Bangkok Love Story (2007)

People are voting emotionally.

An Exercise In Nonsense

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It is almost 2h and it's really a waste of time. The only good thing in the movie is the really hot guy Chaiwat Thongsaeng. All the ideas in the film are very interesting, but the director's work sucks. When you expect something to happen, it vanishes. All the characters lack profundity and there is only Chaiwat Thongsaeng who screams "I miss you" all the time. This love is impossible and it will remain like this. If Chaiwat Thongsaeng's character was really a lawyer, it would be stupid to fall in love with his killer and even to plan his own suicide( the scene in the bathroom). for me the movie is illogical, boring, very confusing and it was boring!

Many complain that "Bangkok Love Story," (the original Thai title for this translates into "Buddy, I love you man!") is too melodramatic. Film is fantasy, I believe, a way to escape into another world where emotions and images are cranked up a few notches. The beauty of this odd film from Thailand is at times staggering, and the director has achieved something so rare: he managed to make a gay-themed film that is actually cool, instead of silly and embarrassing junk that is most gay cinema. Meht, nicknamed 'Cloud' lives on a roof overlooking a grey, but beautiful Bangkok. The contract killer seems untamed, long straggly hair in his big haunted eyes, as he oversees the city, waiting to execute the next kill. His target is the innocent and gentle Itt, a lawyer with a seemingly perfect life. However things don't go as planned, and a powerful bond soon develops between these two very different men. The two leads are excellent, and the subject matter has never been handled in a more mature, intelligent way before. Scenes of bloody violence and ugliness walk hand in hand with intense beauty. The art direction and cinematography are dazzling, and the story is as tragic and as dramatic as films from the silent film era. And truthfully, the images here are so strong, that it can be understood without any understanding of the Thai language. I wondered if this was based on a manga, as the film sometimes possesses the look of a fantasy film. "Pheuan... Guu Rak meung waa/Buddy...I love you, man" remains one of my favorite films; this one is very special, and maybe bound for cult status!

After my first viewing of 'Bangkok Love Story', I was so disappointed by the melodramatic overload at the end of the film, that my first reaction was to write a very hateful comment about it, and I even wanted to smash my DVD against the wall, literally! However, something prevented me from doing so, and I think I figured out what it is. I was actually extremely moved by the story, and I think that I somehow just couldn't stomach its sad outcome, but after re-thinking about it, I finally realized that what I loved in it actually exceeded by far all the rest. Apart from the beautiful cinematography and the first rate acting, that the other reviewers here have already examined, I think that it is above all the authenticity of the love between the two characters and its unquestionable nature that I found absolutely beautifully rendered. This is a love story between two handsome and masculine men from a completely different social background,who, by a series of very unusual circumstances, succumb to a mutual passion, even if the time and place for this passion are inappropriate. What I loved in the director's approach is that, contrarily to a typical Western approach, like for instance in 'Brokeback Mountain', where the characters are devastated by the realization of the fact that they love a person of the same sex,and struggle with a typically Western guilt, an approach that I find nauseating,at NO MOMENT in 'Bangkok Love Story' do the characters waste time by asking themselves the question 'Am I gay?' or try to deny their feelings. What makes this love story tragic is above all their FATE, which is above all determined by the circumstances of their first meeting,and this fate is also determined to a certain extent by their social background. The tragedy here comes from DESTINY, and NOT from the sexuality of the characters, If 'Bangkok Love Story' had been a straight love story it would also had made perfect sense.(I do not want to spoil this review, but those who have seen the film can easily figure it out by examining the plot, nothing would have been out of place if the story had involved a man and a woman). Another reviewer talked about, I think, something like 'clan-destined' lovers, and I think, he's actually got the point and the heart of the story very well. So I finally decided to forgive the over-melodramatic turn the director gave to the story, and to focus on the beauty that lies within instead, and my rating of the film jumped from an initial 1 to a final 10. But, after all, isn't love a feeling of extreme subjectivity?

The movie posters, showing the two handsome actors, and some of the other reviews led me to want to watch this film, but I was very disappointed by it.I should preface my comments by remarking that I have never visited Thailand, and also that I was relying on English subtitles that had been written by someone who clearly had an imperfect command of the English language--and so it's conceivable to me that were I able to understand the ORIGINAL dialogue, perhaps my impression of the film would be a little better.However, one with cultivated WESTERN tastes, will, I think, find, as I did, that this movie is all very forced sentimentality with little to redeem it in the way of mood, atmosphere or other beauties. I once heard sentimentality defined as "unearned emotion," and I think that sums up perfectly what I find wrong with the film.I thought that the initial plot had been set up for me a little too swiftly, that all the characters were in their particular situations with insufficient development--"this one is a killer, that one is a crook, this one is sick and dying," etc. Contrast this, for example, with Brokeback Mountain, a film with a similar theme of the deep love that develops between two young men, and how carefully we are led to begin knowing and caring for what brought these two youths together.From this rather simplistic, almost juvenile, beginning, the story seems to start loading thick sentimentality on with a trowel, and the piles of it begin to get overwhelming, until, as we near the 3/4 mark, I found myself looking at my watch and calculating how much more of this silliness I must endure--by that time I had given up on the film taking a turn for the better. I rarely find myself laughing with scorn at a story, and I always do my best to let a storyteller tell me his tale in his own way, but in THIS film, each new element introduced to wrestle pity from me just made me react by rolling my eyes and saying, "oh, THAT too, eh?" Perhaps this sort of heavy-handed sentiment is more appealing to the Thai audience for which the film was made, and maybe what strikes me as "unearned emotion" fills a Thai viewer with LEGITIMATE emotion, but I think you'll find the film as disappointing as I did. In fact, by the end of it, I was feeling a mild distaste for nearly every character and the film's ultimately sordid story.=================================Another reviewer asked about the title. In Thai, the title is: "PHUEAN--ku rak mueng wa!" which, in gruff, familiar, male language, means "BUDDY: I love you, man!" roughly. The first word, PHUEAN, is the word you see on the title, that looks a bit like a mirror image of "J" followed by "WOu."