New Thai Movie "hanuman" Is Virulently Racist

[Heng]

Have you taken this up with the REAL media yet?

[Jingthing]

Have you taken this up with the REAL media yet?

We have a real media here?

Seriously, if there was a serious real media here, Engish and Thai, they would write about the semantics of this movie without being told about it by some retired schlub in Pattaya. Not holding my breath on that one.

Edited August 16, 2008 by Jingthing

[Heng]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

[GuestHouse]

Is the Internet not real media these days?

Gosh, how things change.

[Jingthing]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

You tink a letter to the Pattaya Mail I should write then?

Edited August 16, 2008 by Jingthing

[Heng]

Is the Internet not real media these days?

Gosh, how things change.

TVisa is not the Internet. It's an entertaining niche of a few thousand folks who live here and a few hundred folks who wish they lived here. (+/- the traffic that shows up to browse one post and then disappears)

Kinda like how my high school paper wasn't in the newspaper industry.

[Heng]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

You tink a letter to the Pattaya Mail I should write then?

If you feel that strongly about it, you should write to all of the main local papers and perhaps schedule a few press conferences. Perhaps some PAD type demonstrations in front of local theaters and of course the offices of the distributor of this film.

[Jingthing]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

You tink a letter to the Pattaya Mail I should write then?

If you feel that strongly about it, you should write to all of the main local papers and perhaps schedule a few press conferences. Perhaps some PAD type demonstrations in front of local theaters and of course the offices of the distributor of this film.

You are really quite daft.

From my OP:

I am not one to favor censorship or political correctness. I am just reporting what I saw.

Also, any public protests about a movie inevitably make it a SMASH HIT.

Edited August 16, 2008 by Jingthing

[DirkGently]

Who cares? African films no doubt depict white people as evil. Bob Marly made a name for himself from it and western people sing that nonsense.

The weak blame the strong for all their problems. It's part of the natural order.

[sriracha john]

farang police volunteers

ahh.. finally a subject with some substance... how to re-introduce into the stream of discussion.

If farang police volunteers watch the movie and take criminology notes during the viewing, are they working without a work permit?

[Jingthing]

farang police volunteers

ahh.. finally a subject with some substance... how to re-introduce into the stream of discussion.

If farang police volunteers watch the movie and take criminology notes during the viewing, are they working without a work permit?

As long as not between the hours of 2 and 5 PM, should be OK.

[sriracha john]

farang police volunteers

ahh.. finally a subject with some substance... how to re-introduce into the stream of discussion.

If farang police volunteers watch the movie and take criminology notes during the viewing, are they working without a work permit?

As long as not between the hours of 2 and 5 PM, should be OK.

On second thought, they're illegally working without proper work permits 24/7.... so what's another infraction matter to them?

[Heng]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

You tink a letter to the Pattaya Mail I should write then?

If you feel that strongly about it, you should write to all of the main local papers and perhaps schedule a few press conferences. Perhaps some PAD type demonstrations in front of local theaters and of course the offices of the distributor of this film.

You are really quite daft.

From my OP:

I am not one to favor censorship or political correctness. I am just reporting what I saw.

Also, any public protests about a movie inevitably make it a SMASH HIT.

Is that the same as dashing? If so, thanks. If not, I'll take as a compliment anyway.

What makes you think that your own thread here won't get a few more people to go and see it?

[aehn]

I repeat, it was a nice try.

Look, I never said this one movie makes any difference. However, it is very extreme and may possibly be a SYMPTOM of something sinister going on. If you haven't noticed, Thailand is in a deep and protracted political crisis. If you haven't noticed, the rapid dramatic increases in food and energy prices are greatly stressing the poor in Thailand, and most Thais are poor. Throughout history, countries in similar states have always used SCAPEGOATS to diffuse attention from the internal problem. I submit this film might be evidence that is what is happening now in Thailand, and farangs are the SCAPEGOATS.

Plans have already been drawn up to introduce colour coded inverted cloth triangles that are to be worn on the arms of all farangs. Modeled on the system devised by the Nazis - pink for homosexulas, red for communists & what I suspect will be the most popular - the black triangle - reserved for 'anti-social individuals' (which includes vagrants and 'work shy' individuals).

Of course this is only the first step..............

Now THAT is paranoid. We don't need arm patches. We stand out without them.

I think everyone should be al

lowed to post their opinions on thaivisa, hel_l, even if you are thai, dont you agree?

That is a total twist of what I said. If a Thai person has a bad experience in France, this isn't the proper forum for it. Rather a forum about France would be the proper forum.

If a thai person have a bad experience outside of Thailand and it is related to the topic, he/she should not mention it here on Thaivisa?

If a westerner wants to compare a situation in Thailand compared to a situation in his/her homecountry, should he/she be allowed to mention it here?

In fact that is what happens all the time here, as we talk about our experiences in relation to our references, usually outside of Thailand.

Come on, give me a break.

[lannarebirth]

I emailed Damian at the address listed on his website, and he asked that I post this response with regard to this thread:

If you don’t mind, please post this as my quote on the subject of the Hanuman thread.

“I knew full well what I was getting into when I read the script for Hanuman, another movie portraying white men as evil doers. There are no white heroes in Asian action movies. This is common place all across Asia, however they also use their own nationality as villains too. The same has been seen in Hollywood movies only in reverse. It’s only in the past decade that actors like Jackie Chan and Jet Li have become hugely popular in Hollywood movies, before that they had a cult following that would watch badly dubbed (or subtitled) Chinese movies. Jet Li’s first break into Hollywood was as the main villain in Lethal Weapon (3? 4?), he was a huge hero in China before that… how do you think he felt being demoted to bad guy? He probably was slightly miffed but thought it was a great opportunity to break into a much bigger movie market. And it was, now he is the star of his own Hollywood movies (Fearless, One, Kiss of the Dragon, etc.) and when he plays a villain it’s a major villain (Mummy 3) and is probably paid an insane amount of money to do that, not to mention it’s a role that only a Chinese actor could play. My point being things changed in Hollywood but only recently, before that the roles for Asians were limited and almost always negative.

Now for Hanuman I was surprised during actual shooting when they told us what we were going to do (things weren’t totally clear in the script). But honestly…. the more they told us the more Dean, Anton and I laughed … it was so ridiculous and crazy that it was next to impossible to take seriously. I mean for me they had me actually kick Ang (the crippled guy) in the head (as lightly as I could with a jumping spinning kick) and throw him through the air, I also smash a Buddhist shrine (this one made me cringe), they made me pray in front of the shrine before the shot and they video taped it as well, I assume to put in the behind the scenes footage. I am not Buddhist, but I truly wanted to demonstrate my respect for this countries religion before I desecrate it for a movie shot. Dean and Anton poured gasoline all over kids and then lit the building on fire, Anton slit the throat of the leads girlfriend… many of these things you wouldn’t see in a Hollywood movie, but this is Thailand. I’ve always thought Thai movies had a strong way of depicting things but this is what Thai people like (I assume), their movie culture is not the same as Hollywoods. Their movie posters for horror movies depict very graphic scenes right on main roads… totally illegal in Canada or the U.S. but I guess it helps movie ticket sales. I didn’t mind doing these bad things because my character was supposed to be truly evil (influenced by the evil Tiger god). Unfortunately some of the things I did turned out different than planned, like my love scene with 2 Thai girls…. We shot scenes establishing them as my girlfriends, in fact in the first script they were major characters, but come shooting they were small characters, then come editing they looked like just hookers I use temporarily (which of course is another stereotype, but if you watch the movie the Thai bad guy Mark also has a bed scene with a naked girl). Funny thing about that: Jak (Mark) didn’t want to shoot the scene with any actual contact with the girl, because his wife would kill him, so he just does a funny gyrating dance on the bed. I didn’t bring my girlfriend to my love scene shoot (it would have made my job more difficult than it already was going to be) but I brought her to see the video the next day and the Director was terrified she was going to go ballistic and start killing people, his expression was priceless, but she watched it and just said “oh that’s ok” (I had told her it wasn’t a very good scene but she thought it turned out alright, she’s Japanese so maybe I would have had to be more concerned with a Thai girlfriend). They shot over 4 hours of footage for a 90 minute movie, so not too surprised the scenes of lesser importance got cut (like the introduction of my girlfriends), I honestly don’t think it was a conspiracy to push the falang/hooker stereotype. You might also be surprised that David Winters (older falang who talks about girls, he’s one of the original cast members of West side story for the movie and broadway play, if you check him out on IMDB you’ll see a HUGE list of credits for acting and producing) made most of his own lines, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he improvised the characteristic of being lecherous all by himself.

An example of Thai movies pushing things for no better reason than to reinforce ridiculous stereotypes would be this: My friend Don Fergusson worked on a Thai action movie as a villain, they put a pile of coke and guns on the table in front of him for the scene, then just before shooting some smarta$$ runs over and throws a porn DVD beside the drugs and guns…. I mean you’re not a truly bad falang unless you watch SEXY MOVIES … how ridiculous, needless to say Don flipped out and they took away the silly DVD.

Bottom line, the script originally portrayed us as REALLY evil, but the movie started getting more and more funny scenes and more silly… really the extravagant evil acts of the falangs seem out of place amidst all the quirkiness. This truly was not a conspiracy to portray falangs in as bad a light as possible, the characters called for it. The movie didn’t really get the whole story across so viewers might not understand where our evilness comes from and why we behave the way we did, we are supposed to be influenced by the evil Buddhist animal gods, with the monkey god champion (Hanuman aka Yod) kicking our butt in the end.

This is I think the first Thai movie to have farangs in major roles (we shot before Somtum, which has a farang hero btw), this is good, regardless of the characters they portrayed. It’s a step towards farangs getting different kinds of roles in the future, how far in the future is anyones guess. But if they continue on this path I am confident there will eventually be farangs portrayed in a more positive light in big roles in Thai movies on a more regular basis.

Damian Mavis”

[sriracha john]

Not difficult to see why he was banned from Thaivisa.

[HASSELHOFF]

Not difficult to see why he was banned from Thaivisa.

WHo is banned?

[sriracha john]

The banned member that's still posting via proxy in the post just above mine.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/DamianMavis-m46650.html

[Jingthing]

Thanks to the actor dude for confirming (and even adding further embellishment) to what I observed in the movie. I had failed to mention the murderous attack on the sweet Thai mentally retarded man who kind of looked like Yul Brenner in the King and I. I respect that it was ethically difficult to be depicted destroying a Buddhist shrine. I would NEVER have done that. But there are always mercenaries who will do ANYTHING, now aren't there?

Can you even imagine what that act REPRESENTS to the average Thai man on the street? I challenge anyone to find one scene in the entire history of Thai cinema where a THAI is depicted doing that. Yet, this farang went along with it, for what crappy paycheck exactly? I think it is fair to assume that if you did that in real life, your chances of getting out of there without being LYNCHED by a mob of angry Thais would be remote.

BTW, the actor's line about how there are now going to alot more major roles for farangs in Thai movies is a classic RATIONALIZATION if ever I did hear one. What even more extreme atrocities by farang STOOGES against everything that Thais hold sacred will be shown in this NEXT movie? Hanuman will be hard to top, but I am sure the creative genius Thai scriptwriters will think of something.

I realize some, maybe most of you are going to feel that I am being hard on this actor. I understand. But, you know, our ACTIONS have consequences.

BTW, not surprised to hear that David Winters playing the old PERV is a REAL actor. The other farangs couldn't act their way out of paper bag. Winter's role was very campy GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS ... drool, and I think someone needs to show this film to JOHN WATERS.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Jingthing

[Sabum]

Not difficult to see why he was banned from Thaivisa.

What did he write in the above quote that would make you say that? I'm trying to find the link but I read in another thread that he actually requested to be banned. Dont know if its true or not.

[sriracha john]

Not difficult to see why he was banned from Thaivisa.

What did he write in the above quote that would make you say that?

Not that it's against forum rules or anything like that... just a trend, I suppose... see below...

Thanks to the actor dude for confirming (and even adding further embellishment) to what I observed in the movie. I had failed to mention the murderous attack on the sweet Thai mentally retarded man who kind of looked like Yul Brenner in the King and I. I respect that it was ethically difficult to be depicted destroying a Buddhist shrine. I would NEVER have done that. But there are always mercenaries who will do ANYTHING, now aren't there?

Can you even imagine what that act REPRESENTS to the average Thai man on the street? I challenge anyone to find one scene in the entire history of Thai cinema where a THAI is depicted doing that. Yet, this farang went along with it, for what crappy paycheck exactly? I think it is fair to assume that if you did that in real life, your chances of getting out of there without being LYNCHED by a mob of angry Thais would be remote.

BTW, the actor's line about how there are now going to alot more major roles for farangs in Thai movies is a classic RATIONALIZATION if ever I did hear one.

I realize some, maybe most of you are going to feel that I am being hard on this actor. I understand. But, you know, our ACTIONS have consequences.

There's another term that could be supplanted for the red text one.... and although it's much more frequently associated with females, males are also capable of this line of work.

[Jingthing]

There's another term that could be supplanted for the red text one.... and although it's much more frequently associated with females, males are also capable of this line of work.

Yes, and I intentionally did not use that word. Their work is saintly by comparison.

[HASSELHOFF]

Thanks to the actor dude for confirming (and even adding further embellishment) to what I observed in the movie. I had failed to mention the murderous attack on the sweet Thai mentally retarded man who kind of looked like Yul Brenner in the King and I. I respect that it was ethically difficult to be depicted destroying a Buddhist shrine. I would NEVER have done that. But there are always mercenaries who will do ANYTHING, now aren't there?

Can you even imagine what that act REPRESENTS to the average Thai man on the street? I challenge anyone to find one scene in the entire history of Thai cinema where a THAI is depicted doing that. Yet, this farang went along with it, for what crappy paycheck exactly? I think it is fair to assume that if you did that in real life, your chances of getting out of there without being LYNCHED by a mob of angry Thais would be remote.

BTW, the actor's line about how there are now going to alot more major roles for farangs in Thai movies is a classic RATIONALIZATION if ever I did hear one. What even more extreme atrocities by farang STOOGES against everything that Thais hold sacred will be shown in this NEXT movie? Hanuman will be hard to top, but I am sure the creative genius Thai scriptwriters will think of something.

I realize some, maybe most of you are going to feel that I am being hard on this actor. I understand. But, you know, our ACTIONS have consequences.

BTW, not surprised to hear that David Winters playing the old PERV is a REAL actor. The other farangs couldn't act their way out of paper bag. Winter's role was very campy GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS ... drool, and I think someone needs to show this film to JOHN WATERS.

Its a movie, take a chill pill.

Why are you so sensitive on this? I mean who really cares.

ITS A MOVIE

[kmart]

This film sounds pretty hilarious. I'll make sure to buy an unauthorized dvd copy of it somewhere...

[Jingthing]

This film sounds pretty hilarious. I'll make sure to buy an unauthorized dvd copy of it somewhere...

Good idea not to pay for a ticket. Its not as hilarious as it sounds except for the GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS guy. It really is a bad movie on a purely movie entertainment level.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Jingthing

[Jimjim]

Don't see why you have to make a big deal with it.

I wasn't. You were. I said NICE TRY, what more do you want? You think NICE TRY is an insult? Thicken your skin, man!

My skin is fine. Nice try is not an insult but your cynical comment was in error. I explained myself and you still said "nice try" when my explanation was perfectly justifiable. Go back and read it. It's pretty simple. Just realize when you've made a simple mistake and admit it. I did but I guess that would make me the bigger man.

As for people commenting about Hollywood movies which you and Guesthouse have tried to say isn't relevant, it's perfectly justifiable. It puts it in some sort of context. Also the way Asians are treated in other societies is relevant. It puts it in context. Don't jump all over people and say this board is only about Thailand, etc. when you yourself have started topics that have little relevance to Thailand.

[Jingthing]

Fine, you talk about off topic issues to this thread. Don't expect me to play your game.

After all, you are the big man. I am sure you can cope.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Jingthing

[Jimjim]

Fine, you talk about off topic issues to this thread. Don't expect me to play your game.

Just admit you made a mistake with your comment. Then all will be forgiven. If you don't it just shows arrogance and a psychological need to always be right.

I'm not playing any game. But people trying to supply some context is clearly not off topic.

As for thinking the filmmakers are trying to cast farang as scapegoats for political problems, that is a complete stretch and overstates the significance of farang and the movie. I don't disagree that the movie is unkind and unfair to the white race, but isn't it a fantastical martial arts movie? Where does it reference the political problems? Where does it make a strong link between problems with Islamic insurgents in the South and some white guys doing admittedly dastardly deeds to people in the movie? I think the movie sounds farcical but so is your assertion they were trying to somehow blame white foreigners for all the problems in Thailand. It's laughable. Farang are just not that important in Thailand to be blamed for such things. They don't need to blame farang, they already have their own Thai Thaksin for that. And if they're on the other side of the fence, they have the PAD.

[Jingthing]

It's laughable.

Funny, I wasn't laughing when the farang destroyed a Buddhist shrine. The film obviously panders to the lowest common denominator of the hyper nationalist Thai soul: demonize foreigners. Thailand for the Thais. As the noble Thai character says while the farang is destroying the shrine: YOU ARE ON THAI SOIL NOW!

BTW, another nice try IMAGINING what the movie is like without actually seeing it. Most of the scenes are not supernaturally suggestive in the least. Again, NICE TRY! BTW, stop your whining and fishing for an apology. Ain't gonna happen, mate. You sound like a broken record.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Jingthing

[LAZYTERRY]

Come here for 2 weeks and spend all your money,then get back to your own country because that's what the government wants.We're only wanted here as long as we're spending cash in large amounts and in establishments owned by the rich. The Thai government only care about themselves and the rich, it's mostly the poor and middle class who benefit from farang living here full time.