In Thai with English and Chinese Subtitles
Genre: Thriller
Director: SARANYOO WONGKRACHANG
Starring: BONGKOD KONGMALAI, PRANGTHONG CHANGTUM, SARUNYOO WONGKRACHANG, TAWAN JANTRAVIBOON, BENJAPHON CHEYAROON
RunTime: 1 hr 44 mins
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films & InnoForm Media
Rating: R21(Strong Violence)

Opening Day: 3 May 2007

Synopsis:

The scene is set around a dark multiplex where a group of unscrupulous guards headed by Chai have devised a plan to secretly film young students in variously erotic predicaments. They have placed cameras in a number of strategic positions including the alleys beside the building and the female toilets. Kao, a disgruntled multiplex employee who was forced to install the countless CCTV cameras, spots Praew a voluptuous young girl running from the grips of the sick and twisted guards. Kao without fully understanding what has taken place, runs to her defense.
Something must be done….But what and more importantly how?

Movie Review:

The Passion is not about passion, or lust, or ardour, or lasciviousness… or whatever. This movie is a pure, full-on, violent popcorn flick of techno music fuelled chase and fight scenes premised around the classic “horde of evildoers pursuing innocent girl” story. Bongkoj Khongmalai is the visual centrepiece (euphemistically) of the movie playing Praew, an attractive young girl that attracts the attention of the corrupt security head in a multiplex. He then sends his evil henchmen after her, just as he does his previous victims, only to find out this time it isn’t as simple as it seems.

Director Saranyoo Wongkrachang exploits Bongkoj to the maximum in a film that opens with a 20-minute visual barrage of almost F-grade (is there such a grade) smutty sequences that include a rape scene in a toilet. It must be noted however that, it is the extreme violence for which this movie gets its R rating. The movie largely avoids nudity, instead opting for horribly acted shows of perversion by the antagonists that include rolled-back eyes, ridiculously annoying panting and vibrations of limbs. Sounds terribly cheesy? Well it is.

The bulk of the movie revolves around the chase for Praew inside the shopping mall, the classic locked labrinyth where terror runs amok. Praew is helped by a cleaning lady of sorts, Kao, who is fed up with the crimes of the evil guards. As it turns out, Chai, the head guard, had raped her in the past.

Director Saranyoo is unabashed in dishing out violence. Khaew applies a mechanical drill on a guard’s chest for a good 3 seconds or so, while knives are driven deep into kidneys, chests, backs and a guard is set on fire with cooking oil and screams in disturbing agony. Unfortunately, if the evildoer can continue his pursuit of the “victim” with a massively perforated heart and the head guard can survive infinitely multiple stabbings to come back grinning maniacally, the barometer arrow starts to swing from horror to horribly farcical slapstick.

The Passion in short is purely low-grade, cheesy entertainment that doesn’t require or deserve any brainwork or neural exercise. Putting it into words is similarly futile. You shouldn’t be paying any more than 6.50 for this and, even at that price, it’s a stretch for a badly shot, badly edited and overly dramatic and slapstick horror film. What’s worse is it masquerades itself as a “sex thriller”, a “most controversial one” at that. Firstly, it is not a sex thriller. It is not even a vaguely sex-oriented film. Secondly, it is certainly not controversial, just extremely violence-laden.

So what does this mean? The only selling point the film hawks itself on is its “controversial sex thriller” label. Thus if you paid for a ticket just to satisfy some desire for a B-grade smutty flick, no sympathies for being sorely disappointed. You’ll be treated to a oversexed director’s cinematic hogwash of a “film” that splatters enough blood across the screen to make you think the actors were hurling rotten tomatoes at the cameraman’s lenses.

Movie Rating:

Review by Daniel Lim