I want to marry Chaiwat Thongsaeng.

He's one of the two main stars in the movie, Bangkok Love Story--possibly my new favorite bad movie, bumping Tommy Wisseu's The Room out of the top spot.

To make things clear, this movie is quite a bit higher in caliber than the room. The acting is mostly bad, but sometimes quite good. The cinematography is gorgeous, and Bangkok has never looked so desolate and desperate as it does here. The white-to-black contrast is sharp, revealing gorgeous shadows, and colors are bleached out beautifully in shots in an appropriate manner.

That being said, this movie is so over-the-top quintescenctially Thai that it suffers...it just suffers.

There's a cat-and-mouse chase scene between some gangster who sells Buddha statues and the two main characters in the movie, with a very thin and unsatisfying motive (aka, I want him dead because he knows too much about me in an ambiguous and convenient plot line manner).

There's a subplot about a mother dying of AIDs who contracts it from her cheating husband. (This is one of the parts of the movie that's actually done well, but not fully integrated into the storyline).

There's something about a jealous woman who finds out that her hunk of a boyfriend is sleeping with a gangster love in the most gayest sense, and follows him with a gun so that she'll kill him or something.

There's this hilarious (albeit beautiful) over-the-top cinematic score that kicks in aggreesively (sometimes making dialogue hard to follow) whenever the actors are doing more than just sitting around (although it's used when they're filmed sleeping too)--You know, that softcore porn music that has sort of an Agnes of God feel to it?

THere are chase scenes, shootouts, failed marriages, suicides, accidental blindings, and so many subplots that I couldn't keep up.

BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT! The movie and all it's darma and subplots are really little more than the backdrop to a gay love story...AND THAT is little more than an opportunity to see Chaiwat Thongsaeng naked in underwear throughout 85% of the entire film. MERCY, Lawd you are indeed a loving god. Chaiwat Thongsaeng is one of those actors who neither needs clothes, nor know how to act. He simply needs to just keep on scrubbing filthy walls and sponge bathing his bi-curious kidnappers in his tight little white skivvies.

The movie on a superficial surface level tries to challenge the stereotypes of homsexuals being feminine ladyboys, and on some level, it does succeed at that. Thais accept homosexuality, but stereotype gays at the same time. For example, a gay young man will not have a difficult time in high school and need not worry about being picked on, but he's certainly never going to get asked to join the football team (soccer) or play a game of cricket with the guys. This movie challenges that on many levels.

THere are English subtitles too, but don't even bother reading them.

JUST KEEP YOUR EYES ON my future husband, Chaiwat. There's really no point in watching anything else, really. I can still hear the ever present film score as I type this.

THIS MOVIE IS TOO PERFECT.

[Edited 2/28/11 17:51pm]

[Edited 2/28/11 17:53pm]

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THE APPLE 1980

This movie is so bad, its good. It was on a Movie channel and it had some of the most horrendous disco music of all time, brutalist architecture (Filmed in East Germany 1979) and a totally ridiculous storyline. A sweet folk singer duo couple get seduced into fame by Mr Boogalow (Actually the Devil), and join a fast paced and hedonistic music group called BIM (Boogalow International Music), run by him and a very camp effeminate black man called Shake who wears glitter coats, minces about and wears silver lip stick, he also chain smokes a cigarette on a camp Marlene Dietrich style ciggie holder. To make it funnier, the cast break into one dreadful song after another every few minutes. The future (1994) is created by showing the brutalist stadiums, people in futuristic flared space suits and sticking cheap ass cardboard fins on cars. The guy in the folk group sees through the facade of BIM quuickly, runs away and the girl is trapped stoned up on drugs and having non stop sex in between cataclysmic performances, in which audiences are brainwashed by BIM and the subliminal messages in their songs. Eventually she runs away and they hide out in a hippy haven only to get found by Boogalow, and then Mr Tops (God?) descends from heaven (A ghost car in the clouds and a middle aged long haired dude in a white pimp suit), rescues the couple and everyone else from the clutches of BIM. Overall tacky, dated, but yet hilariously camp.

This stands to reason why they stopped making movies around disco music, and they got worse, the next major one was "Can't Stop the Music" which looked like Saturday Night Fever next to this

TD3 said:

I also love another cult classic based on this film.

I watched Bangkok Love Story again, recently.

I've always thought that "The Last Dragon" is technically a bad movie, but it's so fun and I have a lot of nostalgic memories attached to it, so I still love it.

The one from 1987...what's his name again Mike...something.