PAWNSHOP DVD (2013)

SYNOPSIS: Based on a true story, Pawnshop stars acclaimed actor Krissada Sukosol (13: Game of Death) who decides to pawn his soul to the ghosts in exchange for money to pay his debts. Like the other customers of the mysterious Pawnshop, he does not quite know what to expect.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Director Parm Rangsri calls Pawnshop a horror with a lot of drama. In reality, I think he doesn’t know how to make one.

Pawnshop is an arthouse flick disguised as a ghost movie, it has sparse sets, boring pages of dialogue and seemingly forgettable characters. Actually it has a rather simple premise to follow. In order to revive his business, Long Zhu, a struggling pawnshop owner decides to make a pact with the female ghost he has been worshipping: His wife’s soul in exchange for his wish. Obviously, Long Zhu went for it and now his resurrected pawnshop business deals with the trading of souls to people who are desperate for money.

One of the customers is Neung (Krissada Sukosol Clapp from 13: Game of Death), a guilt-ridden pub owner who ran over his neighbour’s daughter while drunk driving. In order to pay for her hospitalization bills, Neung went to seek Long Zhu’s help. And the consequence is obvious.

Since Krissada Sukosol Clapp receives top billing, naturally he gets the most screentime. In another movie, perhaps this might be a good thing. But in Pawnshop where there’s little character development, Neung is just another soul waiting to be sacrificed to the ghost and all that screaming and over-emoting from Clapp doesn’t help much in the acting department. Long Zhu has three other customers on the list besides Neung. A girl, a bearded man and a fat gay man (as shown on the subtitles) but it’s done in such slipshod manner, you probably won’t even recall they exist in the movie.

In addition, the scares are virtually non-existent and all that endless vomiting of blood from the female ghost is tiresome and unsanitary. The dream within a dream sequences are pointless and to the extent of repetitive. Okay we get the idea, can we move on please?   

The only saving grace is the brooding dark cinematography that makes it a good pretext for arthouse viewing. Pawnshop is definitely not commercial material for a Thai horror flick. It’s a slow and frustrating watch.    

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

A serviceable DVD with burned in English subtitles. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee