I had the pleasure of going out with some friends to see a Thai movie in a cinema theatre last evening and thought I’d share my thoughts about the experience. This particular cinema was hundreds of miles away from Nang Khai in both location and plushness as it was in the largely tourist resort area known as Pattaya in a multi-story shopping precinct named Central Mall. After a lovely hot-pot dinner at a restaurant known as MK and a quick bout of Guitar Hero and Street Fighter 4 we ascended upstairs to the cinema itself.
We purchased tickets to the film Yam Yosothon 2 and decided to waste half an hour by going on a 4D-cinema experience which was pretty awesome by anyone’s standards (The haunted mine film if you ever get to try it). Grabbed some popcorn and a large cola and entered the hall proper.
Before the film began everyone stood up and gave respect to the King by watching a really heart-moving short showing all the different people of Thailand going about their business over the ages with the occasional footage of the King involving himself with every aspect of local life. I really should have done my homework because I was left astounded and humbled by just how breathtakingly loved this man is by all the people of Thailand from every generation for doing such great works. I’d go to the cinema again just to see this short ( and feel the love from the Thai audience) alone.
The film set off after a funny warning about turning off your mobile phone from the Happy network. It was in Thai and didn’t have subtitles but I think the gist of it was Pandas are cute and deadly so turn off your phone! Yam Yosothon 2 started up and within seconds I was howling with laughter. I hadn’t seen a Thai comedy before and didn’t realise the humour could be so accessible. Petchtai “Mum Jokmok” Wongkamlao directs this hilarious hit as well as starring as the main role of Yam. It seems that the first Yam film sees two young lovers get together against comical exploits of their own and this movie is about them being older with children of their own and the pressures of dealing with that whilst maintaining respect in the community. It is set in the rural Issan town of Yosothon and really brings a lot of the culture from Issan across on the silver screen. The differences in language from Bangkok to Issan is used as canon fodder for a few jokes but thankfully the excellent subtitles translated this into English well and still retained comedy.
The film itself was a cultural experience. Some of the jokes may not find their way into a family film from Hollywood and some of the content may leave a farang like me scratching my head trying to see its relevance. But the goods well outweighed the unknowns and I’d highly recommend seeing it to anyone who just needs a little bit of cheering up.
The trailer (No subtitles sorry) is below
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