BROWN SUGAR (Nam Tan Daeng) (2010)

Genre: Erotic/Drama
Director: Kittiyaporn Klangsuring (Desire), Panumart Deesatta (Prostitute on Bed), Sart Tanchareon (Love for Play)
Cast: Lakkana Wattanawongsiri, Warintorn Yarujjanon (Desire), Pasweepitch Sornakarapa, Prakasit Bosuwan (Prostitute on Bed), Nattakan Anumartchimplee, Jittikorn Sorachan (Love for Play)
Runtime: 2 hrs
Released By: Shaw & Clover Films
Rating: R21
Official Website:

Opening Day: 14 July 2011

Synopsis: LOVE FOR PLAY - Teenagers’ growing curiosity of numerous issues and sex are the centre of “Love for Play”, an entertaining, erotic tee-comedy. A teenage girl is home alone, and asks her boyfriend to accompany her for the night. It starts from an innocent conversation about each other’s body, to touching and a more revealing game. The girl tempts the boy to play a strip game that could lead to their first sexual encounter... Even though their heaven is not far away, the game doesn’t end as expected. This story questions the limit of morals and sexual desire of teenagers that adults never seem to understand.

DESIRE - “Desire” is an erotic and romantic tale, directed by the only female director of the “Brown Sugar” project. It is about a lonely relationship of a man and a woman in the big city. They have laid eyes on each other, but never even have a conversation. But one day, desire unexpectedly shortens the distance between a tattoo artist and a masseuse.

PROSTITUTE ON BED - An erotic-comedy, “Prostitute on Bed” presents sex of the middle class in a big city. It reveals the exciting sexual fantasy of a wealthy man and a super hot young girl. In the span of a day, they fulfill each other’s sexual fantasies with no regards to time and place, or the people around them.  What they had was what many dreamt of:  “sex of life”. In reality, both genders are equal and the females now can express their sexual views and desire just as their male counterparts.

Movie Review:

“Brown Sugar” marks Thailand’s entry into the new wave of ‘cinema erotica’ in Asia, which counts among them Korea’s “Natalie” and Hong Kong’s “Sex and Zen 3D”- though unlike the latter two films, this doesn’t boast the additional 3D gimmick. It is also significant in its homeland for charting a new direction for the local film industry, being the first of its kind to feature nudity and sexual scenes under the country’s revamped movie ratings system (replacing the earlier censorship regime).

But for all the hype it arrives under, this compilation of three short films by three young directors and produced by industry veterans Prachya Pinkaew (the director of “Ong Bak” and “Chocolate”) and Bandit Thongdee is a surprisingly lacklustre affair, failing to raise the heat even with onscreen depictions of boobs, copulation and female masturbation. In fact, it collapses under the weight of its own pretension, as it struggles too hard to be artistic but ultimately fails quite miserably.

The movie opens with a brief segment that attempts to shed light on the meaning behind the film’s English title- “Brown Sugar”- as a middle-aged woman (Odette Henriette Jacomin) trapped in an unhappy marriage checks into a seaside resort and proceeds to discuss issues of commitment and gender sexuality with the resort’s handyman. One of the scenes has the woman asking for brown sugar, instead of white, stating that its taste is more natural and also more robust. It ends with said woman stripping to reveal her breasts, and this scene alone is supposedly a milestone for Thai cinema.

Of course, local audiences might not feel the same way, and even more so about the film’s justification of its title- since the following shorts are anything but natural and robust. The first by male director Panumat Deesatta called “Sopeni Bon Tiang” depicts a middle-aged man’s fantasy to have sex with an attractive female student in a tight-fitting uniform. When they eventually get to doing it, Deesatta lets them go at it for about five minutes- but since the audience only sees their backs most of the time, there’s really nothing to get excited about.

Nonetheless, Deesatta does a fairly competent job at teasing his audience into believing that the pair are in fact adulterers when the ending reveals something else. The twist is interesting, but also disturbing in its own right- especially since it has a particularly chauvinistic slant that may not go down well with some audiences. Still, this is probably the most substantial of the lot- at least it attempts to mean something more than just the tease of bare skin.

Next in line is “Raktongloon” by another male director Zart Tancharoen about a pair of teenage lovers who decide to have sex one afternoon, only to have time slip them by and the girl’s parents discovering their act. Nathakhun Anumatchimpalee and Chittkhon Songchan play the pair, and the young actors display a rawness in their performances that fits very well with their characters.

Unfortunately, this short is undermined by the experimental nature of its director Tancharoen who thinks that it might be cool to turn his movie into a shoot instead. Twice, he brings his actual crew into the shot, and gets his actors out of character, but the intention of this device is never clear and in fact wholly distracting. Were it not for his perplexing determination to let the audience know that what they are watching is in fact not real, this would have been our pick for favourite short.

The last by female director Kittiyaporn Klangsurin is “Pratana” and revolves around a pretty masseuse’s fantasy of the tattooist downstairs from where she works. The highlight of this is supposed to be a 10-min uninterrupted take which shows the masseuse masturbating in the bathroom after her dream guy drops by one night for a massage. While that may sound intriguing to some, the outcome is ultimately a letdown. Beautiful though she may be, Lakana Wattanawongsiri does little more than squeeze her breasts from time to time and putting her hand down her pants- the act coming off contrived more than anything else.

Klangsurin strives for some deeper meaning in her short by getting said masseuse to visit the tattooist’s parlour thereafter and request for a tattoo at her groin. The resultant wordless exchange between masseuse and tattooist is fraught with sexual tension, but it’s never quite clear what Klangsurin is trying to get at. In the end, this short comes off as no more than a blatant attempt at trying to push the boundaries with that one controversial scene.

And that seems to be the only reason for “Brown Sugar’s” existence- to mark the possibilities of what can be shown on the big screen in Thailand. Other than that, this Thai entry into Asia’s ‘cinema erotica’ is a largely untitillating experience that will more likely lull you to sleep than get you aroused. If this is what ‘brown sugar’ is supposed to taste like, we’ll take ours ‘white’ anytime. 

Movie Rating:

(Not even the nudity or the sexual scenes can make up for what is a dull, tedious attempt at trying to push the boundaries in ‘cinema erotica’)

Review by Gabriel Chong