Feel a dithturbanth in the Fourth?

“May the Force be with you” is, of course, the mystical blessing of the sci-fi movie franchise that’s about to be revived on the big screen, but the films’ diehard fans never miss a chance to commemorate Star Wars Day. May 4 just happens to dovetail nicely with the slogan “May the Fourth be with you”.

Thailand’s Star Wars Fan Club – “the 501st Legion” – typically wages its campaigns dressed as black-clad Darth Vader or the white-armoured stormtroopers. Imagine the surprise on the nurses’ faces when they invaded a Thai Red Cross blood clinic. Meanwhile there was a four-day fund-raising event for the Phayathai Babies’ Home as part of the Thailand Toy Expo at CentralWorld.

“Our concept for Star Wars Day is ‘Dark side does good’,” says Legionnaire Wachilapat Intuputi, “and this year we raised over Bt50,000 for the babies’ home.” The infants’ welfare has become a pet project for the laser-wielding Star Wars mob and they promise to keep supporting them and their parents.

Sixteen members of the 501st Legion made the rounds in full Star Wars regalia – costumes authorised as “screen authentic” by LucasFilm, the studio that makes the movies and waives copyright restrictions if the outfits are used for charitable purposes.

Vader, the stormtroopers and the scout troopers have a somewhat scary presence at the Star Wars booth at Thailand Comic-Con continuing through tomorrow at Siam Paragon’s Royal Paragon Hall and will be back there for Bangkok Comic-Con from July 4 to 6.

Summon the Force and get close enough to them to have your picture taken. Summon Bt350 and you’ll get a Star Wars Fan Club T-shirt. Toss in another Bt150 and you can have an official Star Wars badge.

 

Expensive first memories

Asia’s hottest star, South Korean Kim Soo-hyun, met his Thai fans a couple of weeks ago at the amusingly named event “2014 Kim Soo-hyun Asia Tour 1st Memories in Thailand”. Promoter KCA Thailand had itself a sold-out concert at Siam Paragon’s Paragon Hall where the breathtakingly cute Kim sang the hit tunes from his region-wide smash TV series “My Love from the Star”, including “Beautiful Swedish Lady”, “Nobody”, “In Front of Your House” and “You Who Came from the Stars”.

Kim also had a meet-and-greet with his devotees. Tickets cost up to Bt5,000 but they were all gone in minutes. Add that bit of pocket money to the 110 million yuan (Bt575 million) that Kim has earned in China over the past two months (as reported by the Korea Herald), and the boy’s value can be “measured by the second” (as China’s South Entertainment Weekly quipped).

Samsung Electronics is chipping in another couple of hours’ worth, recruiting Kim to promote its products, and Hyundai Motors wants him to sell its new ix25 model to younger Chinese. And they had to queue up behind Lotte Department Store, CJ Bakery, Tous les Jours, the Faceshop, Prospecs, Coca-Cola and Haagen-Dazs. The last one alone, the ice-cream giant, gave Kim 10 million yuan, way more than it ever paid Fan Bing Bing, China’s favourite actress.