True make you cry?

The ad for True’s mobile-phone service features a noodle vendor coming to the rescue of a boy being chased by a pharmacist for shoplifting. The lad says his ailing mother needs the medicine. The noodle guy pays the pharmacist and hands the boy a bag of food, and the kid races off. Thirty years later, the noodle guy collapses on the job and his daughter gets him to hospital, unconscious. The medical bill is Bt800,000, but there’s a note attached to it from the doctor. It was paid three decades earlier, he says, with a bottle of medicine and a bag of noodles. 

“Giving is the best communication,” is the tagline as the ad closes. 

True made the ad for TV and posted it on its YouTube channel, cleverly adding English and Chinese subtitles, so the viewing audience has been huge. Still, there are cynics. Viewer Liki Espada pointed out that it just proves that being kind doesn’t save you from being poor. The news site Chiang Mai City noted that True’s owner, Dhanin Chearvanont of Charoen Pokphand, is about as rich as you can get in a single lifetime, so how about covering some poor folks’ medical bills? Someone else said True makes them cry every time the broadcast signal fails. Giving might be “the best communication”, Jeang Jija wrote on Facebook, “but your Internet connection sucks.” Tony T asked if he could use the phone service for 30 years and then pay. 

True doesn’t care about the sniping. It’s laughing all the way to the noodle stall.

 

“Tom Yam Goong 2” turning into a ghost story

 

There was no surprise in the lack of a surprise appearance by Thatchakorn “Tony Jaa” Yeerum at a press conference on Thursday promoting his movie “Tom Yam Goong 2”. More oddly, though, Sahamongkol Film chief Somsak “Sia Jaing” Techarattanaprasert wasn’t there either. 

Instead we had director Prachya Pinkaew and Panna Ritthikrai, Jaa’s long-time martial-arts mentor, failing to answer reporters’ questions about the big feud between Jaa and the studio. Nevertheless Panna, who groomed Jaa for stardom, couldn’t hide his disappointment. He said he tried unsuccessfully all through August to contact the action star. “I phoned and sent messages via Line, but to no avail. He and I should talk about the truth. Everyone knows what the truth is.”

It was a muted promotion for the movie without its star, but emcee Pongsuk “Nui” Hiranprueck tried to keep the blood circulating by promising that we’d get to see Jaa in person when the film premieres on October 23. Somehow we still feel a little sceptical.