AFM:  Wisit’s Next Revealed!

Oh, sweet lord.  Back during the Cannes film festival I had a chance, late night encounter with Thai star Ananda Everingham of Shutter, Ploy and soon to be Queens of Pattani fame.  Everingham proved to speak flawless English - seriously, just the slightest trace of an Oxford accent - and more than happy to talk about his upcoming film projects and at the time he dropped the news that he had just been approached to possibly star in an upcoming project with Tears of the Black Tiger director Wisit Sasanatieng.  All he would tell me was that it would likely be set in the seventies but he said it with a grin that let me know there was more to it than that.  Yeah, you could say that.

The project has just been announced at the American Film Market and it is a remake of the classic Thai masked hero film Red Eagle.  The original Red Eagle starred iconic Thai action star Mitr Chaibancha who made literally hundreds of films in the 1960s before falling to his death shooting the final stunt of Golden Eagle - that’s the poster to the left - a shot that was left in the released film.  Though Chaibancha was quickly supplanted by Sombat Methanee as the country’s action star of choice - Methanee starred in a couple hundred films in the 1970s, including the excellent Chumpae which is reviewed in these pages, and is now a prominent Thai politician - but he has never been forgotten and there are still shrines to the man in his native country.

Now, while poorly conceived remakes can make a guy cringe, good ones can be spectacular and I’ll wager that this will be a good one.  Why?  Well, first of all rather than gutting the memory of a popular icon this is a way of reviving it.  Not too long ago I was researching a book I wanted to write about the history of Thai action film and was forced to abandon it when I learned just how poor Thailand’s record of film preservation is.  I was told of the hundreds of films Chaibancha made I’d be lucky to be able to see five, in any form.  They simply don’t exist any more, meaning there is an entire generation in Thailand completely ignorant of their country’s film heritage.  This will put an iconic character back on the screen.  Second, it’s coming from Wisit Sasanatieng.  Not only has Sasanatieng not ever made anything even approaching a bad film but he has a deep knowledge and love for Thai film of the era and his Tears of the Black Tiger was a deliberate - and brilliant - throwback to that style.  This is an absolutely perfect fit of material to director.  And, third, Everingham’s just very good.

Grady Hendrix over at Kaiju Shakedown is quite right in pointing out that Sasanatieng has had some problem getting his film’s off the ground but to counter that news I offer this.  All of his films that have gone through Five Star Productions (Tears of the Black Tiger, Citizen Dog, The Unseeable) have been turned out promptly, with no problems.  It’s the films announced with other companies (Armful, Nam Prix)) that have stalled.  This is a Five Star film and considering how long they’ve been getting everything set up and in place for it when they say cameras roll in March, I believe them.