Thailand Voice

The Thai psychological horror Who Are You ( Krai … Nai Hong ) and the military boot-camp comedy Kongphan Kruekkruen Tor Tahan Kuekkuk ( Jolly Rangers ), topped the Thai box office at the end of February, handily outperforming two Oscar-nominated movies that opened the same weekend… Read full story >>>

Thai music and entertainment conglomerate RS Public Company Limited has relaunched its film business with a new subsidiary called Film R Us. Instead of having producers “in house”, the company will release projects from “outside producers”, but the main focus… Read full story >>>

Findings from Paris-based web intelligence firm Semiocast has shown Japanese and Malay to be the most prominent Asian languages used to communicate on Twitter. The research ranks English top (representing 50% of all messages) while Portuguese and Spanish also feature near… Read full story >>>

Newley has the details here…. Read full story >>>

CNN: Visionary leader or venal despot: Opinions vary, like the color of the shirts his supporters and detractors wear. If you sport red, you think Thaksin was the only prime minister to offer the rural poor a voice and real benefits; if you… Read full story >>>

Directed by Chartchai Ketknust, Manus Worrasingha, Tanwarin Sukkhapisit and Poj Arnon Starring Mai Charoenpura, Akara Amarttayakul, Supaksorn Chaimongkol, Sattawat Sethakorn Released in Thai cinemas on January 28, 2010; rated 18+ Wise Kwai’s rating: 4/5 There is an exploitive Grindhouse feel to the portmanteau horror… Read full story >>>

The Sak Yant, Monkey design known as Ling Lom means ‘Air Monkey’ or ‘Dancing Monkey’ and is also sometimes called ‘Hanuman Boxing’. Ling Lom has an interesting story behind it and one that is still slightly controversial. Read full story >>>

The Nation in an editorial: Thailand is either very smart or the silliest country in the world for allowing the international community, especially human rights organisations, to scrutinise its human rights record. In past weeks, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Read full story >>>

Producer-director Poj Arnon gets in on the horror omnibus trend with Die a Violent Death ( Tai Hong , ตายโหง ), which weaves together four stories that are ripped from today’s headlines of the Thai mass-circulation dailies — the newspapers that generally have bleeding … Read full story >>>

Not terribly surprising but Denmark spanked Thailand 3-0 in the last round of the highly ‘coveted’ King’s Cup, while Poland (or some time of people playing as Poland while the first team was probably busy elsewhere) knocked off Singapore 6-1. As a result, Denmark finished top with three wins, Poland second with… Read full story >>>

When I checked for information on the district names in Chiang Mai which are present in the geocode list, but do not exist (yet), one result was that I became alert on the forthcoming creation of Galyani Vadhana district . But actually this was not the only thing I found, the second was a… Read full story >>>

Hardly a day goes by when I don’t discover something more about Jack Reynolds, Bangkok’s ‘grand old man of letters’ and author of the novel, “A Woman of Bangkok”, whose life I’ve been researching. Yesterday I posted in my story below some more pictures… Read full story >>>

My very first post on this blog reported the death of Phrakru Udom, the abbot of Wat Phra Lao Thepnimit, Phana, Amnat Charoen Province. He was someone I had known off and on for 40 years, mostly off for the first 30 but we met frequently in the last 10 years. I recorded … Read full story >>>

Don’t we all just love Cockroaches. Just to remind you what endearing creatures they are, we have included some cockroach pictures together with a few cockroach facts. In Thailand cockroaches seem to be everywhere, in the markets, restaurants and in our homes. The very sight of a cockroach fills us with horror… Read full story >>>

An urgent email reached people today that tomorrow, the local authority, probably with permission from the Thai government will order Usata and Nong Bua Christian Karen refugees, who are ow residing in temporary shelters in Tak. to be deported. According to Cross Border News Agency, the refugees did not Read full story >>>

Sometimes, some explanantions just defy all rationale as the PRD reports: The Royal Thai Air Force has passed a procurement request for new F16 jets worth 23 billion Baht to the Defense Ministry to be proposed to the Cabinet tomorrow.Air Force… Read full story >>>

The official website has been updated with a teaser for the thriller Secret Sunday ( 9 Wat , 9 วัด ), which stars a newly blond “Noon” Siriphun Wattanajinda and James Mackie. Directed by Saranyoo Jiralak and produced by the Oriental Eyes company… Read full story >>>

CnnGo Bangkok is celebrating Halloween. They got somebody to list the “5 baddest Thai movie villains of all time” . I don’t know how comprehensive that list is, or even how villainous the characters on it are. There are probably worse villains in Thai films I haven’t … Read full story >>>

I was at Chatuchak Weekend Market a couple of weeks ago and saw these guys doing some sort of training before they gave a demonstration. The canine unit of the local police department.  Cool though, and the dogs were very obedient and Read full story >>>

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v680/MeMock/1-4.jpg[/IMG] http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v680/MeMock/1-4.jpg Read full story >>>

One day after some of his Pheau Thai Party’s MPs said Thaksin Shinawatra was coming to Phnom Penh to celebrate Loy Krathong with Cambodian PM Hun Sen, the ex-premier wrote in his Twitter account: “Loy Kratong in Cambodia? No.I am not going. I will stay on here (in Dubai). Besides, people… Read full story >>>

The article Administrative reforms and national intergration: The case of the northeast by Paitoon Mikusol (ไพฑูรย์ มีกุศล) (in: Regions and national integration in Thailand, 1892-1992 ) gives an interesting view on the two different styles of administration in the mueang before around 1900 and the changes during the thesaphiban reforms. In … Read full story >>>

With the end of the calendar year fast approaching, Thailand’s studios are in a rush to get their completed films into this year’s books. And with Halloween coming up, what better time than to release two blood-soaked thrillers — Slice from Five Star Production and Maha’lai Sayong Kwan (… Read full story >>>

Gay people in Burma are resisting homophobia and marginalisation through the creative use of new communication codes. In doing so, they are making a significant contribution to linguistic diversity in Burma and raising the visibility of their community in important… Read full story >>>

I think nearly every person in the world likes some genre of music. Music is a means of escape for many of us, and also it is like a global language. How many times have you been to a country and cannot speak the local language, but … Read full story >>>

Nymph , Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s look at a marriage that falls apart when the couple goes camping in the woods and the husband leaves his cheating wife for a mysterious tree, has played twice already at the Toronto International Film Festival . It was… Read full story >>>

Time for the next blog promised during the Martins trip here a few weeks ago. My wife’s village is a tiny little place in one of the most remote places in Thailand, extremely close to where the Thai, Cambodian and Laos borders intersect. I … Read full story >>>

Blogged last month about a couple of articles ( here and here ) that Marc Askew had written for the Bangkok Post . Now, he has another article, this time on the Democrats and their policy particularly on SBPAC. Key excerpts: Almost nine months after assuming leadership of the country’s coalition government in December 2008, the… Read full story >>>

Another highly anticipated film from Five Star Production and Muay Thai Chaiya director Kongkiat Komesiri is the bloody crime thriller Slice . Co-scripted by Wisit Sasanatieng, it’s the story of a convicted hitman named Tai ( “Pe” Arak Amornsupasiri ) who is sprung from prison and tasked by the police with… Read full story >>>

A teaser trailer for Sahamongkol’s long-in-the-works female action vehicle Vanquisher ( Suay … Samurai , สวย … ซามูไร ) has appeared online , with the requisite amount of cleavage and tight catsuits, plus explosions, wire-fu kicks and swords. The trailer is embedded below. Directed by Manop Udomdej and … Read full story >>>