Khun Chang Khun Paen Prab Jorrakay Thaen Kward (1982)

... aka: ขุนช้างขุนแผน ตอนปราบจรเข้เถรขวาด

... aka: Crocodile Therakwad

... aka: Khun Chang Khun Paen

... aka: Khun Chang Khun Paen: Defeat the Crocodile

Directed by:

Neramit

Sompote Saengduenchai

The team behind KRAI THONG (1980) are back with yet another crocodile film, again based on an old Thai folk tale / epic poem. Only a tiny portion of that folk tale is covered here. The inspiration is Khun Chang Khun Phaen, which was passed down from generation to generation by troubadours, who traveled from village to village giving sepha performances (basically telling the story while clicking together two pieces of wood). After surviving for centuries by oral tradition, the poem was finally written down and published in 1872, while the mass-published standard edition occurred in 1917 in three separate volumes totaling 1082 pages! Though it was finally fully translated into English in 2010, it remains virtually unknown here in America. However, it is universally known in Thailand and has been ingrained in their culture to the point where Thai children learn passages from it in school and it's the source of various common Thai sayings. In addition to the book versions, it's also been the basis for comic books, songs, paintings, stage plays and a whole host of film and TV adaptations.

On the small screen, televised versions date back to 1955. An epic 500 episode version aired on Thai TV in 1970 and then it was also serialized in 1985, 1998 and 2021; the latter adaptation free to view on Youtube. There have been at least five film versions, the first of which was a silent two part film dating back to 1936, with the most recent theatrical film being made in 2001.

For all its bells and whistles and politics and adventures, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, the literary work, is basically a love triangle at heart. Wanthong, lead female in the piece, is torn between two men: Chang, who's rich but unattractive, and Phaen, who's good-looking but poor. I don't even know if black magic and crocodile attacks figure prominently anywhere in the original epic or if Saengduenchai just wanted an excuse to reuse the models from his previous film CROCODILE (1980) but this does at least retain the love triangle plotting somewhat, though it's more like a love hexagon here. Neither the Chang nor Wanthong characters are here and the sexes have been reversed for the key players. Oh, and nearly everyone is very good looking.

Bald, pot-bellied and fifty-something Master Taen (played by comedian Charan "Gray" Petcharoen) has found a new way to invigorate his love life. Using black magic "love spells," he's able to get lush young beauties to fall head over heels for him, lust for his dad bod and try to rip the clothes right off of him! He also has the ability to snap these ladies right back out of their horny state by simply blowing on them, which he does whenever they become too annoying or he's merely wanting to move on to his next victim. Afterward, the women have no clue what they've even done with this pervert. Master Taen also knows a spell he can use to transform into a giant crocodile. His young understudy (D. R. Samart) has also learned some of his magic and can also transform into a crocodile. During one incredibly tasteless scene, the apprentice uses the love spell on an adult woman, gets her to climb into bed with him and remove her top. This probably wouldn't be so tasteless except for the fact the understudy is just a child and looks to be about 8 or 9 years old!

We then meet the other main characters and get involved in their seriously screwed up love lives. Handsome, wealthy young nobleman Phra Phi (Toon Hiranyasap) has two pretty wives: the gracious and sweet Simala (Naowarat Yuktanan) and the bitchy, possessive and jealous Soifa (Duangcheewan Komolsen), Despite Soifa's best efforts to gain her husband's attention (like basically tackling him as soon as he enters the door!), Phra Phi is almost entirely interested in Simala, which had me wondering why he even married Soifa in the first place. Yes, I know polygamy was widely practiced in Thailand at the time, but just because you can doesn't mean you should, right?

After having a temper tantrum and stomping on a bowl of fruit, Soifa and her sleazy servant (Janthana Siriporn) go to Master Taen for help. The servant is actually already very well acquainted with the Master because she's been sleeping with him and trying (in vain) to get him to stop molesting every other woman he meets. Taen levitates, floats around, disappears and creates two voodoo dolls of Phra Phi and Simala, which he uses to inflict pain on them to the point where they both pass out. Soifa then sneaks into their bedroom and slips the voodoo dolls inside a pillow, which causes Phra Phi to lust after her while making Simala look like a disfigured freak in his eyes (she looks normal to everyone else). Phra Phi immediately rejects Simala and starts treating her like dirt. He slaps her around, ties her to a pole and then whips her with a stick. Soifa has Master Taen then cast another spell to try to get Simala to seduce Phra Phi's brother, Chumphon (Tanit Pongmanoon), so she'll get kicked out of the home for good. However, Chumphon manages to resist the spell and runs off into the woods.

Suspecting something is afoot, Phra Phi and Chumphon's father, Phaen (Sombat Methanee), shows up to get to the bottom of things. Phaen is not only a high-ranking army captain but also has magical abilities of his own and is immediately able to see that a spell has been cast. He goes to King Panwasa (Sor Asanajinda) to ask for permission to conduct an investigation. Now cornered, Master Taen reverts to his crocodile form and starts attacking and killing off soldiers and villagers. The guilty non-crocodile parties all get dragged into court, where the two wives are forced to walk on hot coals. If they're innocent, Buddha will keep them from harm. Needless to say, Soifa fails the test. Meanwhile, Master Taen and his pupil escape and continue slaughtering people; prompting Phaen to lead a crocodile hunt with other villagers.

The plot here reminds me a lot of those older Japanese ghost films with a bunch of people conspiring against the tormented female protagonist until they finally get their just desserts. Only here, it's balanced out with a lot humor and, instead of ghosts, we get some black magic and a bunch of crocodile attacks. I'd say that's a fair enough trade. This also occasionally throws in some truly bizarre stuff like a living skeleton that also appears as a white-haired witch with bloody skin and eventually gets one of its eyes ripped out, a lengthy catfight between two servant girls where they pull hair and bite each other, brief and very crude stop motion animation as two voodoo dolls come to life and something that looks like a leftover character from one of Saengduenchai's unauthorized Ultraman movies (either that or a giant piñata) that's just randomly floating in the sky until it gets blown up!

I'm also glad I watched this soon after KRAI THONG 2 (1985) because now I can confirm that many of the croc attack scenes featured in KT2, which actually lifted that movie considerably, were just stolen from this one. The repeated scenes include the military guys and naked boys getting attacked, the guy trying to teach his daughter how to row a boat getting attacked (the daughter somehow ends up with slit throat but awful editing keeps us from even seeing how), the family fixing their roof getting attacked, the guy trying to lasso the croc and the funny scene of the man trying to save a young woman and pulling off her pants instead. However, in this longer version of the scene, thong girl actually escapes from the croc and then it swings back around and kills the guy instead!

This is another one that's never been released in English though the plot isn't that hard to follow. It was released on VCD and DVD by Tisa Company in Thailand and runs 113 minutes.

★★1/2

Phi Ao Ao (1984)

... aka: ผีเอ๊าะ เอ๊าะ

... aka: Phee Ao Ao

... aka: Teenage Ghost Girl

Directed by:

Naruecha (Pengphol)

As I've said elsewhere a number of times, nearly every country that had an established film industry had their very own version of the worldwide phenomenon that was The Exorcist (1973). Only this is a strange case where that version wasn't made until ten+ years after the fact. A little late to the party were we, Thailand? I guess they were too busy making crocodile and snake movies, endless Mae Nak sequels and disembodied flying heads with attached entrails flicks. So welcome to the club... finally.

This film has never been given an English-language title, so let's do something about that right now. I actually had a very difficult time coming up with a proper one. Using typical translators, "Goofy Ghost" pops up quite a few times, but I also got "A Ghost, Ah, Ah" (ah ha!) and "Ghost Eh" (eh?) I then had to separate words to find their true meaning. While the first part of the title has a ผี ("phi" or "phee"), which means ghost, the second part had me very confused. Doing a little more digging I found that เอ๊าะ is slang for a number of different things. It can mean something that isn't fully cooked, fruit that isn't fully ripe or a "pubescent girl" who is, as Britney Spears would put it, "Not a girl, not yet a woman." Thankfully, we don't have to settle for a title like "Pubescent Ghost Girl" as เอ๊าะ is also a generic term used to refer to a young lady who's between the ages of 12 and 15. Now we can just run with "Teenage Ghost Girl," though "Tween Ghost Girl" may be a bit more accurate and "Tween Possessed Girl" is even more accurate than that.

A family of three, including father Sankap (Krai Kanchit), mother Oon (Anchalee Chaisiri) and their young teenage daughter Kaew (Alisa Miller), plus their housekeeper (Narumon Supsamai), move into a large country home. An old, facially-scarred, hunchbacked, voyeuristic groundskeeper named Ting (Phit Inkhai) instantly gives them all the willies by constantly staring and lurking the grounds. Their intuition about him being bad news proves to be correct, but we'll get into that here in a little bit. Their first night in the home, everyone is startled in the middle of the night by sounds of banging, creaking, footsteps and screaming coming from the attic. The father goes to investigate and finds nothing. The following day, Kaew has a Carrie-style freak-out in the shower, so if you've ever wanted to see a girl get her first period set to an instrumental version of The Doobie Brothers' "I Can Read Your Mind," you're in luck! Apparently because the mom isn't doing her job, the housekeeper has to calm the girl down by explaining to her that this is all perfectly normal.

When he's not eavesdropping and peeping, Ting is busy casting black magic spells from a candle-and-skull-filled hidden underground room beneath the floorboards of his shack. As the family sit down for a wholesome Looney Tunes marathon on TV, Ting makes it show bloody clips from Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive instead, which makes the mom completely (and I do mean completely - right down to crying, screaming and getting the nervous shakes!) flip out. Hell, woman, I know Eaten Alive isn't quite up to par with Texas Chainsaw, but it isn't THAT bad. Later that night, Kaew is visited by a muscular though wrinkly-faced naked male demon in her bedroom, who immediately strips off her nightgown and goes downtown. The demon seems to be the same man in an old oil painting that was left behind in the home that Kaew has become recently infatuated with.

After Kaew's nocturnal nookie session ends, the servant finds her naked and lying on the floor. She attempts to destroy the painting, but Kaew awakens with a nasty case of Regan face, starts speaking in a deep male voice and tries to strangle her. The parents and housekeeper then do what any sane person in the same situation would do: Throw the girl down on the bed and tie her ass up! However, since she's possessed, she's still able to lash out using her supernatural powers. She first destroys the phone lines, which force the dad to drive into town to retrieve a doctor. While he's away, Kaew unties her ropes, laughs at and berates her mom, levitates and then starts to strangle the housekeeper again while the wimpy mom cowers in the corner screaming and doing nothing to help. The housekeeper is killed while the mom gets hit with a flying potted plant.

Sankap and the doctor finally arrive and have to sedate the now-hysterical Oon. When the doctor tries to examine Kaew, she smashes him with flying furniture, grabs him and flings him out of her window. Sankap's buddy Vichan (Porjed Kaenpetch) shows up the next day and finds the couple in a state of shock. Instead of going to the police, they drag the two corpses to the back of the house and cover them with sheets (?!) Vichan then begins to suspect Ting the caretaker has something to do with what's going on and begins to investigate matters.

This is pretty decent until about the 40 minute mark when it becomes a bit too sluggish, melodramatic and talky for a spell... but we'll just consider that a little intermission. You can use that time to grab your popcorn, folks, because this then rebounds in a pretty awesome way as it starts to move away from Friedkin and more into early Sam Raimi territory.

Remember in The Evil Dead when Ash traps one of his demon-possessed buddies in the cellar and chains it shut but the hatch is still able to be opened just enough for the demon to peek through and taunt him? Well, the director of this film certainly remembers it because he throws in lots of copycat shots when the possessed girl is locked up in a trunk and does the same exact thing. And remember how the demons could revert back to acting and sounding normal just long enough to trick Ash into letting down his guard? Well, the possessed girl does that here too to the point where the stupid mom lets her loose and she immediately jumps out and starts strangling the dad!

After getting slapped around and choked, Sankap finally loses it and just stabs his daughter with a sword. Oon (who spends most of her screen time screaming and crying) pulls herself together long enough to chop Kaew's arm up with a cleaver and then the dad dismembers her and chops off her head! But then the body reassembles itself and keeps fighting! Meanwhile, Vichan locates the caretaker's underground lair and hidden room, where his collection of skeletons turn into zombies and come after him. Comedic actors Lor Tok, Note Chernyim and Yod Nakhon Nayok have small roles as cops (first seen posing as farmers) and are involved in the perplexing final scene where they encounter a pair of living, talking skeletons (?!) in the caretaker's lair. I guess this was a last minute attempt at levity in what is otherwise a completely serious film.

It appears that the closer you get to the end of the 80s, the worse Thai genre films tend to get. Now we're just talking one decade here - of course Thailand has produced some great horror films since then - but most of the stuff I've watched from the later part of the 80s is absolute rubbish. These films tends to have production values so low they're almost in the negative, are typically shot in a couple of huts or in the surrounding woods, utilize dime store props and are filled with highly-annoying "funny" actors, excruciatingly bad gags, awful slapstick and more sped-up running in one movie than an entire season of The Benny Hill Show. If you're lucky, you may get some black make-up smears underneath ghost eyes, a tiny bit of blood or a couple of cheap laser fx thrown in. Now go back just a few years to the first half of the 80s and Thai horror films seem to improve significantly. This one has actors actually trying to give performances, make-up and gore effects (while they're not great, they're certainly at least adequate) and clear attention paid to the photography, sets, lighting, sound and other basics of filmmaking.

I did end up feeling a little bit cheated though. One of my absolute favorite aspects of cheap Exorcist knock-offs is the crude, vulgar and usually profanity-laden dialogue typically given to the possessed. I suppose the filmmakers assume audiences are going to be shocked seeing a young girl curse like a sailor and say all kinds of outrageous raunchy things, but I usually just find it hilarious in the copycat films because of how desperate they are to try to one-up The Exorcist, which usually results in loads of unintentionally funny dialogue. Sadly, since this one is only available in Thai, I could never make out what the demon-girl says! If her dialogue is as great as I imagined it was, I'd gladly boost the rating by a half star.

This seems like something that could potentially gain an audience if it were more widely available and had an English version on the market, but it runs into the same roadblock many other Asian films from this time do: Nobody bothered doing a music score! Instead, this steals all of its music from other sources. The primary stolen music here is Pino Donaggio's Carrie score, though other film scores are also pilfered. And that's a shame because this is grittier and far more effective than undeservedly more famous garbage like BEYOND THE DOOR.

★★1/2