Ai Tui

Thai superstar Sombat Metanee plays the titular Tui, a handsome small-town villager whom all the girls have a crush on. Their village survives thanks to the largess of the heir to their previous benefactor, who actually owns all the land but allows the townspeople to use it for free. When she arrives to visit the village, everyone sets about having a great feast in her honor, and, smitten with the handsome Tui, she even finishes a song for him that he had been writing (about himself!).

I was with the film up to this point, but it started to lose me once they left the village (about an hour in). The plot becomes a lot more complex, with the woman's dead father's sister scheming to gain control of his inheritance and take away the village and all her wealth. Ai Tui starts wandering around in a bad wig and glasses so he can woo the lady as two separate people, and the cast expands and started confusing me with several characters who looked too much alike. Thankfully, things pick up again for the climax, which features a nice motorboat chase to rival CRAZED FRUIT or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, and naturally things end happily ever after.

Much as with OPERATION: REVENGE, I find this type of Thai popular cinema charming until it isn't. The beginnings are usually strong, but over the course of two-and-a-half hours' worth of grueling runtime, the lethargic pacing tends to wear me down. There's a lot to like about AI TUI, and I'm not really going to argue with the way it was made, as it's a product of its time, but I can't imagine chugging my way through it again terribly soon, if ever.