The movie posters, showing the two handsome actors, and some of the other reviews led me to want to watch this film, but I was very disappointed by it.
I should preface my comments by remarking that I have never visited Thailand, and also that I was relying on English subtitles that had been written by someone who clearly had an imperfect command of the English language--and so it's conceivable to me that were I able to understand the ORIGINAL dialogue, perhaps my impression of the film would be a little better.
However, one with cultivated WESTERN tastes, will, I think, find, as I did, that this movie is all very forced sentimentality with little to redeem it in the way of mood, atmosphere or other beauties. I once heard sentimentality defined as "unearned emotion," and I think that sums up perfectly what I find wrong with the film.
I thought that the initial plot had been set up for me a little too swiftly, that all the characters were in their particular situations with insufficient development--"this one is a killer, that one is a crook, this one is sick and dying," etc. Contrast this, for example, with Brokeback Mountain, a film with a similar theme of the deep love that develops between two young men, and how carefully we are led to begin knowing and caring for what brought these two youths together.
From this rather simplistic, almost juvenile, beginning, the story seems to start loading thick sentimentality on with a trowel, and the piles of it begin to get overwhelming, until, as we near the 3/4 mark, I found myself looking at my watch and calculating how much more of this silliness I must endure--by that time I had given up on the film taking a turn for the better. I rarely find myself laughing with scorn at a story, and I always do my best to let a storyteller tell me his tale in his own way, but in THIS film, each new element introduced to wrestle pity from me just made me react by rolling my eyes and saying, "oh, THAT too, eh?" Perhaps this sort of heavy-handed sentiment is more appealing to the Thai audience for which the film was made, and maybe what strikes me as "unearned emotion" fills a Thai viewer with LEGITIMATE emotion, but I think you'll find the film as disappointing as I did. In fact, by the end of it, I was feeling a mild distaste for nearly every character and the film's ultimately sordid story.
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Another reviewer asked about the title. In Thai, the title is: "PHUEAN--ku rak mueng wa!" which, in gruff, familiar, male language, means "BUDDY: I love you, man!" roughly. The first word, PHUEAN, is the word you see on the title, that looks a bit like a mirror image of "J" followed by "WOu."
I should preface my comments by remarking that I have never visited Thailand, and also that I was relying on English subtitles that had been written by someone who clearly had an imperfect command of the English language--and so it's conceivable to me that were I able to understand the ORIGINAL dialogue, perhaps my impression of the film would be a little better.
However, one with cultivated WESTERN tastes, will, I think, find, as I did, that this movie is all very forced sentimentality with little to redeem it in the way of mood, atmosphere or other beauties. I once heard sentimentality defined as "unearned emotion," and I think that sums up perfectly what I find wrong with the film.
I thought that the initial plot had been set up for me a little too swiftly, that all the characters were in their particular situations with insufficient development--"this one is a killer, that one is a crook, this one is sick and dying," etc. Contrast this, for example, with Brokeback Mountain, a film with a similar theme of the deep love that develops between two young men, and how carefully we are led to begin knowing and caring for what brought these two youths together.
From this rather simplistic, almost juvenile, beginning, the story seems to start loading thick sentimentality on with a trowel, and the piles of it begin to get overwhelming, until, as we near the 3/4 mark, I found myself looking at my watch and calculating how much more of this silliness I must endure--by that time I had given up on the film taking a turn for the better. I rarely find myself laughing with scorn at a story, and I always do my best to let a storyteller tell me his tale in his own way, but in THIS film, each new element introduced to wrestle pity from me just made me react by rolling my eyes and saying, "oh, THAT too, eh?" Perhaps this sort of heavy-handed sentiment is more appealing to the Thai audience for which the film was made, and maybe what strikes me as "unearned emotion" fills a Thai viewer with LEGITIMATE emotion, but I think you'll find the film as disappointing as I did. In fact, by the end of it, I was feeling a mild distaste for nearly every character and the film's ultimately sordid story.
=================================
Another reviewer asked about the title. In Thai, the title is: "PHUEAN--ku rak mueng wa!" which, in gruff, familiar, male language, means "BUDDY: I love you, man!" roughly. The first word, PHUEAN, is the word you see on the title, that looks a bit like a mirror image of "J" followed by "WOu."
