Ruang talok 69

Although I watch numerous Asian films I believe "6ixtynin9" was the first Thai movie I have seen and I must say I was very impressed. From start to end it had a comedic "whatever can go wrong will go wrong" feel about it while moving along rather smoothly as a mildly bloody quasi action flick. The story itself wasn't overly complicated nor jumbled up like some Asian stuff tends to be. I could see a large group of viewers enjoying this nice little Thai surprise.

The acting wasn't "lights out" but was effective and although the filming was mainly done in an apartment it moved around more than enough to avoid getting stale.

I viewed the on the US version DVD and found the quality good enough but not top notch and it wasn't in surround sound. I would certainly recommend giving this film a watch but you might want to rent before you buy it.

None of my friends, here in Bangkok, said they like the film. My taste might be different but I think Ruang Talok 69 (the Joke 69) is really good.

My reason is that it is a strong and good satire of life in Bangkok and the Thai culture. The Asian financial crisis in 1997, the boxer gangsters (they wear Muay Thai jackets), the rural guy who misses his mom, the sadistic wife, the obscene phone call, etc. all are somehow relating to real situations and real people here. You might be surprised to learn that in Bangkok there are a lot of actual cases of Thai wives cutting their husbands'..... eh, you know which part I'm talking about.

These kind of things so weird and don't make any sense but they are what we face in our daily life. Thai people are so used to them that we sometimes forgot to realize how non-sense they are. So non-sense that it's actually funny. And it's great to see it mocked so tastefully in this movie.

I liked this movie a lot. And when I read the comments, I was glad to know some other people liked it too.

The last couple of years, Thailand has been outputting some interesting films, both commercial flicks and art-house endeavors. On the good side of the art-house fence, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (gotta love Thai names) has been one of the front runners and main flagships of the Thai film industry. Ruang Talok 69 is one of his earlier films and probably the one that made many heads turn his way.

I've been on to Ratanaruang ever since I watched Last Life In The Universe, a collaboration with Asano and Doyle (at a later time successfully repeated in Invisible Waves). The film left a permanent impression and since then I've been on the look-out for more Ratanaruang's films. When I finally came across Ruang Talok 69 I didn't have to think twice before checking it out.

I'm usually a bit apprehensive about older films of directors I like, especially when I was introduced to their more recent work first. These films are often a little less polished, sometimes just downright dire and dull (it happened to Tsai Ming-Liang). In that sense, Ruang Talok 69 was a very interesting surprise. While it does not equal Ratanaruang's later work, it stands very well on its own and manages to keep a fresh appeal.

That said, the movie does start off a little slow. Tum is a rather dull woman who crawls back home after being fired from her work just a little earlier. Her place is as dull as she is and up until that point, nothing much interesting seems to be happening. That changes when a little box with loads of cash is left at her doorstep. An ideal opportunity for Tum to make a fresh start.

Sadly, things won't go easily for Tum. In no time, two scruffy looking guys are knocking on her door searching for the money. When they both fall dead on Tum's floor only five minutes after entering her home, Tum suddenly turns from a dull-downed woman into a woman with a plan. Money does strange things to people.

From there on, the film slips into an endless spiral of bad luck and coincidence, adding a healthy streak of dark humor and some amusing plot twists, ending up in a sprawling finale with bodies littered all over the place. Most of the action takes place in Tum's apartment, where boxes keep stacking up in order to dump the ever growing pile of dead people that end up inside her house.

It's this streak of black humor that adds a lot of flavor to the film. Without it, the films would've been a little plain. Luckily Ratanaruang has an excellent sense of humor (without becoming too bonkers - Thai humor can be pretty freaky). Top scene is probably the blow job scene, which is a lot less obscene than it actually sounds.

Visually Ratanaruang has everything under control. Nice and colorful settings (a typical Thai film look in other words) and some interesting camera tricks often mimicking the movement of characters. The film is not as polished or brilliant as Doyle's work, but I guess nobody would be expecting that. It's still a very clean and solid looking film.

More praise goes out to the soundtrack. While littered with funky Thai music, the darker scenes are scored with some very interesting tracks. I've found little so far about the composer of the soundtrack, but there's some major influence of Kenji Kawai's work in Ghost in the Shell. Not something you'd expect in a film like this, and the association is a little weird at times, but it does work wonders.

Some very interesting ambient tracks are placed underneath the key scenes, featuring instruments almost directly lifted from the GitS soundtrack. It adds heaps to the atmosphere and already defined Ratanaruang's preference for soothing (dark) ambient to score his films.

In the end, Ruang Talok 69 is a very fun ride, nicely shot and awesomely scored, presented with a great sense of humor and key scenes that are wonderfully executed. It starts off a little slow, the pace is pretty sluggish at first, but as the film continues it keeps getting better and better. Another hit for Ratanaruang, who's easily my favorite Thai director to date. 4.0*/5.0*

I had to watch this film too many times for a film studies course and by the end of the course I was so fed up with it. However, I do think it's a very interesting film...the way the story goes and the way it was made. It definitely is very different from other Thai movies and personally, I think that's why it never made it big in Thailand. I thought the editing was great and the filming technique makes it more realistic and closer to everyday life. Plus the plot surely suited the situations within the country at the time. As for the story I really liked the idea of how everything turned out the total opposite and upside down just cuz of the poorly attached room number "6". I never thought it would be showed in other countries, let alone it gaining foreign fans. I'm glad other people appreciate a small production Thai movie as much as I did.

6ixtynin9 (Ruang talok 69) is without doubt a film of acquired tastes, a pic that's hard to recommend with any great confidence. That is, though, unless you have a kink for violent black comedy crime movies, where the narrative drive is quirky and fulsome, even winsome in some regards.

Story finds Lalita Panyopas (excellent) as Tum, a lady who has just been laid off from work courtesy of lots being drawn. Feeling desperate and at the end of her tether, she's amazed to find on her doorstep a noodle box with $25,000 in it. A gift from the gods? Not quite! And once some shifty gangster types come knocking at her door, nothing will ever be the same again...

There's a whole ream of films this draws from, but favourably so, especially since the films often referenced in reviews are pretty tasty in themselves. Yet this is no hack job, director and writer Pen-Ek Ratanaruang has crafted a splendid pot of Thai neo-noir curry, putting his own stamp on things, imbuing the pic with his own flourishes, such as showing acts of violence off screen! Via a shadow, a splatter of blood, or a pair of legs going limp.

The characters who inhabit this world are gloriously strange or purely deranged. The henchmen are from a Thai boxing club, garishly attired in bright red clobber (film is packed with pronounced reds), one of them is even deaf, while their boss is a bit off the map, likes to have one of his charges massage him with is feet. There's a phone sex pest, who ends up being a real key component to how things pan out, and one of the baddies reveals tears and a most bizarre death in the family!

It's all deliciously off kilter, even as the bodies pile up, the black comedy tongue is prodding away at the inside of the cheek. But ultimately its noir heart is with the vagary of fate and of the coincidences that pitch our everyday woman (she's no moll or assassin type) into a bloody and bonkers world. All of which has hinged, ironically, on a number badly screwed to an apartment door! 8/10