Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Thailand's Oscar pick: Ahimsa ... Stop to Run


An interesting choice for this year's Best Foreign Language Film submission to the Academy Awards from Thailand.

Evidently feeling that none of this year's films - not even Dorm - are strong enough for the Oscars, the Federation of National Film Associations of Thailand has reached back to October 2005 to pull out Ahimsa: Stop to Run, the karmic action comedy by Leo Kittikorn that memorably features a red-headed dude smacking the protagonist around with a hunk of lumber. It also has anal sex and the use of hallucinogenic drugs -- just the right stuff for the Academy.

However, according to Soopsip in today's Nation, Ahimsa wasn't the FNFAT's first choice. That was Invisible Waves by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang.

Invisible Waves is a stronger film, and it would've been the fourth possible trip to the Oscars for the director, but it has one problem -- while the languages are foreign, hardly any of them are Thai. Speculation is that film company Five Star Production, likely not wanting its film to run into controversy later on (possibly similar to last year, when Singapore's entry, Be With Me, was rejected for having too much English), asked that the film be withdrawn from consideration.

Or, the withdrawal could simply be the continuing beef between Five Star and the FNFAT, according to Kong Rithdee, writing for Variety.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)

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