Nang Nak

In 1868, Mak (Winai Kraibutr) is summoned to the war and leaves his beloved wife Nang Nak (Intira Jaroenpura), who is pregnant, alone in their isolate house in Prakanong. Mak fights with his friend Prig that dies while Mak is seriously wounded. He miraculously survives and after a long time, he returns to Prakanong.

He meets Nak and their son and they live happily together until the day that a friend of Mak visits him and tells that Nak had died in the delivery and he is living with the ghost of his wife and his stillborn son. Mak does not believe on his friend until the day that he discovers the truth about his family.

"Nang Nak" is a movie about a Thai legend of a faithful wife that dies but does not live the world of the living waiting for her beloved husband that is missing in action in the war. The story of eternal love is a touching ghost story with a melodramatic farewell in the end. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Vidas do Além" ("Lives from Beyond")

Thai movies are not often shown on the big screen in Montreal. When I saw that Fant-Asia was screening the first Thai film in the history of the festival, I was really keen to see what kinds of movies are being produced there.

It turned out that this romantic/ horror film was one of my favorite of the whole festival. The images are beautiful and the story is so touching. This is an old Thai folktale that I had heard before. I was concerned that it would be too dark and that the love story would get lost in the ghost story. However, they manage to convey both the sweetness and the horror of the tale without compromising either.

If you get the chance, I highly recommend this film.

As always, I never bothered to check any movies that would force me to READ - the subtitle that is any foreign language other than English. Nang Nak was introduced to me by my wife... It is because the publicity in the newspaper telling about how this movie has made an impact at one of the European countries movie awards - it's a horror movie but with strong love story message. (How scary, indeed!).

Infact for a moment (till the labouring scene)... I was still doing my work while my wife kept on yelling at me every five minutes to join her...

So, I was kind of surprised how good the movie was. Especially the scene when Mak took a refuge in the monastery and Nak followed him there. The most scary part is when she hung on the ceiling....

Me and my wife had a trouble for a moment to even try to glance at our own house ceiling!

Nang nak.... is GOOD! (I'll watch it from the beginning this sunday...) FROM : LELAKILAH

"Nang Nak" is set in the late 1860s and is based on a Thai legend of the supernatural. When war comes to Thailand, a young husband, Mak, leaves his newly pregnant wife and goes off to fulfill his duty as a soldier. A serious wound leaves Mak convalescing in Bangkok for many months, but eventually he becomes strong enough to return home. There he reunites with his devoted wife, Nak, and finally sees their infant son. However, it soon becomes evident that Nak's labor pains caused a singular transformation in her. The other villagers have come to fear Nak--and for good reason.

"Nang Nak" set box office records in Thailand when it was released in 1999. It even managed to outsell James Cameron's "Titanic" in that country, and it is easy to see why. Filmed among menacing rivers and lush jungles, "Nang Nak" is a visually stunning film grounded in a solid story line. From the beautiful shots of Thailand's flora and fauna to the chilling supernatural scenes (which occasionally have the slightest--and rather surprising--hint of Sam Raimi's distinctive cinematic style), director Nonzee Nimibutr immerses his audience in an enchanted world. If the film can be criticized for one thing, however, it may be said that the devotion paid to Image is too zealous. The actors chosen for the two lead roles sport close-trimmed modern hairstyles and ideal physiques, and this works against their credibility as village peasants. Also, some of the most evocative nature sequences in the film are edited too aggressively; hence these images are denied some of the power they might have achieved in the hands of, say, Werner Herzog or Terrence Malick. Even so, "Nang Nak" has plenty of power and poetry to spare.

(A cultural/historical note: The unusual and rather startling blackened teeth of the villagers in the film are due to the practice of chewing beechnuts. Notice that at a certain point in the film one of these nuts is placed in a corpse's mouth as it is prepared for burial.)

There is a lot more to this film than immediately meets the eye. Most Thai historicals or ghost stories are loaded with anachronistic pop culture cliches. This one wasn't; people spoke with their mouths filled with betel (maak), the lead actress didn't have lipstick, the houses were quite realistic, etc. In addition, the rural monks switched between high-level speech and country slang. The point is that this film is a serious attempt to do justice to both the original tale and the time period it is set in.

The empathy for Nak far surpassed the scariness. What stood out for me is that Nak's justification for her actions seemed quite defensible, adding to the anguished poignancy of the situation.

Asian ghost stories, when done well, have a strongly moral character. This is one of the finest examples I have seen.