Pancake gets the "royal" nod |for hot new series

Pancake tells our sister paper Kom Chad Luek that director Marut Sarowat approached her with the offer and told her that Khun Namphueng is adapting the novel “Rak Rae” by famed author Sopak Suwan. Set in Vienna, it’s about international diplomacy, which would make it tricky subject matter for any producer. But Khun Namphueng grew up in high society and doubtless has her own insights into the diplomatic corps.

So Pancake has a good reason to be excited about the project, and it looks likely to be a high-quality production. Plus, Marut is a highly respected director and Thanawadee Sathityuttakarn, one of the country’s top screenwriters, is handling the script. “We’ve already scouted the location in Vienna,” says Marut, promising it won’t be long before it’s on the air. 

On top of all that, there’s a rumour that the series will have a “very surprising” guest, with the general expectation that Princess Somsawali might put in an appearance. She starred in a series way back when Thai television was still in black and white and recently appeared onstage in “Cixi the Musical”. 

All these ingredients make for a heck of a tantalising show.

 

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Got a black belt in Twitter?

Every Thai over 30 grew up watching martial-arts movies and TV series, and a lot of them involved China’s Shaolin Temple with its monk kung-fu masters. 

Of course the 1,500-year-old monastery in Henan province isn’t quite as remote and mysterious and hard to get into as it used to be. These days the temple is a well-oiled tourist destination with twice-daily live shows, like those towns in the American Wild West where they put on fake gunfights. 

Shaolin accommodates all comers with its courses in meditation and martial combat and it’s own cleverly designed website in both Mandarin and English. 

Much of the credit apparently belongs to Shaolin’s “visionary” abbot, Shi Yougxin. He’s the Steve Jobs of ancient Chinese secrets. The latest evidence that his humble, mysterious Buddhist monastery is now fully part of Modern Times is that it’s advertising for a “media director”. It needs someone to build it a brand, as in Louis Vuitton and Coke, so someone’s got to be in charge of publicity. 

Requisites for the job – which is open to both men and women – include a good command of English and knowing your way around the social media. No, you don’t need to be a monk, practise any martial arts or even be vegetarian. Nor will they ask you to do or become any of these things.

That sounds good enough to the 300 people who’ve applied for the job so far. Don’t let the number discourage you – Shaolin has not yet found its ideal candidate. Get your CV in and you might just have “Shaolin Temple PR” printed on your business card. But be warned: Among the media director’s tasks is cracking down on anyone who uses the temple’s name without permission or in a disparaging way or otherwise makes it look bad. 

Come to think of it, knowing a little kung fu ought to be one of the criteria after all.