One of the best of the year: A Frozen Flower heats up Pattaya Beach!
Pattaya movies beginning Thursday, July 9, 2009
… through Wednesday, July 15
by Thomas Ohlson
Best Bets: A Frozen Flower. The International. Nymph.
Here is the 99th edition of my weekly compilations of movie times and comments for Pattaya! And the 12th online edition!
Unlike my Chiang Mai website (http://thomatfilms.blogspot.com), I am not going to attempt to keep the Pattaya movie times up to date. Times will generally be given once a week, on Thursdays. After that, you will need to use the links for the websites of the theaters, or call using the phone numbers given. (But it's probably best to just go look – and even then, I suggest you be prepared for disappointment and frustration!) You can use this website as a fairly accurate guide as to what’s playing, but only a rough guide as to the times after Thursday.
Here are my comments on the movies playing as of Thursday, July 9, at Pattaya Major Cineplex (at Villa Supermarket Center), at the SF Multiplex at Central Plaza (Big C), and at the spanking new SFX Cinema Pattaya Beach on the 6th Floor of Central Festival Pattaya Beach, the new huge and beautiful mall located between Sois 9 and 10 and running the length of the soi from Beach Road to 2nd Road.
Programs are scheduled to change next Thursday, July 16.
Now playing in Pattaya * = new this week
* A Frozen Flower / Ssang-hwa-jeom /쌍화점: Korea, Drama/ History/ Romance – 133 mins – Directed by YuHa, A Frozen Flower isa visually stunning historical movie set against the last days of Korea’s Goryeo Dynasty (late 14th Century), and deals with the long homosexual love relationshipbetween the king, played by Ju Jin Mo (in the lower half of the picture above), and his chief bodyguard, Hong Lim, played by Jo In Sung, the one with his arm around the king in the picture. These are Korea’s two top male stars. This film is, I suppose, not for everyone, as in addition to much beautiful costuming, there is a lot of uncostumed sex – and I do mean a lot of it! But although the homosexual relationship is at the heart of the film, most of the seemingly endless sex is purely heterosexual – lovingly and languidly photographed. And by my count they missed only two of the 64 commonly accepted Kama Sutra positions, including even the one in a library using military tactics texts! As far as I can see, none of this has been censored or cut in any way by our paternalistic Thai censors.
The film has been a huge hit in Korea. It’s basically a melodrama, with scenes of epic grandeur, and I found it quite exciting and a thoroughly enjoyable and intriguing movie. Excellent acting, excellent swordplay, excellent directing. My highest recommendation.
Happily, it’s being shown here at SFX Cinema Pattaya Beach with the original Korean soundtrack, and with English and Thai subtitles. That’s great! That’s the way films in a foreign language should be presented, I think. Thank you SFX Pattaya Beach!
YesAsia: One of Korea's most talked about films of 2008, A Frozen Flower goes behind the royal curtain to unveil an emotionally charged saga of love, sex, politics, and betrayal during the final days of the Goryeo Dynasty. Like The King and The Clown, A Frozen Flower tore down taboos to blockbuster reception with the depiction of homosexual love between a king and his bodyguard. But A Frozen Flower takes it many steps further on an erotic level, making headlines for its nudity and explicit sex scenes and setting a new box office record for adult-rated films. Teaming up again with A Dirty Carnival director Yu Ha for his last film before entering military service, Jo In Sung delivers the boldest performance of his career as a warrior torn between the bedchambers of the King and Queen. Ju Jin Mo (200 Pounds Beauty) won Best Actor at the 45th Baeksang Arts Awards for his magnificent turn as the King in love with his general, while Song Ji Hyo (Sex is Zero 2, Jumong) makes her big-screen breakthrough as the Queen doomed by her own sexual and romantic awakening.
Under the thumb of the Yuan Dynasty, the Goryeo King (Ju Jin Mo) is pressured to either produce an heir or name his cousin the Crown Prince. The King's true love, however, is his chief bodyguard Hong Lim (Jo In Sung), and he has never so much as touched the Queen (Song Ji Hyo). The King instead asks Hong Lim to sleep with the Queen, believing his problems to be solved as long as a son can be produced. But Hong Lim and the Queen's sexual encounter marks the beginning of a dangerous and passionate triangle of forbidden love, jealous rage, and heartbreaking betrayal.
A Frozen Flower will receive the most attention because of its homosexual angle, but the film contains very little in gay eroticism. There’s one kissing scene between the king and the bodyguard, while the film features numerous graphic sex scenes between the bodyguard and the queen. While the film does open with a prominent gay angle, the film eventually settles on the heterosexual relationship between the bodyguard and queen as the crux of its story.
DVD available with English subtitles from YesAsia.
* The Secret of Moonacre: Hungary/ UK/ France, Adventure/ Family/ Fantasy/ Romance – 103 mins – Also known as The Little White Horse and for a while called The Moon Princess. From the children’s book "Moonacre" or "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge, published in England in 1994. It’s also been a TV series, a 1994 6-part mini-series. The film comes by way of the Hungarian director and animator Gabor Csupo (pronounced "Chew-po") who gave us Bridge to Terabithia in 2007, and who has been involved in many TV animations (Rugrats, Simpsons, Casper) as both animator and producer.
After finishing her debut role in The Golden Compass at the age of 12, Dakota Blue Richards was then cast in The Secret of Moonacre at the age of 13. By the time of the premiere of The Golden Compass, The Secret of Moonacre had already been filmed, primarily in Budapest. Also stars Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced "Yo-wahn Griffith"), the British actress Natascha McElhone, and Tim Curry, the very hard-working actor who has had 179 TV and film roles since 1975’s seminal The Rocky Horror Picture Show – and several before that.
LondonTimes: A shrewd mix of live action and exotic animation by the Hungarian director Gabor Csupo. The plot springs from a large, dusty, leather-bound fairytale about a strange land far, far away. It’s the only relic the 13-year-old Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards) has inherited from her dead and dissolute father. The orphan is dispatched to live with her brooding uncle (Ioan Gruffudd) in a shabby Gothic pile cursed by an ancient feud over a handful of pearls. His nemesis, Tim Curry, stews in the woods near by. Maria has the magic to settle their dispute. Whether she will or not is another matter. Csupo gets the awkward adolescence just right, and the magic realism is frightfully English.
I am sorry to report that the film has garnered generally negative reviews: 37 out of 100.
RottenTomatoes: Despite impressive production values, this is staid, plodding, and unimpressive fantasy-fare, with poor performances struggling with an underdeveloped script. Lovely production design.
The film, directed by Patrick Alessandrin, is the sequel to the acclaimed 2004 French action film Banlieue 13 which was a notable success worldwide and is now something of a cult classic. The original film was notable for its depiction of parkour in a number of stunt sequences that were completed without the use of wires or computer generated effects and because of this some critics drew comparisons to the popular Thai film Ong-Bak. Thai dubbed only/ no English subtitles.
Wikipedia: Immediately after the events of the original film, the authorities are attempting to return law and order to ravaged District 13. However the death of gang overlord Taha Bemamud at the end of the original film has left a power vacuum, and total control of the area is now being fought over by five rival territorial gang lords who want to step into Taha's position of overlord over District 13. Damien and Leito return to District 13 on a mission to bring peace to the troubled sector before the secret services of Paris take drastic measures to solve the problem.
Variety: Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Paris suburbs, writer-producer Luc Besson lobs another Molotov cocktail at the screen with "District B13: Ultimatum." Fun and frenetic sequel to the 2004 actioner heads back to the titular ghetto/war zone, where racially charged gangs are threatened by corrupt officials, trigger-happy cops, and nonstop chaos. With enough refs to the 2005 French riots to be considered, if not political, at least timely, the pic skillfully blends combat with social messaging, in an explosive blend that should satisfy fans in Gaul and beyond. Pic opened strongly Feb. 18.
It's three years later -- 2013 -- and things haven't changed much in the locked-down sector north of Paris known as District B13. If anything, they've grown much worse: there seems to be even more garbage and guns, more massive drug distribution, and the neighborhood is now divided along strict ethnic lines ruled by black, white, Arab, and Asian warlords. So much for the urban melting pot.
When an elite squad of killer cops stages a police assassination inside the nabe, their conniving boss (Daniel Duval) hopes to convince his president (Philippe Torreton) to raze the area so they can all cash in on the real estate boom. Thankfully, local rogue Leito (David Belle) and his law-enforcing partner Damien (Cyril Raffaelli) manage to re-team and run, flip, jump, tumble, twist, swing, punch, kick and head-butt their way to saving the slum from destruction.
* Thick as Thieves / The Code: US/ Germany, Crime – 104 mins – A master thief recruits a younger crook to help him steal two famous Faberge eggs from an impenetrable vault in an effort to pull off one final job and repay his debt to the Russian mob. Supposedly set in New York City, but it’s mostly Bulgaria. With Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas.
Generally savagely poor reviews with a few which say it’s an OK time-waster. In the rest of the world this went straight to DVD. Rated R in the US for sexuality, language, and some nudity.
DVD Verdict: Once destined for a feature film release, The Code was wisely determined to be the type of dreck best written off in the direct-to-DVD market. The best word to describe this film is "flat." Mimi Leder's direction is flat, the acting is flat, the story is flat, and, most disappointingly, the heist is flat.
The Code (a flat title by the way, barely edging out the original, Thick as Thieves) is built around two things: the big heist, and a serpentine series of twists, none even approach a satisfying execution. Take the theft sequence. If you fashion yourself a heist movie, which The Code undoubtedly does, then you should know the competition is fierce. With all the Ocean's movies, The Italian Job, and Heist, if notoriety is what you're angling for, you better bring something new to the game. The theft sequence here is long and drawn out, commanding a large chunk of screen time and armed with nothing particularly interesting or clever. In fact, the only gag that jumps out is how they got the fingerprints they needed, by wrapping plastic around the handles of a Stairmaster. If that's the high point of thieving shenanigans, you should be concerned.
The tedium doesn't stop there. Following the heist, it's onto a myriad of backstabbings and betrayals, where loyalties and true motivations are revealed. The twists are dramatic, but don't really make sense, upon closer inspection (Keith Martin's identity is the prime culprit; his revelation and beaucoup missteps are laughable in their contrivance).
This might have been disappointing, if any of the actors cared in the least about what was going on. Freeman and Banderas are obviously disinterested, and I very much doubt they made a stink over the film's failure to score a theatrical release. The quicker this mediocrity is buried on the Blockbuster shelves the better. Just as long as the check clears.
Nymph / Nang-Mai / นางไม้: Thai, Mystery/ Romance – 90 mins – A slow-paced, minimalist offering with supernatural overtones from one of Thailand’s most interesting directors, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, who gave us the excellent Ploy in 2007. I found it intriguing, and beautifully executed. I recommend you give it a try.
This is his seventh feature and first supernatural movie, and it premiered last month in the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival – to decidedly mixed reviews. It revolves around a relationship in trouble – the marriage of May and Nop which seems to have nothing left but inertia to hold it together. The two barely speak to one another, and May has been involved in an affair with her boss for months. Signs of physical affection are still more rare. Despite the emotional distance between them, May decides to accompany Nop on a photography trip into a deep forest where some time before two young men were mysteriously struck dead while attempted to rape a woman. Nobody had ever been able to sort out what happened, but Nop can’t help but feel a certain attraction to a tree near where the incident occurred. Then one night he simply disappears.
Wise Kwai: A romantic drama, ghost story, and nature show combine in this thriller about a marriage that’s lost in a thicket of dysfunction.
Floating like a moth, the camera pierces the impenetrable forest in vivid detail, with every sinuous root and knotted branch becoming a lead character. The actors rightly keep their portrayals subtle. No one can compete with Mother Nature. …
Like the forest, Nymph is mysterious and foreboding. But like an ancient tree, it's worth looking at, pondering and sitting under. Strengths include the uniformly strong, understated, and naturalistic performances from a fine, brave cast; a complementary subtle and creepy sound design by Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr and Koichi Shimizu and stunning camera work headed by cinematographer Charnkit Chamnivikaipong.
For the Thailand general release, Pen-ek re-edited the film, which was still in rough form when it was rushed to the Cannes Film Festival.
This new 90-minute "Director's Cut" is said to be his definitive version and will be the one that is shipped out to future film festivals and eventually to DVD.
The International: US/ Germany/ UK, Crime/ Thriller – 118 mins – With Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. An Interpol agent attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring. In this gripping thriller Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world's most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war. Rated R in the US for some sequences of violence and language. Mixed or average reviews: 52/54 out of 100.
Houston Chronicle, Amy Biancolli: Now’s as good a time as any for some out-of-control greedy-banker-bashing.
Roger Ebert: Not since the days of silent movies have bankers as a group been cast so ruthlessly as villains. They used to wear waxed mustaches and throw widows and orphans out into the storm. Now the mustaches are gone. "Banker" has been incorporated into the all-embracing term "Wall Street." The bankers in "The International" broker arms deals, sell missiles under the counter and assassinate anyone who gets too snoopy. First they throw you out into the storm, then they blow you up.
Whether this is a fair portrait is not the purpose of a film review to determine. It is accurate of the bankers on view here, and given the face of Armin Mueller-Stahl, once familiar as a good guy, now enjoying a new career as a ruthless villain. His bank, based in Luxembourg as so many schemes are, has been assassinating nosey-parkers for getting too close to their operations, which involve investing in African rebels, nuclear weaponry and arming both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The movie has a scene in it Hitchcock might have envied, a gun battle ranging up and down the ramps of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Why there? Because the visuals are terrific.
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: US, Animation/ Action/ Adventure/ Comedy/ Family/ Romance – 94 mins – Manny, Sid, Diego, and Ellie are back in this third film in the computer-animated Ice Age series. With those creatures in starring roles, we hear again the vocal talents of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Queen Latifah – and newcomer Simon Pegg, as a crazed weasel. In this outing, Manny and Ellie are expecting their first baby, while Sid the sloth tries an unconventional way of starting a family that gets him into trouble. With all this talk of babies, Diego is fearful of losing his saber-toothed edge, but a journey to save Sid may just turn the whole group into heroes. In addition to all that adventure, it wouldn’t be an Ice Age film if Scrat weren’t on a desperate hunt for an acorn – but gets distracted by a shapely female squirrel. Mixed or average reviews: 52/53 out of 100.
Brian Orndorf: Certainly a familiar cocktail of cartoon accomplishments and luxurious CG vistas, but a cozy one, confident with its brand of humor. The simplicity is refreshing, opening the film up to hundreds of smaller pleasures and laughs.
Roger Ebert: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the best of the three films about our friends in the inter-species herd of plucky prehistoric heroes.
Wongkamlao / Wong-Kum-Lao / วงษ์คำเหลา: Thai, Comedy/ Family – 90 mins – Popular comedian turned director Mum Jokmok both directs and stars in this quite well-received romantic comedy in which Mum plays the heir of the Wongkamlao Family, an extremely wealthy family that runs a jewelry business. He falls in love with the poor English tutor of his younger brother, over the objections of his class-conscious family.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: US, Action/ Adventure/ Sci-Fi. It’s Autobots® versus Decepticons®, Round 2, in Michael Bay’s film based on Hasbro’s Transformers™ action figures. With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, and John Turturro. Now that I’ve seen it, it’s even clearer that it’s all about trade names and merchandising! And yes, the action figures were on sale in the lobby, just as I predicted. And boy! Are they expensive! Optimus Prime (my personal favorite bot) is a whopping 1,500 baht. Some are 3,200, and one was 4,900! Last time none of the toys had “Hasbro” on it; this time, they all did. Last time they were all made in China; this time the same, except for a few which were made in Australia.
Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) again joins with the Autobots® against their sworn enemies, the Decepticons®. I’m convinced that to really enjoy this film you need years of training. With video games. Generally negative reviews: 35/41 out of 100. These two review excerpts reflect my views quite closely:
HollywoodReporter: Bay's team of four editors stitch together smashing but meaningless images, though it's as difficult to make out which machine is which as it is to tell what anyone is saying. The noise level -- not helped by Steve Jablonsky's relentless score -- is super-intense and everyone yells lines at high speed. Because nothing they're saying makes any sense, it's hardly important.
Eye for Film: Despite the intervening years, neither Sam nor the franchise that features him has exactly matured. This sequel is essentially a recap of all the bludgeoning biffo from the first film, only with more characters, and more Transformers™ on both sides of the (good) Autobot®/(bad) Decepticon® spectrum. It is bigger and longer than the original – but certainly no better, and this time round lacking even a novelty factor.
Scheduled for Pattaya cineplexes on Thursday, July 16
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: US/ UK, Adventure/ Fantasy/ Mystery/ Romance – Latest Harry Potter episode. The biggie! Will it be the blockbuster everyone expects it to be? Will it thrill us all? Go and see!
As Harry Potter begins his 6th year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he discovers an old book marked mysteriously "This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince" and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort's dark past.
As the boy wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) enters his sixth year at Hogwart's, danger is afoot thanks to the growing forces of He Who Shall Not Be Named. But that's not the only hazard Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to contend with, as another sort of fickle magic is in the air: teenage hormones. Expect director David Yates to serve up the usual brand of Harry Potter excellence (he directed the last HP film, Order of the Phoenix) although screenwriter Steve Kloves has taken some liberties with the material, so Potterites, beware! Voldemort (… oops! There I go again, naming him!) is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds, and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. If, indeed, ever it was.
And looking forward:
Jul 23 – Public Enemies: With Johnny Depp as Dillinger! Michael Mann’s latest film pits Johnny Depp against Christian Bale as the two star as career criminal John Dillinger and G-man Melvin Purvis, respectively, in Public Enemies, a Great Depression-era drama about the FBI’s attempts to shut down organized crime. The film features a strong supporting cast, including Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, and Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard.
Aug 20– Inglourious Basterds: US/ Germany, Action/ Adventure/ War – Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited tale of Jewish-American troops on the hunt for Nazi scalps in WWII France is unlikely to get usurped as the most bad-ass movie of 2009, thanks to the fact that, well, it's a Quentin Tarantino film. Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the titular squadron that includes Samm Levine, Eli Roth, and B.J. Novak; along with German actress and Allied agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), they attempt to bring down the Nazis -- in the bloodiest way possible. Mike Myers, Cloris Leachman, and Samuel L. Jackson also star in the exploitation throwback, so look forward to a star-studded (and gore-filled) good time.
New website for Major Cineplex
Here you go: Schedule on Major Cineplex Website or http://www.majorcineplex.com/showtimepage.php
It’s basically a mixture of Thai and English, and this is how you work it: The link above gets you to the “Showtime” page. On the right two-thirds of the screen you will see two lists: movies, and theaters. At the top of the list of movies, click “Select All Movie” unless you’re really only interested in one movie. On the list of theaters, click “Pattaya.” This is one of four cities in the “Zone UPC-South-East” section, which is the 7th region down, or the 3rd from the bottom. Then hit “go” either at the top or the bottom of the lists, and almost immediately you will get at the very bottom of the page a list of the movies, the cinemas (โรง) they are in, and their remaining times (เวลา) for the day. If you do this after midnight and in the early morning, you will get a blank. Times are posted later in the morning. You have no way at the moment for getting any times except for the current day, and only the remaining times.
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