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.
There are 2 parts to the movie, based on a well-known and controversial thai literacy work written back in the conservative 60s, and this is the first.
Mario Mauer was the lead as Jan Dara, Sakarat Ritthumrong as his father, Rhatha Phongam as Boonlueang and Chaiyapol Julien Pupart as his servant buddy Ken.
I don't even know how to describe this movie but the following link gave an excellent account of the movie:
http://www.moviexclusive.com/detail.php?c=74&desc=J&p=1918&t=jan-dara-the-beginning-2012_1918
There were quite a bit of sex and boobs scenes but I was hardly surprised considering it was promoted for its explicit sexual content. Overall, I am not particularly thrilled by the movie although I do look forward to the second part to complete the story.
