jacobde

Through a car accident on the Sarasin-Bridge, the bridge which connects the island of Phuket with the Thai Mainland, Khrit, a 'kathoei', or ladyboy, swaps bodies with Jaa, a 'thom' or butch lesbian. From the moment they wake up in the hospital and realize their predicament, they try to get their own bodies back. For the moment, nothing seems to work though. Hiding their identity-swap for their respective boy- and girlfriends proves rather difficult. They'll have to coach each-other in being the other person. Confusion arises all around. Before long, though, Khrit realizes that by being in a female body, more men are attracted to him than before, and he starts using it to attract men, much to Jaa's annoyance. 'Stop playing with my breasts', she says -through Khrit's mouth- at one point. In another scene we see Jaa's body, completely re-vamped and 'un-butched' by Khrit, entering a posh Phuket nightclub.

Jaa, in the mean time, has more serious trouble. She has asked her girlfriend to come and live with her on Phuket, but the girl is still doubting. At one moment, though, she reveals her intention to stay to the guy who she thinks is Khrit, but who is in reality Jaa. Jaa is euphoric, but she cannot reveal her happiness to her girlfriend because she's still in Khrit's body.

The film is deliciously silly ("bâa" in Thai: It's in the title), and sometimes slapstick Thai Version takes over for a little while, especially when Khrit's kathoei 'girlfriends' and Jaa's lesbian 'mates' are on the scene. But it never gets lame. The story is, though sometimes obviously confusing because of the body-swap, consistent and solid. The acting is outstanding. Both lovely 'Jaa' Natthaweeranuch Thongmee and handsome 'Khrit' Chakrit Yamnam are really into their roles as a male homosexual in the body of a lesbian and as a lesbian in the body of a male homosexual.

The film never gets dirty, moralistic or condescending. It's a funny, rather charming story, very well acted, and set on one of the world's most attractive tropical islands.

In this movie, which is more complicated and intelligent than most people seem to realize, Bandit Thongdee presents us with a ghost story which tells us that ghosts are not all bad. They may have a problem to communicate with the living because they look and act scary, but they are righteous and very protective. When Young, Pretty and Pregnant Poh ('Sai' Inthira Charoenpura) is brutally beaten and left for dead in a lake by a vicious drug dealer (Wannakit Siriput), she is saved by the ghost of another girl, living in the lake, having been murdered by the same fellow. She was killed for her unborn child, which a sorcerer had ordered from the drug dealer to use for his witchcraft. Poh doesn't die but ends up in a hospital. She thinks she has become a little strange, though, because she sees ghosts and apparitions everywhere. She is also visited by the ghost from the lake, which touches her pregnant belly and scares her. But the ghost is actually there to help Poh, though. She helps her to kick her drug-habit, diverts her from a thought of abortion (with an iron-wire bucket handle), helps her find the ghost's own unborn child (kept in a jar for good luck in a gambling den), and also kills the drug dealer for her (played very well by Wannakit - The guy is really vicious, and doesn't deserve a second of sympathy from the viewer when he plummets to his death). But Poh's worries are not over yet. She has another enemy close to her, who is out to kill her for a whole different reason... Apart from the story, the acting is very good. Sai transforms during the movie from a derelict, rather foul-mouthed drug-user to a radiantly beautiful young woman who really wants to help people out, and becomes interested in life again. She carries this movie very gracefully. Wannakit is also perfect as the psychopathic drug-dealer, as is Aranya Namwong as Dr. Rudee. It is also much fun to see for yourself how many ghosts you can count at your first viewing; there are bound to be more at your second, third etc.

What a total waste of good fake blood!

'Saw II' may be mildly scary to an 11 year-old, but only because the movie seems to scream: 'Oh my, ain't I scary!' But even to an average 11 year-old, or in fact anyone who has watched an episode of 'The A-team' without having to take cover behind mama's armchair, this movie is indeed as dull as, as another critic already remarked, 'watching a plant grow'. Also, the acting is terrible. The old man with the yellow face doesn't even start to try to act like the terrible bastard he's supposed to portray. He just sits around saying things in a gritty voice. Given a choice between the two of them, Uncle Fester is definitely the more horrifying. The people who are waiting to get snuffed one-by one aren't any more interesting or sympathetic than so many wooden logs waiting to be thrown on a campfire. Nobody could care less what will happen to this boring bunch of stupid losers. The biggest mistake of this movie might be, that it doesn't fulfill its promise to be really gory, bloody or awful. A setting stolen from "Se7en", a mysterious, handicapped but naughty, gentleman stolen from "Hannibal", the "Who'll be next" - issue stolen from something as amusing as "Scream" (but of course of much earlier origin)... A terribly clumsy and bad movie like this could have compensated with containing some really blood-churning, horrifying scenes, cheap as that may sound, but no such thing... No, no... Failed; cult-status not reached. Just not worth your ticket or rental fee. A heap of cheap, unexciting crap. No stars for this thing which should have never happened.