Bangkok Haunted (2001)

Three young women gathered in a coffee bar in Bangkok tell and discuss three original ghost stories with each other. The first tale: In Bangkok, the young Jieb receives an ancient drum not ... See full summary »

Directors:

Oxide Pang Chun, Pisut Praesangeam

Writer:

Pisut Praesangeam

Stars:

Pimsiree Pimsee, Pramote Seangsorn, Dawan Singha-Wee

Cast

Credited cast:
Pimsiree Pimsee	...	Pagar
Pramote Seangsorn
Dawan Singha-Wee	...	Pan
Kalyanut Sriboonrueng	...	Kanya
Pete Thongchua	...	Nop (as Pete Thong-Jeur)

Storyline

Three young women gathered in a coffee bar in Bangkok tell and discuss three original ghost stories with each other. The first tale: In Bangkok, the young Jieb receives an ancient drum not listed in the order from the truck of Transportation Company owned by Mr. Anake. She calls her former Professor Arkom, who identifies the markings for good luck that she describes and tells the story of the orphan Paga. In 1917, the renowned music teacher Jangwah-Chuem and his wife Peng raise the beautiful Paga with their deformed son Gnod. Paga is a good and loving sister and daughter and becomes a great beautiful dancer. When Paga falls in love for the handsome Fond, the jealous Gnod and she vanish from their village. Jieb investigates the mystery of their disappearance and discloses the eerie truth with tragic consequences. The second tale: The gorgeous Pam receives a sample from her next-door neighbor of a love potion that makes the user irresistible to men. Pam does not know that the essence is...

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Plot Keywords:

ghost | place name in title | anthology | city name in title

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Taglines:

In every city... in every home, there's a real ghost story ready to be told.

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Details

Country:

Thailand

Language:

Thai

Release Date:

26 July 2005 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bangkok Kill City

Filming Locations:

Thailand

Company Credits

Production Co:

Avant, Q Effect Workshop

Technical Specs

Runtime:

130 min 124 min (DVD edition)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

References Godzilla (1998)

User Reviews

One thirds good.

We have a very strong start as we open upon a story that is sort of like an Asian phantom of the Opera with incest. A young girl and her brother live happily in a small village until one day traveling visitors bring a man the girl starts to fall in love with. Her jealous brother, with a deformed face he always hides, decides to wreak havoc, and the ghost of the young girl gets endowed into a drum that travels the country haunting whoever happens to be close by.

Tthhhheeeeennnn the movie reveals that it's just a story being told, and that three young Thai women at a restaurant are telling each other ghost stories. The thing about these types of narratives is that they fundamentally ruin the point of the stories in the first place. Horror is made to terrify, right? So how can we appropriately fear for characters' lives and souls when we know they're fake? Even beyond the level of fakenss inherent in any medium, we now are twice removed from the characters' psyches: once because we're actually watching a television screen, and twice because we're watching characters tell stories about characters that don't exist diagetically.

Worse, the next two stories turn out to have that wonderful flavor of, "Huh, I've heard variants of this before." Yep, suddenly we move away from the interesting story (which also, interestingly, had much better dialog, direction, cinematography, and just about everything) that held our attentions for 40 minutes, and then we follow two other stories for another hour and a half that are, when you break it down, merely urban legends.

Gee, and I was so enjoying the beginning.

To be fair, the third story isn't THAT bad, and since it's a mystery it's a little nice to follow. But the second story is just soo boring! It's very disappointing to be enjoying yourself and then have the director say, "Okay, so, we're done with that, now to move on!" Two things you should never do in a horror movie because it's no longer fresh and now it becomes slightly insulting: never have it end up being just a dream, and never have it end up being just a story.

--PolarisDiB