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| Landing a one-two elbow blow that's hard enough to leave blood in your stool, yet sentimentally sweet and nostalgic enough to bring tears to your eyes, Muay Thai Chaiya was a winner as the closing film of the Bangkok International Film Festival. The solo directorial debut of Kongkiat Khomsiri, who wrote the screenplay for Wisit Sasanatieng's The Unseeable and co-directed Art of the Devil II, Muay Thai Chaiya is set in 1970s Thailand, and follows the exploits of three friends from southern Thailand as they come to Bangkok and then take divergent paths in the gritty world of Thai boxing. [...] "It's like a 'Thai Goodfellas'," one member of the audience said in a Q&A session after the screening. There's even some rousing rock music (I heard a snippet of Hendrix) playing, with plenty of jump cuts between killings. And with the boxing scenes, it's more Raging Bull than Rocky, and I also couldn't help but think about the Shaw Brothers' Duel of Fists, directed by Chang Cheh and starring Ti Lung and David Chiang as long-lost brothers, involved in the muay Thai underworld in Bangkok. Muay Thai Chaiya even has a heaping helping of heroic bloodshed, just like in a Chang Cheh film. There's a big bloody showdown, with Piak hacking his way into the boxing stadium using two-handed Thai swords, and facing off against a Bruce Lee look-alike who even pulls out a pair of nunchuks to try and show who's the big boss. Along the way, there is plenty of heart and physical soul poured out. The lead actors trained extensively in Thai boxing (the film is co-sponsored by Fairtex gym), and a lot of effort was put into making the fights appear authentic. There are boxing dramas and there are boxing dramas; Muay Thai Chaiya is a Thai boxing drama, through and through. The film has atmosphere, too, with a feel for 1970s Bangkok achieved through such details as old Pepsi signs adorning the front of the boxing stadium, and some old boxing posters in the office of the boxing promoter. It helps that Wisit Sasanatieng served as art director for the film; he has such an eye for detail, as shown in his own films, Tears of the Black Tiger, Citizen Dog and The Unseeable. |
