Phuean... Ku rak mueng wa

The cover of the DVD for this very fine film is misleading: the photograph of the two leads in a rather quiet and elegant setting is about as far from the content of the cinematic adventure as imaginable. Writer/Director Poj Amon has created a love story that is more from the underbelly of the poor section of Bangkok than it is from the expected physical beauty of that Thai city, and rather than focusing on the 'tourist view' of Thailand, he instead finds a different kind of beauty molded into a love story from a far different perspective. And it works very well.

In the world of Thai organized crime there is a star assassin - Maek ((Rattanaballang Tohssawat) - who kills 'bad people' to satisfy his bosses but cannot kill 'good people'. He is the sole support of his mother and younger brother, both of whom suffer from AIDS - the source of their infection is the abusive live-in stepfather. Maek wants to provide a good home for his little family, somewhere away from the slums of Bangkok, so that his little brother will no longer have to ply the hustler role on the streets to help support his ailing mother. Maek is assigned a 'hit' and in stalking the young lawyer he is supposed to assassinate he finds an attraction to the obviously good, married, handsome Iht (Chaiwat Thongsaeng). When the moment comes to complete his grim duty, Maek cannot kill a 'good man' and in the setup Maek himself is shot. Iht is compassionate and rescues Maek from the streets, taking him to his shelter to nurse him back to health. The two men bond and eventually submit to their passion. Yet when Maek recovers, he cannot face the truth of his feelings and separates himself from Iht. Iht's wife is suspicious about Iht's distance, stalks him, and witnesses a secret moment of passion between Maek and Iht, and the discovery turns her into a potential assassin herself. Iht is now by himself, unable to regain Maek's commitment until a series of events leads to the ultimate arrest of Maek: from the imposed separation caused by Maek's incarceration, Iht remains faithful to his love. The ending could have been triumphant (and for moments it is, emotionally), but instead Poj Amon opts for tragedy, a writer's decision that makes the film even more powerful.

The cast of actors is excellent and the chemistry between the two leads is undiluted by the forces that are meant to separate them. In the end, this is a love story between two classes of people whose discovery of a forbidden love emphasizes some universal truths. It is a well- made, beautifully photographed film (Tiwa Moeithaisong is the gifted cinematographer) that deserves a wider audience. Grady Harp

It is almost 2h and it's really a waste of time. The only good thing in the movie is the really hot guy Chaiwat Thongsaeng. All the ideas in the film are very interesting, but the director's work sucks. When you expect something to happen, it vanishes. All the characters lack profundity and there is only Chaiwat Thongsaeng who screams "I miss you" all the time. This love is impossible and it will remain like this. If Chaiwat Thongsaeng's character was really a lawyer, it would be stupid to fall in love with his killer and even to plan his own suicide( the scene in the bathroom). for me the movie is illogical, boring, very confusing and it was boring!

The movie posters, showing the two handsome actors, and some of the other reviews led me to want to watch this film, but I was very disappointed by it.

I should preface my comments by remarking that I have never visited Thailand, and also that I was relying on English subtitles that had been written by someone who clearly had an imperfect command of the English language--and so it's conceivable to me that were I able to understand the ORIGINAL dialogue, perhaps my impression of the film would be a little better.

However, one with cultivated WESTERN tastes, will, I think, find, as I did, that this movie is all very forced sentimentality with little to redeem it in the way of mood, atmosphere or other beauties. I once heard sentimentality defined as "unearned emotion," and I think that sums up perfectly what I find wrong with the film.

I thought that the initial plot had been set up for me a little too swiftly, that all the characters were in their particular situations with insufficient development--"this one is a killer, that one is a crook, this one is sick and dying," etc. Contrast this, for example, with Brokeback Mountain, a film with a similar theme of the deep love that develops between two young men, and how carefully we are led to begin knowing and caring for what brought these two youths together.

From this rather simplistic, almost juvenile, beginning, the story seems to start loading thick sentimentality on with a trowel, and the piles of it begin to get overwhelming, until, as we near the 3/4 mark, I found myself looking at my watch and calculating how much more of this silliness I must endure--by that time I had given up on the film taking a turn for the better. I rarely find myself laughing with scorn at a story, and I always do my best to let a storyteller tell me his tale in his own way, but in THIS film, each new element introduced to wrestle pity from me just made me react by rolling my eyes and saying, "oh, THAT too, eh?" Perhaps this sort of heavy-handed sentiment is more appealing to the Thai audience for which the film was made, and maybe what strikes me as "unearned emotion" fills a Thai viewer with LEGITIMATE emotion, but I think you'll find the film as disappointing as I did. In fact, by the end of it, I was feeling a mild distaste for nearly every character and the film's ultimately sordid story.

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Another reviewer asked about the title. In Thai, the title is: "PHUEAN--ku rak mueng wa!" which, in gruff, familiar, male language, means "BUDDY: I love you, man!" roughly. The first word, PHUEAN, is the word you see on the title, that looks a bit like a mirror image of "J" followed by "WOu."

This movie is so amateurish and melodramatic by our standards. It is also ends up being very boring. I watched it out of curiosity and the one Thai actor is quite hot looking other than it is a waste 2 hours.

Sometimes really bad movies can be funny...this one might work that way if you were stoned but otherwise forget it.

This thing was geared towards gay audiences....they flushed out the handsomest young Thai actors gave them a macho gangster flair for sexiness but good grief!....it is so silly maudlin and drags.

Also after all the effort to put gays in macho non stereotyped roles why have one of the lovers shot in the end. What a depressing deflation... I wish they would put gay people in normal roles where they just happen to be gay. A gay James Bond with upbeat endings instead of the mother hanging herself etc...

This script may conform to some sort of Thai typical gangster plot? Also the excessive melodrama maudlin sentimentality may sell there. Did any of you notice how terrible the acting is....one of the gangsters tries to do a facial tick but it is so obviously forced..

The cinematography is to show that Thailand (Bangkok) has arrived at the dystopia future big city life. I have been to Bangkok several times it does not resemble this movie...except maybe the grid locked traffic and a constant 99 degree and 100% humidity weather.

DO NOT RECOMMEND

Reading the back of the DVD cover, I was thinking - hmmm OK this sounds alright. So borrowed it from the library and while I did find it moving, the film's main problem is that the love story is developed way too fast to make it feel genuine and pretty much forces you to sob (even though it does work sometimes) rather than making you build up the emotional tension gradually.

I was expecting a romance, action/thriller sort of movie and you mainly get a romance drama which is fine with me with a gangster sort of plot thrown in to heighten the tension. There is a little bit of exploration on living with HIV in the film from some of the characters, however a lot of the character development is pretty minimal and the beginning of the romance between the two male leads didn't make me fully believe that they fell in love so quickly with no real sort of lead up to it and the ending scene, though I found moving, made it more melodramatic which seemed to overflow like turning on a tap at full blast rather than letting it flow at a normal pace.

The acting is pretty decent with the two leads - I thought that love song they used in the film could have been left out as it sort of felt out of place - it would probably fit a really soppy love story. Even though I did feel tears coming up near the end, a lot was sort of unexplained and the director obviously wanted this to be a story that would make you cry - but just don't force it too much.