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Ta Wi Pop

Posted by Stuart at 01:14 PM on February 28, 2004

We celebrated the end of exams last night with my first Thai movie in a long time. I don't know why I don't go to many movies in Thailand. I don't see many American films, let alone seeing the Thai ones. But it seems like Thai cinema is starting to become recognized around the world, at least this article from the Hindustan Times seems to think so.

As the article mentions, there are two Thai movies that are out now that look good. One is called Overture and is about classical Thai music. The other, which I saw last night, is called Ta Wi Pop. (The English title is The Siam Renaissance.)

The movie follows the lead female character as she time-travels back and forth between present-day and turn-of-the-last-century Bangkok. Time-travel flicks are often quite cheesy and unbelievable, but this one was somewhat interesting. It was an interesting time in Thailand's history at least, as Kings Rama IV and V tried to protect Siam's independence from the aggressively colonizing England and France.

Of course the movie covered the issue of "If you can travel back in time, should you try to change history?" The lead character did at one point and the result was (of course) disasterous with England and France splitting Thailand right down the middle and France building the Eiffel Tower on the west bank of the Bangkok's Chao Praya River.

All in all, it was an "OK" movie. The time-travel concept has been done many times before, so that aspect wasn't all that interesting. But, as with most historical movies coming out of Thailand these days (for example, Suriyothai) the re-creation of Thailand's "golden ages" on the big screen was quite beautiful and inspiring.