P

"P" or Possessed is beautiful, and raw movie about the life of a young Thai prostitute, and the horrific creature she ends up harboring due to black magic.

The visuals in this movie is very delicate and beautiful. All the girl actors puts in top notch performance that makes this movie one fantastic horror film to watch. There's vivid quality to each scene, and the scenery of Thailand is beautiful in this movie. It makes you feel as if you are "there".

It's difficult to describe the uniqueness of this movie. Not so well known in the west, but this is one of the best movie to come out of Thailand.

If you are a horror or Asian movie fan, you owe it to yourself to see this.

Showgirls meets Hammer Horror? There would be many ways to dismiss this British Thai movie, set in a seedy Bangkok go-go bar, and whose heroine turns into a nasty flesh-eating monster. Mainstream it's not, but for lovers of trashy independents it offers something of a curious mix that is almost a collector's item.

(The title of the film translates apparently as 'Ghost'; as a pun to fun-loving Thai viewers, P-Bar sounds like the Thai word for 'loony'.) Aaw is a nice pubescent girl in rural Thailand, doing her best to look after ailing grandmom. Granny is a white witch and passes on her magic to Aaw just in case it ever comes in handy. The rural photography is beautiful, especially when we consider the film was made on a budget of £180,000. The familiar tale of young girl hoodwinked into moving to the big city to support her elderly relative is part of Thailand's cultural malaise. She gets roped into prostitution of course, and it isn't long before she starts using the 'special powers' Grandma taught her.

Up to this point there is no serious suggestion of any horror elements. Ordinary Thai people tend to believe in magic as a day to day fact, even if they are devout Buddhists, and all we have seen is a pastoral tale, embellished with well-researched superstition and embroidered with lingering detail of initiation into the girlie bar trade.

Director Paul Spurrier spent five years working on the story to ensure that the seemingly trite details were authentic - research that apparently included not only looking into magic traditions but plenty of time interviewing sex workers to understand how they operate (he even cameos in the film as a bar owner). Some of the tales he told me after the film's Edinburgh Film Festival UK Premiere were both sad in their simplicity and amusing in their unexpectedness. A girl had told him how her clients had increased from 4 in a month to 30 the next month after she had gone back home to consult the shamen. The actual witchdoctor in the film was based on a character he met in N.E. Thailand; after answering many, many questions, the witchdoctor grabbed Paul's arm, pulling him ominously into the jungle, saying, "I have done something for you, now you must do something for me!" As the barefooted film director stumbled to keep up, the gravely stones underneath biting into his feet, the shamen looked up in surprised glee - "I always wanted to know that! I had been told that Westerners' feet are soft, and hurt when they walk barefoot in the forest! Now I know!" At one point in the making of the film, the director made himself unpopular with the local madam after asking one of the girls (who was about to go on a recruiting expedition) why she was happily misleading people in the way that she, years earlier, had been misled. Some critics have dwelt on the morality of the film, saying it is both exploitative and lukewarm in its condemnation. While that might be true, the madam answered, "You only hear from girls who think they've been tricked. You don't hear from the hundreds of girls who find rich western husbands working here and go on abroad to marry. I don't hear them complaining." Then there was the go-go girl who asked for a copy of the movie "to send back home to mom, as I don't have any nice pictures to show her where I work." Spurrier was ambivalent when questioned. He thought it was sad that girls were drawn into such a life, but that it was a fact of life for many, just like the magic traditions. It is also a backdrop for the story rather than a moral axe to grind, whether in protest or condoning.

The strange part is the sudden shift of genre into horror. There is no extensive use of CGIs - it tries, if anything, to remain true to the country's tradition (Thailand has about ten new ghost story films a year). It's simplicity recalls not only many other Asian attempts at horror but also early British films where we know the blood is not very real but choose to overlook such facts. That the abrupt change works quite well is a credit to the movie, reminding us more of the masterly film Audition than say the overladen From Dusk Till Dawn. Something evil has been growing inside of Aaw, because she has ignored the rules her grandmother taught her and she is becoming a puppet of the black magic she uses too readily. The transition from nightmares and drug-induced paranoia to the manifestation of evil is understated. Just as the sex-trade is accompanied by typical Thai modesty (no bare bosoms), the horror is shocking but not too shocking, almost as if it is meant to be 'entertaining' rather than genuinely upsetting.

The shortfalls are the derivative story lines, the overlong details of how to work in a go-go bar (especially when all the women look and sound almost identical) and the fact that this Thai-style, British-made movie is not well aimed at any easily identifiable western market (other, perhaps, than DVD). The light-hearted humour (girls exchanging insulting comments about a customer in Thai whilst giving the unsuspecting customer adoring glances and tones, or the giggly exchanges of how to butter-up a Westerner), and the fact that it is the first Thai horror film made by a British director, may endear it to all lovers of light-hearted gore. Most films seek either great artistic acclaim or the hugest profits possible; Spurrick may simply be someone who wants to earn a living as a filmmaker in Thailand. P won't make him a fortune, but it might make him enough to fund the next episode in what could even become a cult niche.

I rate this movie 8, not because of the scares or supernatural effects. The rating is entirely based on the performances of the actresses and accurate depiction of how many girls get conned into a life of prostitution.

It's worth a watch for anyone interested in Thailand or other countries such as Philippines where girls can be rented at bars and clubs. It puts a human perspective on the whole affair which those frequenting the places might not think about or choose to ignore.

I'm not sure whether the movie glorifies the empowerment of girls who choose to work as prostitutes because of the high pay or condemns the exploitation of the innocent who are made to believe they're being done a favor when they're told someone *might* have "work" for them, during the initial stages of recruitment, keeping the facade until it is too late to back out.

The director and his friends certainly enjoy the Thai night life privately. The movie stands on its own though and I feel it does a good job at removing the veil on the business. How people react must be a personal decision. Both sides are shown, which avoids a preachy or too exploitative feeling.

The performances by the actresses were particularly authentic, considering most of them grew up in slums or work as porn stars or bar girls. The main actress had never acted before and donated her entire earnings to her sick mother. Eerily similar to the circumstances in the movie, although the real life events apparently had a happier outcome.

Though the "scary" parts of the movie don't mesh well with Western ideas of ghosts and magic, it closely fits with popular myth and superstition in Thailand and other neighboring countries. Especially the idea of human monsters that can feast on other people due to a variety of specific circumstances.

The sex in the movie is very low key. I think we spotted a couple of nip slips. The few sex scenes are more suggestive than explicit and they don't last very long. There is a fair amount of dancing, but it's also tame. The girls are pretty though and it's enjoyable to watch.

It's not a masterpiece, but to my knowledge it's unique in its scope and subject matter. The lead actress did a superb job and I hope we see more from her in the future.

My wife and I both enjoyed this movie and I think anyone with an open mind and an interest in eastern Asia will too.

Most Asian horror over the last two decades has been largely fantastic. Rings, Audition and Grudge to name but three. On the strength of those, i decided to give this a go.

So we have a movie that deals with poverty, witchcraft, underage prostitution and evil vampire spirits as its themes.

The acting is basic as is most things about this movie. However, it did keep me interested until the end with some twists and turns along the way.

There were some loose ends at the end of the movie that were never addressed such as the police officer and his investigation. The CGI was poor, as was the cinematography. It at this budget, what do you expect.

This is not exactly a horror movie, it's more a sad story about a farmer girl who goes to the big town (Bangkok) and loses her way. This young girl is a nice person with a warm heart, the reason she leaves the camp is because her grandmother is ill and to move to the city is the only chance for getting a job. But she is cheated and must be a sexy dancer in a club for foreigners, so she will know the worst of the urban life very soon. The worst of the urban life and the worst of the rural life (the poor and wrong education she has received from her grandmother, mainly based on superstition and black magic) will destroy her innocence and a terrible monster will grow up inside her. Yes, you can call it monster, spirit, ghost... but for me it's a symbol of her lost innocence. You will find scary moments (this "ghost" looks terrible in some concrete moments) but I insist the film is more a drama than a horror movie in a strict sense, and maybe this is the reason some public can feel disappointed. In my opinion the first half is excellent but the second half is not so good although it still keeps the interest until the end. Sad, nice and with a great soundtrack. It's not perfect but I recommend it.