The biggest release in Bangkok this week is a Thai film, The Love of Siam, a solidly dramatic but sweet story that mixes dysfunctional family heartbreak with the puppy love first romance between two friends. The boys, Witwisit Hirunwongkul and Mario Maurer, perform very well, but commanding attention are a couple of the women in the cast, Sinjai Plengpanich as a concerned mother, and "Ploy" Chermarn Boonyasak as a surrogate big sister.

The director is Chukiat Sakweerakul, director of my favorite Thai film last year, 13 Beloved. He's one to watch, and he will be watched, with a sequel to 13 Beloved (14 Beloved?) due next.

Ang Lee's sexually explicit, tension-filled film noir spy thriller Lust, Caution is in limited release in Bangkok. Ang Lee personally edited a "clean" version for China, which he says "doesn't affect the story or character development because [the cuts] only involve a few minutes. The movie will feel much less intense. That’s all."

However, rather than bring the Chinese version to Thailand, local distributors have tried to bring in the full version, which is way more sexually explicit than anything the Censorship Board has ever let through. I have not been able to determine how badly Thailand's ham-fisted cultural nannies will mangle the film. It is possible that the prints of the film will be different from cinema to cinema. It's screening at the Siam, SF World and SFX Lad Phrao, but possibly the least-butchered version will be at House on RCA. If I hadn't seen the press preview, I'd play it safe and just wait for the overseas DVD release.

Something interesting about that Chinese cut of Lust, Caution, in China a university student is suing the government's censors and the cinema for "an apology, 500 yuan for emotional damages, and screenings of the uncut version of Lust, Caution 'for adults'." Maybe it's time Thai filmgoers did the same?

Also opening

• Brave - This is the first star vehicle for veteran Thai stuntman Pairote Boongerd, better known as Mike B. He plays a bank vice president who's forced to help some criminals hack the bank's database, but he fights back. Watch for some dangerously realistic stunt work, but be forewarned about fatal leaps in logic and some bad voice-over work. This is a Malaysian-Thai co-production, and in order to sell it in Thai cinemas, the voice of the Malaysian co-star, comedian-director-actor-screenwriter-producer Afdlin Shauki, had to be looped, and it sounds like a poor match. Supaksorn "Kratae" Chaimongkol also co-stars. View the teaser here. It may be all you need.
• Bangkok Time - Director Santi Taepanich, who previously did the intriguing documentary Crying Tigers about Isaan people living on the grimy edges of Bangkok, goes deeper in this dark drama about three characters, a hustler played by Ananda Everingham among them, working in the seedy alleys of Patpong. This premiered at the Bangkok International Film Festival back in July, and is starting to make the rounds at other film fests. At the Lido.
• Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea - The only reason to see this overly melodramatic and condensed tale of the great Mongolian conqueror is for the sheer spectacle of watching it on the big screen. With tens of thousands of extras, covering the majestic steppes of Mongolia, To the Ends of the Earth and Sea offers an old-fashioned movie-going experience. Even more fitting it's opening on the only screen in Bangkok that can really do justice to this film, the Scala.
• Rise: Blood Hunter - Oh here's a weird one. This B-movie vampire flick with A-list credentials stars Charlie's Angel Lucy Liu as a journalist who hunts sex-crazed vampires. The executive producer is Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead, etc.)