Thai Film History

Last Sunday, in the paper that shall not be named, the film reviewer wrote a political column, but made reference in it to "The King of the White Elephant." This is the oldest surviving Thai film in complete form.

It was made in 1940 by Pridi Banomyong (lots more interesting information about him) in black and white, but curiously, the dialogue is in English.

As a fascinating piece / archive of Thai film history, I've tracked down a copy of it. I have no idea if it's available in shops or not, but AsiaTorrents dot com does have it, for those who are members or those who want to sign up and download it. The full video_ts folder from the original disc is available there.

AsiaTorrents dot com is an excellent source of Asian movies and music, but remember that very few Thai films have decent subtitles. For example, the subs available for The Legend of King Naresuan are absolutely incoherent. Even Google Translate handles Thai better than that, and we all know the quality of those translations! Subs for other language films tend to be much better.