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sadhukar
Reviews
Top Secret: Wai roon pun lan (2011)
Good writing and good supporting cast marred by poor transition and a very mediocre lead
'The Billionaire' is a biographical film about the early adult years of Aitthipat Kulapongvanich, a Thai entrepreneur who successfully pitched and started selling dried seaweed snacks to convenience stores around the country and, by age 23, became one of the country's richest people. As a story, the film gives a very interesting premise on the character's goals, motivations, and the troubles he faces along the way, such as finding a way to fry and preserve the seaweed without it turning bitter, his early attempts at opening stalls which whilst commercially successful were forced out due to one issue or another, and finally his clever attempts to attain an audience with a procurement manager for the country's largest convenience store, 7- 11. The film depicts this well and I enjoyed their comedic moments and was vested with the main characters.
The biggest 2 issues that I have with this movie are however, the 1) pacing and 2) choice of lead. The pacing was subpar, with scene transitions very obvious and akin to 2006's 'Naresuan' with their absolutely god awful scene transition involving a black screen and ominous music ripped from a video game called Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (I'm not kidding, look it up). Scene transitions in movies are supposed to be seamless, with the audience vested into the story and not how the setting has abruptly changed. If your audience notices this, then you have a problem.
The second and more important issue is the lead character. To put it bluntly, Pachara can't act. He has one face - the 'I am slightly annoyed and perplexed' face, which he wears pretty much permanently throughout the film. I can't recall a time he laughed and looked sad, and even when he smiled it still looked like he was just slightly less annoyed and less perplexed.
The irony here is that Pachara belongs to the Chirathivat family, whose networth rank not only in the billionaires but also in the US dollar billionaires, making them one of the richest people not only in Thailand but in the world, which no doubt had significant input on the direction of this film and also on this pretty mediocre piece's surprisingly high score.