behind the lens. Critical reception is just starting to form. Rated 15+

Veteran – Here's a slickly made police drama from South Korea, in which a lone maverick detective goes after a corrupt young business executive. It's the same cop story that's been told many cop times, but is still "crackerjack entertainment", according to Film Business Asia. It has Thai and English subtitles at select Major Cineplex branches.

The Nightmare – Billed as a "documentary-horror", The Nightmare deals with the supposed phenomenon of "sleep paralysis", a condition in which sufferers are fully conscious and aware of their surroundings but are unable to move. The additionally suffer from disturbing visions of ghosts or demons. Or so the stories say. Critical reception has been generally positive. Rated 15+

The New Adventures of Aladdin – Two friends take jobs as Santas in a bid to rob a department store but then become storytellers for children. They take a page from "One Thousand and One Nights" and then become characters from those stories as they head off on an adventure. Starring comedian Kev Adams, it's a mainstream French comedy and looks quite a bit like mainstream Thai TV comedies. The Hollywood Reporter sums up "make a wish you don't see it".Seems it is Thai-dubbed only.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Another favorite movie of Woody Allen's, François Truffaut's childhood drama The 400 Blows, screens tonight. Tomorrow, there's more youthful drama in Larry Clark's edgy Ken Park. Saturday's restored classic is 1969's The Color of Pomegrantes, which was dusted off in observance of the 100th anniversary of Armenian genocide in Turkey. And on Sunday, Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan spread Christmas cheer in The Shop Around the Corner. Next Wednesday, it's one of my favorite movies, Michael Winterbottom's entertaining and endlessly quotable 24 Hour Party People, covering the rise and fall of music impresario Tony Wilson, Factory Records and the Manchester music scene. Steve Coogan's character explains: "I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more." Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

German Open Air Cinema – Three struggling Berlin artists decide to collaborate on a project sponsored by a biotech company and they become the next step in human evolution in the science-fiction comedy-drama Art Girls. The show is at 7.30pm on Tuesday, December 15, outdoors at the Goethe-Institut on Sathorn Soi 1.

Alliance Française – There are two free French movies to list this week. On Saturday, there's a holiday-themed 2pm matinee for families and children, Santa's Apprentice. And then the usual weekday screening is My Sweet Pepper Land, a 2013 drama about a Kurdish war hero police officer who takes a job in a remote, lawless town near the Turkish border. There, he forms a bond with another newcomer to the territory, a female schoolteacher. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, December 16, at the Alliance.

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Take note

There is a new-ish film-focused nightlife establishment in Bangkok – Cinema Winehouse on Samsen Road in the Khao San backpacker neighborhood. They screen double features from 7.30 nightly. This month's schedule is devoted to Christmas films. I don't get to that part of the city too frequently, so I haven't been there myself and can't vouch for the place, but others have mentioned it so I thought I would too.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening October 15-21, 2015

White God

Stray dogs unite and revolt against their human overlords in White God, an unusual thriller from Hungary that won prizes at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

The story centers on a girl (Zsófia Psotta), who is forced to give up her pet dog after she moves in with her mean father, who lives in an apartment building that doesn't allow pets. He also doesn't want to pay the city's "mongrel" tax. So, the lovable mutt Hagen is abandoned, only to become the leader of a pack of 250 half-breed canines that take over Budapest.

Directed by Kornél Mundruczó, White God won the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. The film also took the Cannes fest's sidebar Palm Dog prize, and was Hungary's submission to the Academy Awards. No dogs were harmed in the making of the film, which involved no computer-graphic trickery. All those dogs are real.

White God is the second film brought in by the new indie distribution outfit HAL Film, which recently released another buzzworthy title at Cannes in 2014, The Tribe. The man behind HAL is Dhan Plewtianyingtawee, the owner of a film school who wanted more Thais to see the kinds of weird and wacky films he likes. You can read a story about him in BK magazine.

Critical reception is mostly positive. It's in Hungarian with English and Thai subtitles at House on RCA as well as Esplanade Ratchada, Major Cineplex Ratchayothin and Paragon. Rated 18+

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Also opening

The Walk – From I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Back to the Future, Roger Rabbit to Forrest Gump, and Polar Express to Flight, everything director Robert Zemeckis has learned how to do in the past has been put into The Walk, which viscerally recreates the death-defying stunt by Frenchman Philippe Petit, who walked a high wire strung up between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York in 1974. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars. Critical reception is wildly positive. This moves to general release after a one-week sneak preview run. I saw it last weekend, and it's an amazing feat of filmmaking that will have you gripping your armrests throughout. Go on, see it in IMAX 3D. Rated G.

Crimson Peak – In 19th century England, a young author (Mia Wasikowska) is charmed by a nobleman (Tom Hiddleston) and moves into his isolated country manor, high up on a hillside of red clay. There, she starts to learn the ghostly secrets of the crumbling mansion. Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam and Jim Beaver also star. Much anticipated by fans, this Gothic horror fantasy is the latest effort from Mexican master Guillermo del Toro (Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth). He actually built a three-story house on a movie lot to give his actors and viewers a palpable sense of the film's grand scale. Critical reception is building up. Rated 18+

Good Kill – Ethan Hawke is your surrogate as you sit in the pilot's seat in America's controversial drone war. In Good Kill, he's a former U.S. Air Force fighter jockey who transitions to unmanned aerial operations, guiding drones in bombing missions over Afghanistan from a base in Las Vegas. January Jones and Zoe Kravitz also star. Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War) directs. Critical reception is leaning to positive. Rated 15+

The Intern – Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro are a mismatched couple in this romantic comedy. She's the young founder of a lucrative online fashion business that joins a new internship programme for senior citizens, bringing a bright 70-year-old widower (De Niro) into her life. Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, It's Complicated) directs. Critical reception is mixed. Rated G

The Down (เดอะดาวน์) – Five twentysomething Thais who just happen to have Down syndrome are spotlighted in this documentary, which aims to show people with Down syndrome in a positive light, living ordinary lives and contributing to society. The five are Sutthiphot "Bank" Kanoknak, who works at a Uniqlo store, Kamonporn "Pan" Vachiramon, an AIS customer service staffer, twin Special Olympics bocce-ball champs Onnipa "Orm" and Atiya "Un" Kanjanasiri, and Starbucks employee Sirinluck "Beer" Chalat. The film is a passion project of producer-director Wongthanong Chainarongsingha, founder of A Day magazine. You can find out more about the movie in an article in The Nation. It is showing at Major Cineplex and SF cinemas. Rated G

Detective Conan: Sunflowers of Inferno – The latest adventure of Japanese manga and anime's boy detective has him on the trail of a fake Van Gogh "Sunflower" painting. Thai-dubbed. Rated 13+

Pyaar ka Punchnama 2 – Kartik Aaryan, Nushrat Bharucha, Sunny Singh, Sonalli Sehgall, Omkar Kapoor and Ishita Sharma star in this sequel to a 2009 Bollywood romantic comedy. Having all met their true loves at the beach in the first film, here the guys are still learning to cope with their demanding girlfriends. Luv Ranjan directs. It's in Hindi with English subtitles (sorry, no Thai) at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Fresh from its run at House on RCA, the South Korean-Thai romantic comedy So Very Very (จริงๆ มากๆ, Jing Jing Mak Mak) comes to the club tonight for the first of two special screenings. Tonight, director Jack Park will be on hand to talk about his film, which follows a struggling young South Korean filmmaker as he falls in love with a Thai woman and marries her. To attend, check out the Facebook events page. So Very Very also screens at the club next Thursday. Tomorrow, it's La Gloire de mon père (My Father's Glory), a 1990 drama set in the pre-war French countryside that is adapted from the autobiographical novel of Marcel Pagnol. Saturday's Irish film is The Field, a 1990 drama by Jim Sheridan with Oscar nominee Richard Harris as an elderly sharecropper in a dispute over his rented farmland. And Sunday has another fitful collaboration between the great Bette Davis and director Robert Aldrich in Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Next Wednesday is another documentary, the food flick Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Bangkok – The club's Contemporary World Film Series heads to Switzerland next Monday with Sam, a 2015 drama about a boy whose parents are divorced, who goes to live temporarily with his alcoholic father. The show is at 7pm on Monday, October 19. Admission is 150 baht for non-members. Swiss wine and cheese is being laid on by the Swiss embassy, and it's 100 baht to have some of that.

Alliance Française – Couples fall in and out of love over the course of visits to the countryside in Week-ends (Weekends in Normandy), a 2014 comedy-drama by Anne Villacèque that stars Karin Viard, Noémie Lvovsky, Jacques Gamblin and Ulrich Tukur. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, October 21, at the Alliance.

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Take note

You have another chance to see the charming Thai indie film P'Chai My Hero (พี่ชาย My Hero) this week as it is released back into cinemas for a limited run. Also known as How to Win at Checkers (Every Time), the coming-of-age drama is experiencing an "Oscar bump" as the result of being picked as Thailand's submission to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Feature. With plenty of warmth and humor, it deals with many issues, including gay themes and Thailand's unique military draft lottery. It's at Major Cineplex Ratchayothin and Esplanade Ratchada.

There's also a Thai film you won't be seeing this week, the Buddhist-themed thriller Arbat, which was to be released but has been banned at the behest of Buddhist groups.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening September 10-16, 2015

Gerontophilia

Attendees of the now-defunct Bangkok International Film Festival in 2008 might remember a weird movie called Otto: Or Up with Dead People, an offbeat musical comedy about a gay zombie that featured explicit sex scenes.

And as far as I recall, that's the last time a Bruce LaBruce movie played publicly in Bangkok, until now. This week brings a light-hearted 2013 effort from Canada's taboo-challenging cult director, the romantic comedy Gerontophilia, which covers the sexual awakening of a young man (Pier-Gabriel Lajoie) as he discovers he has a fetish for elderly men. To nurture his new obsession, he takes a job in a nursing home and develops a special bond with one of the patients.

The film has been brought in by the new indie distribution shingle Doo Nang Took Wan, run by Ken Thapanan Wichitrattakarn, a public-relations professional who got into the movie business a few months ago when he single-handedly brought the Brazilian coming-of-age gay drama The Way He Looks to Bangkok.

Critical reception has been mixed. It's at the Lido. Rated 18+

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Also opening

No Escape – Owen Wilson, not content to wait by the phone for his buddy Wes Anderson to call, stars as a water engineer who has moved with his family to an anonymous, strife-torn Southeast Asian country. There, wherever that is, a rebellion breaks out and the family become targets as anti-foreigner sentiments boil over. Lake Bell and Pierce Brosnan also star. There have been at least a couple controversies over this production, which had the working title of The Coup when it was being made in northern Thailand a year or so ago. One was when Wilson posed for a photo with whistle-blowing anti-government protesters. There was also a fuss over the signage in the film, which in a desperate move by the country's film minders to strip any Thai identity out of the picture, so as to not harm tourism, was written in Khmer and turned upside down. That has led to No Escape being banned in the newly emerging cinema market of Cambodia, amid rumors that it would be banned in Thailand as well. No such luck. Critical reception has been mixed. It's by the writer-director pair of John Erick and Drew Dowdle, who previously did the found-footage thrillers Quarantine and As Above, So Below. Rated 15+

SPL 2: A Time for Consequences – Thai martial-arts star Tony Jaa makes his much-anticipated debut in a Hong Kong action film. He's a tough Thai cop who has taken a job as a prison guard while he tries to raise money to pay for his sick daughter's treatment. On the job, he's assigned to watch over a prisoner (Wu Jing) who is actually a Hong Kong police officer who has gone way undercover in a relentless bid to bring down the head of a human-trafficking ring. Louis Koo and Simon Yam also star. Cheang Pou-soi (Dog Bite Dog, Motorway) directs. This is a sequel-in-name-only to the terrific 2005 Hong Kong crime thriller SPL: Sha Po Leng, which had Donnie Yen throwing down with the formidable Sammo Hung. Wu Jing was in that one too, but played a different character. A box-office success in China, critical reception for SPL 2 has been fairly positive – much better than for Jaa's English-language debut Skin Trade, which I actually kinda liked. SPL 2 is Thai-dubbed only with English subtitles. Rated 18+

The Assassin – Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien returns with his first movie in eight years, and his very first wuxia martial-arts drama. It's set during the olden days of the Tang Dynasty. Shu Qi stars as a young woman who returns to the village where she was born, and sent away from as child. Training since then as an assassin, she is out to redeem herself after botching a previous job. But this one isn't going to be easy, as her new target is the man she had been arranged to marry. Chang Chen also stars. After making a buzzworthy premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the best director prize, critical reception has been generally positive. It's in Mandarin with English and Thai subtitles at Apex, House, Major Ratchayothin, Major Rama III, Paragon, Quartier CineArt and SFW CentralWorld. Rated 15+

Assassination – Not to be confused with China's The Assassin, this South Korean period drama deals with a ragtag team of resistance fighters under Japanese occupation in the 1930s. Lifting a page from The Dirty Dozen, they are condemned criminals who have been let out of prison with top-secret orders to kill the Japanese army’s commander. Critical reception has been favorable. It's in Korean with English and Thai subtitles at Esplanade Ratchada, Major Ratchayothin, Paragon and Quartier CineArt. Rated 18+

Self/less – A terminally ill elderly billionaire buys a chance for eternal life through an underground experimental medical procedure that transfers his consciousness into the cadaver of a younger man. He's played by Ryan Reynolds. Tarsem Singh, slumming it since the hyperstylishness of The Cell, directs. Critical reception has been mostly negative. Rated 15+

The Shamer’s Daughter – There's swords and sorcery in this adaptation of a best-selling Danish young-adult fantasy novel by Lene Kaaberbol. It's about a supernaturally gifted young woman who has to uncover the truth when her realm's heir to the throne is wrongfully accused of killing his family. Seems it is Thai-dubbed only. Rated 15+

Cub – Kids are in peril in this Belgian import about Cub Scouts camping in the woods becoming prey for a local poacher and his feral son. It's at SF cinemas only, and according to the soundtrack information I've been given, it's in Flemish and French with English and Thai subtitles.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, a mathematician becomes increasingly paranoid and obsessed as he tries to find meaning in a mysterious numerical sequence in Pi, the debut feature of Darren Aronofsky. And tomorrow it's the directorial debut of Robert Redford, 1980's Academy Award-winning Ordinary People. And another classic shows on Saturday, Terrence Malick's debut Badlands. It's still his best film. Sunday has a special screening of the 1997 comedy As Good As It Gets, with a member of the assistant director team, Robert Neft, sharing behind-the-scenes stories of working with director James L. Brooks, star Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear. And next Wednesday is Android, a low-budget 1982 robot drama that B-movie producer Roger Corman passed on. It went on to be a critically acclaimed sleeper hit. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Behind the Painting – Time to get out of the cinema and into the art gallery, as the interesting and talented video artist and filmmaker Chulayarnnon Siriphol offers his interpretation of the classic Thai story Behind the Painting. Set in Japan, the tragic romance involves a young Thai student who has been employed by an elderly Japanese man to look after his young blue-blooded Thai wife. Written in 1937 by popular author Sri Burapha, the novel has been adapted for film, television and stage many times, including a 2001 film version that was the last feature by the revered Thai auteur Cherd Songsri. In an homage to Cherd, his film is woven into the fabric of Chulayarnnon's entertaining experimental work, which has him hilariously portraying both the young man and, in the grand tradition of theatrical cross-dressing, the young woman. I've actually seen this, in a Film Virus retrospective last year, and I told Chulayarnnon afterward that I don't feel I need to see any other version. Definitely worth a look. It was created last year during Chulayarnnon's participation in the artist-in-residence program at the Aomori Contemporary Art Center in Japan. Organized by the Japan Foundation and curated by the Aomori center's Hiroyuki Hattori, Behind the Painting is at the Silpakorn University Art Center, opening tomorrow night (invitation only) and running until October 10. Directions to the gallery are available online.

Alliance Française – There are two French film to list this week. First up is a family friendly animated feature at 2pm on Saturday, 2012's Moon Man, in which the Man in the Moon grows bored and goes sightseeing across the universe. Meanwhile, none of the children on Earth can fall asleep because the Moon Man is missing. And next Wednesday's usual screening is 2013's Un château en Italie (A Castle in Italy), written, directed by and starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. The semi-autobiographical yarn has a woman re-energized by love in her life. Meanwhile, her wealthy industrialist family is crumbling around her. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, September 16, at the Alliance.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening September 3-9, 2015

Freelance

Having honed his craft making award-winning short films and independent features and writing commercial screenplays, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit makes his much-hyped mainstream studio debut with Freelance Ham Puay Ham Phak Ham Rak More (ฟรีแลนซ์.. ห้ามป่วย ห้ามพัก ห้ามรักหมอ, a.k.a. Heart Attack).

A romantic comedy, it's about a stressed-out graphic designer who comes down with a skin rash and falls in love with the attractive female doctor who's treating him. The story, written by Nawapol, is loosely based on his own experiences as a struggling, stressed-out "freelance" filmmaker.

Freelance follows his much-acclaimed indie features, the low-budget experimental romance 36, the more-ambitious and more-overtly quirky Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy and the pirate-video documentary The Master.

Released by GTH, Thailand's most-successful movie studio, everything about Freelance is calculated to fill the multiplexes.

By his lonesome, Nawapol proved to be a one-man publicity juggernaut, putting buns in seats for his indie efforts solely through posts on Twitter and Facebook. Now he has the might of GTH's marketing machine behind him – the same machine that cranked out the box-office record breaker Pee Mak in 2013 and last year's No. 1 movie I Fine Thank You Love You.

Further interest in Freelance is guaranteed by the film's bankable stars, leading man Sunny Suwanmethanon from I Fine and Davika Hoorne from Pee Mak
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Of course it also helps that Nawapol has actually been part of the GTH family for several years, having had a hand in the screenplay to the 2009 box-office smash Bangkok Traffic Love Story and writing 2011's entertaining young entrepreneur biopic Top Secret.

You can read more about Freelance in an article in The Nation. Owing to Nawapol's indie roots, Freelance is being screened at the indie theaters, Scala/Lido and House, which is unusual because those theaters rarely host first-run mainstream Thai commercial films. Rated 13+

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Also opening

The Transporter Refueled – French producer Luc Besson reboots his automotive action franchise, with newcomer actor-musician Ed Skrein (Game of Thrones) suiting up for the role made famous by Jason Statham. It's the same set-up as always – he's an excellent driver with a mysterious past who takes delivery jobs for criminals while adhering to a strict set of rules. This time around, he tangles with a trio of female assassins (Loan Chabanol, Gabriella Wright, Tatiana Pajkovic) who kidnap his father (Ray Stevenson). It's directed by Camille Delamarre, who previously was film editor on Transporter 3 and Taken 2 and made his feature directorial debut with Brick Mansions, the Paul Walker vehicle that was a remake of the Besson-produced action flick Banlieue 13. Critical reception is just getting revved up. Rated 15+

So Very Very (จริงๆ มากๆ, Jing Jing Mak Mak) – In this indie South Korean romantic comedy, aspiring filmmaker Sung-hoon (Oh Chang-kyung) falls for a Thai lady named Pan (Cho Ha-young), and the two get married and set out to have a happy life in South Korea. Instead, their relationship is like a Korean soap opera, as Pan soon wearies of struggling with a husband who can only land minor jobs in TV and films, so she decides to return to Thailand. Directed by Park Jae-wook, it's in Korean with Thai (and English!) subtitles at House on RCA. Rated 15+

Welcome Back – This sequel to the 2007 Bollywood action-comedy Welcome has the characters played by Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor and Paresh Rawal putting their criminal pasts behind them as they have become big businessmen. Conflict and hijinks ensue as everyone is under pressure to get married and start families. John Abraham and Shruti Haasan join the cast for this new song-and-dance romp. Anees Bazmee (Singh is Kinng) directs. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit and Rama III. Opens Friday.

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The Friese-Greene Club – Horror-meister Wes Craven, who died on August 30 at the age of 76, is paid tribute this month, with a slate of some of his best-known films on Tuesdays. Next week is his 1984 classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street, which introduced the very scary steel-clawed dream invader Freddy Krueger to the world, and features an early appearance by Johnny Depp. Other features this month are "not the usual sci-fi" on Wednesdays, first features on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and the films of Douglas Sirk on Sundays. Tonight, it's indie American director Noah Baumbach's 1995 debut Kicking and Screaming (not to be confused with the Will Ferrell soccer comedy). Steven Spielberg's white-knuckle 1971 debut Duel, starring Dennis Weaver and a Peterbilt truck, screens tomorrow. And Alejandro González Iñárritu's eye-popping first feature, Amores Perros, is on Saturday. Even after last year's astonishing Birdman, it's still his best film. Jane Wyman and a raw young Rock Hudson star in Sirk's 1954 romantic drama Magnificent Obsession on Sunday. And next Wednesday's offbeat sci-fi offering is Shane Carruth's low-budget Sundance smash Primer. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Cinema Diverse: Director's Choice – Thai director Banjong Pisanthanakun (Pee Mak, Hello Stranger, Shutter) will screen one of his favorite films at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center on Saturday. It's The Chaser, a terrific crime thriller from 2008 that was the feature debut by South Korean director Na Hong-jin. He'll be in attendance for a talk about his film with Banjong afterward. Registration opens at 4.30pm, with the screening at 5.30 in the BACC's fifth-floor auditorium.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – The FCCT's Contemporary World Film Series spins on, with the Embassy of Belgium bringing the beer and cheese on Monday night for a 7pm screening of Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit), the latest drama by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Marion Cotillard, an Oscar nominee for her role, portrays a woman in a fight for her job. Admission is 150 baht for non-members, plus 100 baht for anyone wanting the suds and snacks. Also next week at the FCCT is a documentary and panel talk, Thirty Years On: The Killing of Neil Davis and Bill Latch, which recalls the 1985 attempted coup by the "Young Turks", which was bloodily put down by government forces, resulting in 59 injuries and five deaths, including the two journalists. Reservations are required for this event, which is on the failed coup's anniversary, 7pm next Wednesday, September 9. Admission is 350 baht for non-members plus 350 baht for anyone wanting the buffet (hence the need to RSVP). Also this month is a screening of the gripping high-seas adventure, Norway's Kon-Tiki on September 28.

Alliance Française – A novice actor and a veteran director form an unlikely friendship during a film shoot in Maestro, a 2014 comedy-drama directed and co-written by Léa Fazer. Pio Marmaï and Michael Lonsdale star. Inspired by a real-life encounter by the late young actor Jocelyn Quivrin and French New Wave director Eric Rohmer, it screens at 7pm on Wednesday, September 2, at the Alliance.

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Take note

Thai film studios and distributors have largely cleared the decks this week to make way for the big tentpole release of Freelance, because nobody wants to go up against a GTH film. Go see it at House or Lido and support your local independent cinemas.

Next week, there will be more than a half-dozen new films, among them the made-in-Thailand action drama No Escape, which has been torn to bits by critics.

There's also Thai martial-arts star Tony Jaa's well-received Hong Kong action debut SPL 2: A Time for Consequences, and a big title from this year's Cannes Film Festival, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin. I'm holding out slim hopes that both the Chinese-language films will have at least one place playing the original soundtrack with English subs.

And an interesting release next week will be Gerontophilia, a weird new film by the taboo-challenging cult director Bruce LaBruce. Set for the Lido, it's being brought in by the new indie distribution shingle Doo Nang Took Wan, run by Ken Thapanan Wichitrattakarn, who single-handedly brought the Brazilian coming-of-age gay drama The Way He Looks to Bangkok a few months back.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening July 23-29, 2015

Red Wine in the Dark Night

Along with How to Win at Checkers (Every Time), released here last week, and next month's release of The Blue Hour, fans of Thai queer arthouse cinema have been anticipating Red Wine in the Dark Night, the latest from talented writer-director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, who previously surveyed transgender culture in the award-winning It Gets Better (ไม่ได้ขอให้มารั, Mai Dai Kor Hai Ma Rak).

Following the successful string of indie gay romances that have been getting limited releases in Bangkok cinemas, Khuen Nan Red Wine in the Dark Night (คืนนั้น Red Wine in the Dark Night), is getting a wide release from Thanadbuntueng Production, Artfo Production and Tanwarin's own Am Fine Production.

There's an intriguing vampire vibe with the plot about an innocent soul named Wine (Pongsatorn "Fluke" Sripinta from My Bromance) who encounters a blood-sucking amnesiac he names Night. He's played by Steven Isarapong Fuller, who previously appeared in Tanwarin's mainstream ghost romance Threesome.

Other stars include Krittachapon Thananara, (It Gets Better, Hug Na Sarakham, Teacher and Student), Nontapat Intarasuan (Feel Good) and Sutthinat Uengtrakul (Love’s Coming).

"I would like to make this film simply to remind all of us that love can really make us blind. Love is definitely a beautiful thing, on the other side, love creates obsession and makes us do whatever it takes to make a person love us and be with us as long as possible.  I believe love requires lots of thoughts to make it really work," says Tanwarin in a director's statement issued ahead the movie's release.

Rated 18+

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Also opening

Southpaw – Movie-awards season is months away, but already Jake Gyllenhaal is getting Oscar buzz for his transformative performance in this boxing drama. He's a former champ who loses everything – his title, his wife and daughter, his suburban home, his manager, etc. It seems hopeless until he meets a retired boxer (Forest Whitaker) who agrees to become his trainer and support his comeback bid. It's directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Olympus Has Fallen) and written by Kurt Sutter, best known for his work on the gritty TV series The Shield and Sons of Anarchy. Rachel McAdams and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson also star. Most of the attention on Southpaw is focused on Gyllenhaal being practically unrecognizable after he bulked up for the role and trained for months as a boxer, following his dramatic weight loss for the very creepy Nightcrawler. But apart from that, Southpaw appears to be very much in the realm of standard Hollywood boxing pictures, and critical reception is only evenly mixed. Rated 13+

Ted 2 – Writer-director Seth MacFarlane again voices a foul-mouthed teddy bear in this sequel to the 2012 broad-comedy hit about a guy (Mark Wahlberg) who is "thunder buddies" with his magically transformed stuffed animal. In this sequel, Ted has gotten married to a (human) co-worker (Jessica Barth) and the two want to have children. When sperm-donation plans go comically awry, the two plan to adopt, but the state says parents need to be human and they rule Ted is not a person but property. So a recently graduated law student (Amanda Seyfried) is recruited to take on what becomes a major civil-rights case. Critical reception is evenly mixed. Rated 18+

Poltergeist – Tobe Hooper's classic 1982 thriller about family who move into a home built on an old cemetery that is haunted by evil spirits still holds up. But Hollywood is a relentless machine that must remake and ruin everything to keep the gears greased. And so it goes. But hey, at least the talented actor Sam Rockwell is getting a paycheck, so maybe he'll do something better next. The only difference between this and the original is the family now has a flat-screen TV. There's also some special-effects and scares ramped up to appeal to the current generation of fans of movies like Saw and The Conjuring. Yuck. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to the negative side. Rated 13+

Latitude 6 (ละติจูดที่ 6) – Restive southern Thailand is the backdrop for this propaganda film by the Internal Security Operations Command and UCI Media. A romantic drama, its aim is to "promote better understanding". There are various stories of cultural and religious conflict, mainly having to do with actor-musician Peter Corp Dyrendal, who portrays a Bangkok banker assigned to Pattani. There, he is charmed by the laid-back southern lifestyle. He falls for a young Muslim woman and hopes to prove he is worthy to the girl's strict father. Though the Army means well (and doesn't it always?), the film's release is poorly timed, with the motorcycle-enthusiast actor embroiled in social-media-fueled controversies over affairs and failures to turn up to work on TV shows. Rated G

Mon Love Sib Muen (มนต์เลิฟสิบหมื่น) – Just like Hollywood, the mainstream Thai movie industry isn't terribly inventive, and when one studio has a big box-office hit, the others follow it with something that looks similar, in hopes it will also catch on. The latest attempt is a reworking of the 1970 classic Monrak Luk Thung, which starred the legendary screen duo of Mitr Chaibancha and Petchara Chaowarat, and was a massive hit in its day, remaining in theaters for something like six months. There were (and still are) tons of other rural Thai musical romantic comedy-dramas, but none caught on like Monrak Luk Thung. Pariphan “Toh Phantamitr” Vachiranon, a member of the Phantamitr film-dubbing team, directs this new version, which is tarted up with CGI kickboxing roosters and hipster comedians. Chaiyapol Julien Poupart (Threesome, Jan Dara, The Scar) stars as a country boy who is hopelessly in love with a local lass, but can't marry her until he raises a lavish dowry. Rated 15+

Empire of Lust – This historical epic from South Korea is set sometime during the early Joseon Dynasty, and involves a prince who has been passed over as heir to the throne. Meanwhile, a battlefield hero falls for a courtesan who has a hidden agenda. Fans seem to think this one's okay. Rated 15+

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The Friese-Greene Club – The club is having a private event tonight, but is back open tomorrow with another "precocious girl", this time Mischa Barton in the terrific Lawn Dogs, in which a 10-year-old girl from a gated community goes against the wishes of her social-climbing parents and befriends the local yokel who mows lawns in the neighborhood. Hey, it's Sam Rockwell, who can be seen cashing a paycheck in the Poltergeist remake. Saturday has the original "bad kid" movie, 1956's The Bad Seed, in which a perfect pig-tailed little girl seems to be a murderer. Sunday's "imaginary friend" movie is The Machinist, which had Christian Bale dropping half his body weight to portray an industrial worker who is losing his mind over his inability to sleep. Next Wednesday is one more Canadian comedy, the Academy Award-winning hit teen pregnancy comedy Juno. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – With the earthquakes in Nepal on the minds of the region's newshounds, the FCCT hosts a screening on Monday of Kathmandu, a Mirror in the Sky (Katmandú, un espejo en el cielo), a fact-based 2011 Spanish drama about an idealistic young schoolteacher who volunteers in Kathmandu and devotes herself to helping the street kids. She faces difficulties due to cultural and caste differences, bureaucracy and corruption. The film is based on the life of Victoria Subirana, founder of the EduQual Foundation, who will fly to Bangkok to appear at the screening and talk after the movie. The show is at 7pm on Monday, July 27. Admission for non-members is 150 baht plus 100 baht for anyone wanting the tapas and wine laid on by the Spanish embassy.

Alliance Française – Suzanne, the second feature from director Katell Quillévéré, chronicles the life and affairs of a young woman, who becomes a teen mother and then later courts trouble when she falls for a gangster. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, July 29, at the Alliance.

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Take note

Apologies for omitting word last week of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre's Cinema Diverse: Director's Choice series, which had Concrete Clouds director and well-known film editor Lee Chatametikool screening Filipino director Raya Martin's How to Disappear Completely and then discussing it last Saturday. Although I had noted it here a couple of weeks ago, last week I had the dates confused in my mind. But there's no excuse. I have been terrible about keeping up with the BACC's movie events, and I'll try to do better. If anybody involved with the series is reading this and can assist in "promoting better understanding", please give a shout.