Banjong edges closer to greater international fame
THAT MEETING in Hong Kong with Stephen Chow a few months ago has already borne fruit for movie director Banjong Pisanthanakun. He tells ASTV Manager that the script is ready.
What Chow wants to produce is an extended version of “Khon Kong” (“In the End”), the comedy segment of the horror omnibus film “Ha Phrang” (“Phobia 2”) that Banjong directed. Only this one will be Chinese, though Banjong gets to keep his director’s chair.
Thai studio GTH is co-producing and loves the script, according to Banjong. He’s now having it translated into English and Cantonese for Chow to give it a read. Let’s hope Chow likes it too and they get this project done fast, because Banjong has put his next Thai film on hold pending his “international debut”. Shooting could start by the end of the year if Chow is ready, and meanwhile Banjong is taking classes in Cantonese so he can order his Chinese production crew around with conviction.
He plans to shoot in Thailand as well as China and have Thais on the crew too – even though the story setting has been entirely transferred to China. That should lower the language barrier a little, Banjong reckons. Unfortunately the language barrier is still too high to let Banjong sneak in some of his original Thai “Khon Kong” cast. His screenwriting partner Chantawit Thanasevee was also stopped at the door.
“I wish I could get them into the story because they’re the people who helped get Chow interested in me in the first place,” he says. By way of consolation, though, he admits, this is his biggest career move to date, even given the overseas success of “Pee Mak Phra Khanong”.
Born to make a movie
We’ve seen a few movies that didn’t have studio backing die at the box office in the last year, some of them yanked from screens within days of their opening. There was even the sad news about Nopporn Intarasawat trying to commit suicide because the film he produced, “Sri Thanonchai 555”, had failed and left him Bt40 million in debt.
So it must be nice to be Anantachote Chaipreecha, producer of the currently playing “Yak Yu Yang Yai” (“Born to Be Yai”), because he simply doesn’t care if it makes (or loses) any money.
“I just wanted to film my autobiography in the hope that it might encourage anyone who’s feeling desperate. If so, that’s profit enough for me,” says the head of Join and Coin Corp’s Twin Network and Balance Team. Join and Coin is part of the MLM bid to combine a convenience-store franchise (Join Mart) with direct sales.
“I profit because I get to make the film and show it to the public,” Anantachote carries on enthusiastically. “The audience will see how much I suffered in life and how I fought to overcome all the hardships.”
In “Yak Yu Yang Yai”, Soravit Sukboon plays a man born to a poor family in Phichit who’s forced to quit school early. He toughs it out – and ends up a successful businessman.
