Gecko Kow answers casting call of one-man film factory

Tom doesn’t appear downhearted, though, since he’s still eager to build his own 100-seat Phet Chiang Khan cinema in Loei this year and needs to make more movies to screen there. His current project is another nostalgic turn. “‘Pitupoom’ took me back to the path of truth and I just want to keep doing things that are simple,” he says.

So he’s shooting a romantic comedy for M Pictures with an oddball title – “Took-kae Rak Pang Jung”, which more or less means “Gecko Loves Pang Very Much”. 

The title drew a few smirks and comments to the effect that it doesn’t sound like the sort of movie Tom used to make. But there’s “no such thing as Tom’s style of filmmaking”, he says, and remember that he’s on the path of non-attachment, so don’t try to pin him down. 

“For once I want to do a love story where nobody dies,” he laughs. And it’s long been a secret hankering to make this one – a film set back in the days when relationships didn’t depend on smartphones or apps. That’s right, it’s ancient history – the 1980s. 

Tom’s teenage characters hang out at a dance club in Siam Center called The Palace and life moves at what Tom calls “a slow pace”, though surely not the disco dancers. “You must admit that fashion and music back then were rather unique,” he says

 Superstar Nadech Kukimiya might have agreed, but his mum got hold of the script first and didn’t want her kid playing someone named “Gecko”. She asked Tom to change the name. Tom cast Jirayu “Kow” La-ongmanee in the role instead. Kow is cool with Gecko.

Meanwhile, to keep the cash rolling in for both “Took-kae” and his cinema house, Tom is making yet another movie in Chiang Khan itself while overseeing construction. Once the place is up, he jokes, he’ll be screening “Pitupoom” – and “Gecko” – over and over again. Or maybe he’s not joking.

 

The Nuvo harvest

Jirayuth “Joe” Wattanasin, formerly of the hugely popular band Nuvo, told viewers of “Nation Midnight” on Thursday about today’s concert “Bare Ber” (“Tell All”), starring him and ex-bandmate Saharat “Kong” Sangkapreecha. It’s a fund-raiser for the benighted farmers, and donations are now amassing at SCB’s J Avenue branch, account 404 8848864, in the musicians’ names. 

The show is today at noon, near Benjasiri Park, an outdoor locale that’s “clean and okay”, Joe promises. “You can sit there and listen to the music for a while. It’s not difficult at all – compared to what all the farmers face when they come and sleep here in Bangkok.”

The account will be closed at the end of the day and Joe will announce the amount raised. The money is mostly going to the families of the 11 farmers whose deaths have been blamed on the government’s failure to pay them, and also to the farmers still seeking retribution in Bangkok. 

But “this is nothing political”, Joe says. “Everyone knows that I have never made any political remarks. I only play music.”