As long-term fans of the Panthamitr Film-dubbing team, we had high hopes when we learned that their head was going to make his directorial debut, Rak Sud Teen. With their hilarious reputation for dubbing Chinese films, we had high hopes that Paripan Watcharanon, would do a better job of making us laugh out loud than the normal poor offerings from TV comedians turned directors. Overall, we feel that he’s done OK for a first effort.
Lady’s man Tuengjai (Mario Maurer), the owner of a jeans shop, happily spends his days selling clothes and flirting with ladies. With help from his buddies—Temjai (Worrachat ‘DJ Plakung’ Thamvijint), a funny-playboy and Judnak (Theema ‘DJ Judge’ Kanjanapairin), a good looking gay guy who uses his looks to get ladies for his friends—Tuengjai gets lucky every night. That’s until a fleeting meeting with beauty Mint Mintra (Amena Gul), makes him decide to change his bad-boy behavior to pursue his apparent soulmate. He tries everything to win her heart but when he finally seems to have got the girl, an unexpected twist turns everything on its head.
Paripan’s 20 years of experience dubbing films—plus his love of watching movies—have allowed him to create one of the best comedy movies in recent months, filled with clever jokes and two great scene stealing comic performances from DJ Plakung and DJ Judge. Even Mario manages to successfully shake off his reticent-teenage image to play a pretty badass ladies man.
Despite all the good jokes and great performances, the movie is flawed with a poor plot. In a recent interview with BK, Paripan admitted that he had initially tried to make a rom-com movie that concentrated more on love than comedy. But he erred and decided to add more jokes, resulting in a rather random plot twist, that really doesn’t make any sense and just spoils the love story. It’s not just that he nearly ruins all the drama in favor of fun at the end, it’s also hard to suspend disbelief for the completely unreasonable situations that Tuengjai has to face. Just don’t worry too much about the story this time around and let’s hope Paripan learns to blend humor and emotion in his next effort.
