Cheuuat gaawn chim

Revenge is often a dish best eaten cold. Just ask Fruit Chan, director of Dumplings (2004), originally conceived as one chapter of a three-part horror omnibus (Three… Extremes) before he served up more of the same dark satire, just in larger portions, which regrettably made the bloated feature-length even harder to swallow. Tiwa Moeithaisong's Meat Grinder follows a similar recipe, and now, having finally found an overseas distributor, ominously appears on our menus for the first time. Relying more on mood rather than over the top visuals, this is a return to the intelligent side of exploitation horror. Refreshingly marinated with an intriguing story to give it flavour, and coupled with lashings and lashings of gory mayhem, Meat Grinder is an absolute treat from start to finish. DW

If you thought "The Meat Grinder" was the Thai equivalent of Mrs Lovett without Sweeney Todd, think again. This film has no humour and even less continuity, even if it has lost something in translation. A wretched woman who runs a noodle bar stumbles upon an amazing if bizarre recipe. There is a riot, and one of those taking part ends up dead on her premises. Instead of contacting the police, the army, or whoever is running that particular town, she, well, you can probably guess.

Now this woman has certainly had a hard life, and there is one bloke who is intent on making it even harder, but did he deserve this, and what about his henchmen? We never really understand what this film is all about, a woman's descent into madness perhaps, but it is impossible to feel sorry for her considering how much innocent blood as well as guilty blood she has on her hands.

Those who enjoy gore and special effects may find something of interest here, but enjoyment is another matter.

There are poor and unrealistic excuses for all the shown torture. All seems very artificial constructed for the sake of showing torture and pain. The worst is the story telling, which is chaotic nonsense. Add some classical music elements and there will be people who are delighted about this "piece of art". Even though the torture effects are obviously handmade, which highers the realism a little bit, there are no insects shown in that blood coated scenario. No flys, no ants, no cockroaches, not anything - just bloody pain with an artificial forced kind of poor story and characters who are very unlikeable. Like all the unrealistic things which are shown, the motives of the characters are exaggerated to the maximum to force the impression that those characters would have a good excuse for their behavior, but they are just very sick. The one and a half hour felt one hour longer than it played. I recommend this movie for people who have too much time and like gore, no matter what.

I have had "Meat Grinder" (aka "Cheuuat gaawn chim") on the DVD shelves for quite a while, about two years, give or take, and never gotten around to watching it before now. Which is odd, given the fact that I enjoy Asian horror movies quite a lot. And now having seen "Meat Grinder" I can say with all honesty that it is more than just your average gorefest.

The text advertised on the DVD cover, "SAW was just an appetizer... Welcome to the main course", is somewhat of a grotesque exaggeration, because "Saw" and "Meat Grinder" are two very different movies and two very different sub-genres of horror. The only similarity is that they are both visually graphic in terms of gore and mayhem.

The story told in "Meat Grinder" is about a street vendor in Thailand named Buss (played by Mai Charoenpura) who opens up a noodle store, where she serves dishes prepared with meat from the people she kills and stores in her basement.

Initially, the storyline is fairly simple, but it adds additional layers to the story, as this is more than just a gore movie. It also deals with the personal issues and traumas of Buss. And director Tiwa Moeithaisong managed to construct a story where the audience is gradually given more and more information and insight into the story, into what is actually going on, and into the history and trauma of the main character.

"Meat Grinder" is a very explicit graphical movie in terms of showing mutilations, gore and being shocking. As such, it is not suitable for all people. And you should take into consideration that the visuals in the movie is very realistic and very effective (in my opinion). Just a friendly reminder.

The combination of a good, albeit simple, storyline and a great character gallery and character development, alongside with some good acting performance really helped flesh out, no pun intended, "Meat Grinder" to the screen. And the overall result is an enjoyable movie about the breakdown of a woman's psyche, the fall into insanity and the brutality that she was able to dish out.

This 2009 Thai horror movie is well-worth a watch if you enjoy horror movies that has an abundance of gore and presents this in a very in-your-face graphic manner.

I am rating "Meat Grinder" six out of ten stars.

Buss is a disturbed lady who kills people and sometimes makes them into food. Meat Grinder is the story of how and why she came to this pretty pass, and where she goes. By all rights this should be a real winner, it has a workable story, reasonable pace and some entertaining gore and yet it actually comes out somewhat stodgy, dull in places. The trouble is mostly in the storytelling, fractured yet centred it draws shards of past and present in claustrophobic swirl about its lead, not really letting the story breath for itself or gather up a compelling sense of rhythm or flow. If the central performance were a bit better there might have been compelling emotional momentum but unfortunately Mai Charoenpura is fairly one note as Buss, cold and stressed out but not all that affecting. As a result the film is mostly interesting for the sake of various grisly moments, nothing we haven't seen before of course but some good stuff all the same, with a generally twisted edge that gives it that all important punch. Stylistic tics at times detract from affairs, like random switching between colour and black and white, but at least the nasty moments aren't spoiled by coke head edits, speedy cam or incomprehensible close ups, we still get to see the good stuff. What we don't see though is very much in the way of actual meat grinding, the title seems to have been put in place to catch the eye rather than for any great relevance to the films content. It's actually a sombre story of a woman's plight and what happens when she finally cracks, and though it follows a fairly predictable woe is the plight of the Asian woman trajectory, its still dark enough to be watchable. I'm probably making this one sound much less worthy than it is, certainly others have had stronger and more positive reactions. It does all just about hang together (aside from unexplained and irrelevant scenes involving rioters), it has some classy moments and the story works itself out in appropriately twisted fashion, but I was a bit nonplussed overall by it. Still semi worth a watch, but a good idea to suspend ones expectations and maybe have some booze or other viewing aids on hand to ease the passage. Fair 6/10 from me ('cause I'm a gorehound at heart).