Thailand Voice

This week sees the celebration for the start of the traditional Thai new year. From the 13th-15th April, Thai people will be dressing up in new clothes and visiting the local temple to make merit and to their grandparents in order to receive…

Khan Kluay was a smash hit Thai cartoon when it was first released in Thailand in May 2006. It was the first Thai cartoon made at international standard and did very well in the domestic market. The little blue elephant, called Khan Kluay, was very popular with Thai children of all ages. I know…

When I first came to Thailand fifteen years ago there wasn’t really that much in the way of English media. All we had at the time were two national newspapers in English and a few programmes on television if we tuned in to …

Over recent years, Thai movies have been performing well in both Asia and around the world such as Europe and America. This is probably mainly due to the popularity of Thai movies such as Ong Bak and Suriyothai. At some of our websites in the Paknam Web Network we started …

Respect for the Law (Click here for part one) From the age of just two and half months, toddler Tui can enjoy the thrills and sprills of being sat on his father’s motorbike and admire the awesome way his father manages…

Battling ghosts seem to be a theme this year. Within a month of each other, two theater companies in Bangkok are staging musicals based on the popular Mae Nak Phra Khanong ghost story. First off the blocks is Mae Nak Phra Khanong: The Musical , which… Read full story >>>

I have a couple of things to say about comments on this blog. First, a few readers have e-mailed me saying they made comments on the blog, but their comments never appeared. It thought it was pretty odd, because I hadn’t seen their comments in my moderation queue, and I do… Read full story >>>

The third monthly Week of Siam film series starts on Thursday at House cinema on Royal City Avenue with ” A Tribute to Chatrichalerm Yukol “, celebrating the early career and social-realism films of MC Chatrichalerm . Two will have English subtitles, 1990’s Song of Chao Phya ( Nong Mia )… Read full story >>>

The current issue of Total Film magazine features an unordered list titled The 67 Most Influential Films Ever Made, as follows: Jaws 2001: A Space Odyssey Night Of The Living Dead The Man With The Golden Arm All Quiet On The Western Front Nanook Of The North The Abyss Enter The Dragon Blood Feast … Read full story >>>

The third entry in Mono Film’s teen-sex franchise, The Gig 3 ( เดอะ กิ๊ก 3 ) has gone straight to video . I was tipped off to this two weeks ago by Kconsciousness and I didn’t believe it at first. Then I … Read full story >>>

You want me to do what? “Gybzy” Wanida Termthanaporn and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang are featured in a series of photos in yesterday’s “In Pictures” feature from Cannes on the BBC website . The shots are by Agence France-Presse’s Francois Guillot, and they all aren’t … Read full story >>>

It’s a massacre At least until Lars von Triers’ Antichrist screened later on Sunday, Filipino director Brillante Mendoza’s Kinatay looked to be one of the most heavily criticized films at Cannes. After the Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert trashed Kinatay , Jay Weissberg from Variety piled… Read full story >>>

Two recent Muay Thai action films, Krissanapong Rachata’s Power Kids and Thanakorn Pongsuwan’s Fireball have slipped across the border. Bangkok Film Studio’s Fireball opened in Singapore and Malaysia over the weekend. Now Thanakorn was a little miffed with me last year when I … Read full story >>>

It’s a mostly lonely and mighty unforgiving world I’ve found myself living in here, being one of the few bloggers who regularly writes in English about Thai cinema. So when new folks come on the scene, I want to be welcoming. Here’s a few new blogs worth reading: Bangkok1080.asia — … Read full story >>>

A year has passed since Thai 101 last looked at the significant offerings of older Thai films on DVD. For part 2 of Rikker’s Thai Movie Roundup, he looks at the Memory Collection from GMM Grammy . For this DVD series, Grammy is mining the… Read full story >>>

The Thai-Taiwanese supernatural psychological horror thriller The Fatality is out on DVD in Taiwan. Which means it has English subtitles in addition to the soundtrack that’s in Mandarin and Thai. It’s available at YesAsia . Directed by Tiwa Moeithaisong, The Fatality ( Tok Tra Phee was released in Thailand in January… Read full story >>>

With all the bad press that Thailand has been receiving of late from the political shenanigans of the protesters and the amount of damage this has done the country, Thailand was probably hoping that the worst was behind them in bad press. The Commerce Ministry declared it would… Read full story >>>

With all the bad press that Thailand has been receiving of late from the political shenanigans of the protesters and the amount of damage this has done the country, Thailand was probably hoping that the worst was behind them in bad press. The Commerce Ministry declared it would … Read full story >>>

It’s been a year since my first DVD roundup, when I summarized the classic Thai films on offer from Triple X . I planned to follow up with the Happy Time catalog. While I still have my half-finished notes for that, it’ll have to wait its turn. Today I’m gonna… Read full story >>>

Extra Virgin, the indie production, distribution and sales marque of filmmakers Pimpaka Towira and Mai Meksawan , has unveiled its own Web domain, www.ExtraVirginCo.com , upgrading from a Wordpress blog . Most exciting of all is that Extra Virgin has followed… Read full story >>>

Singapore-based Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham was awarded the Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta’ Italina award at a function last night in the residence of the Italian Ambassador in Thailand, HE Ignazio di Pace and his wife Helen di… Read full story >>>

An ancient curse is deforming a family and the only way to stop it is to find a secret tomb hidden somewhere in Bangkok. It’s Bangkok Fable , the next project by Fireball director Thanakorn Pongsuwan. Here’s the synopsis: Anek is the last remaining descendent of the Brahmin priesthood. However, he rejected the heritage of the… Read full story >>>

Thailand “has not made sufficient progress’ in combatting various kinds of intellectual property rights (IPR) offences, said the annual report of the US Trade Representative. “The Thai Government made little progress over the past year in addressing the widespread problems of piracy … Read full story >>>

Yesterday was business as usual for the pirate-DVD dealers who do brisk trade in the streets and marketplaces across Thailand, but in observance of World Intellectual Property Day, the Thai film industry and the Motion Picture Association Asia Pacific issued their own DVD. The 20-minute promotional DVD, Creators in Action: The Thai Film Industry , … Read full story >>>

I have been lucky of late to have had some time to watch some DVD’s but unlucky enough to see what the latest offering of music artists are out and about nowadays. During the school year I don’t watch many movies, … Read full story >>>

My beautiful little niece, Nong Ja spends a lot of time with us. We have her sleep over at least three nights a week and look after her nearly every day. She is a beautiful little baby and is such an easy baby to look after. Watching her grow over the last 10 months has been entertaining; she has a really cheeky personality and has a… Read full story >>>

The wait for a DVD of Ong-Bak 2 with English subtitles is over. And it comes not from Hong Kong . But from Keris Video in Malaysia. HK Flix has it , and “all product features … have been physically verified by HKFlix staff.” A further note says: “This DVD is labeled as Region-3, but is actually all region. The English …

As the years go by, there seems to be an increasing number of children growing up in Thailand with either one or two parents who are not Thai nationals. The children who have one parent Thai and one foreign are called “luk kreung”. I guess…