Didn’t get a chance to watch Come and See, the documentary about the controversial Dhammakaya sect, while it was in theaters? Now you can watch it at home.

 

The film will be streaming on Netflix, starting Aug 1.

 

Come and See, which clocks in at 84 minutes, received critical acclaim when it debuted at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019, but its release back home was held up by censors who didn’t approve it for release until nearly two years after it premiered.

 

The film then briefly appeared in Bangkok and Chiang Mai cinemas in April, before a Covid-19 outbreak shuttered theaters indefinitely.

 

In Come and See, director Nottapon Boonprakob investigates Dhammakaya, a new age denomination broadly composed of middle-class Thai adherents that critics call a cult. Over the decades, the sect has courted controversy ranging from allegations of labor abuses to a money laundering scandal that culminated in a drawn-out siege in 2017 as law enforcement moved to arrest its longtime charismatic leader, Dhammachayo. He was never found and remains at large; the temple’s adherents say the case is politically motivated.

 

Nottapon’s documentary takes what he describes as a “rather unique point of view,” given Dhammakaya’s demonization in the mainstream media, by examining these and other issues through a range of perspectives, from Dhammakaya’s monks and followers to its critics and Buddhist academics.

 

Check out the trailer below.