21 July 2013

JAN DARA 2: THE FINALE

I waited a year to catch part 2 of this Thai movie, which starred the same set of actors and actresses. The pace was kind of slow and the story panned out over slightly more than two hours.

Disappointingly, Mario Maurer's performance was so lack lustre. You can trust him to play a young Jan Dara but at the point when he was supposed to be in his 30s and beyond, he looked completely out of place and unconvincing as the tyrannous patriarch of the household. Even a moustache could not save the day, I mean the movie. Maybe someday he would be a method actor but not in this movie.

I felt his friend Ken delivered a much more believable performance as his childhood friend and trusted aide.

In those days when the book was published, it created shockwaves with its adult content of polygamy, rape, incest, homosexuality (lesbianism) but I guess in today's times, the topics would hardly titillate our senses.