Film Review
Tah Tien
June 27th, 2009 | article by Kevin Pyrtle
Tags: Chaiyo, Dinosaurs, Fantasy, Folklore, Frogs, Giant monsters, Snakes, Sompote Sands
company: Chaiyo Productions
year: 1973
runtime: 99′
country: Thailand
director: Sompote Sands
cast: Sombat Methanee, Suphak Likitkul,
Sukhon Kewliam, Somphong Pongmitr
not on home video in the USA
Do you like Thai food? Thai culture? Traditional Thai architecture? Are you a fan of the music of Ennio Morricone and Gustav Holst? Do you love giant monster movies and relish nothing more than the sight of intricately constructed scale models of famous landmarks being lovingly demolished by all manner of stop-motion or suit-mation beasts?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then I can’t recommend enough against watching this film from the embattled Chaiyo Studios and founder Sompote Sands, made most famous in recent years for the much publicized legal war between it and Tsuburaya over the ownership of Ultraman. It seems important to note that Sands and Chaiyo are rather definitely the ‘bad guys’ in that particular situation, which has been written about extensively at scifijapan.com and elsewhere.
But Ultraman is hardly the topic at hand today. TAH TIEN sees a younger Sands at an earlier and happier period in his life, fresh from studying cinematography in Japan and itching to bring that country’s style of spectacular giant monster action to the theatre screens in his homeland. Sands is still a relatively respected figure in Thailand today, being the father of the special effects cinema there, and a showing of this very film in 2006 was well received by young and old alike. Were there not images from TAH TIEN accompanying an article about that screening at Thailand Knowledge Park, their depiction of it as a lucid modern retelling of a Thai folk story would most certainly have led me to believe that they were talking about a movie entirely different from what I have just seen.
TAH TIEN is a hodgepodge of Thai folk mythology clumped cumbersomely together, with the chief draw being its enactment of the story of a battle between two groups of giants in the ancient past [in this case transposed upon the very modern city of Bangkok]. The film begins quite promisingly – with a homeless man being literally pounded into the ground by the giant living statue Yak Wat Jang after attempting to steal a statue of Buddha from the temple he guards. The opening credits begin, with the titles appearing over ill-edited footage of Yak Wat Jang doing battle with rival giant statue Yak Wat Pho. While the effects are rudimentary at best [more on that later], the titles and prologue lead one to expect something entirely different from what the narrative actually provides – this will be the last of the two giants to be seen for nearly seventy minutes.
The narrative, proper, begins with a gruelingly long establishing shot of the sun setting across the ocean – this cuts to a still photograph of a comet, which segues into an explosion in the water. The explosion leaves behind a huge snake [with the same voice as the titular beast in THUNDER OF GIGANTIC SERPENT] that swims to shore and barfs up an egg. A giant people-sized toad eats the egg, which obviously disagrees with it, and barfs it back up again before dying a very floppy death [with excerpts from Holst's THE PLANETS booming in the background]. The egg explodes, revealing the very tall Chaba [Miss Bangkok 1971 herself, Suphak Likitkul]. The lonely Chaba takes possession of the dead toad’s body and goes wandering into the Thai countryside in search of friends.
It doesn’t take long for her to find an old farmer on a water buffalo, who takes her in and offers her a positively gigantic cigarette. Chaba and the farmer become good friends – she provides him with magical and extravagant feasts and he, upon discovering that she was Miss Bangkok ’71, tries unsuccessfully to molest her. Later, the giant snake that barfed her up on the beach swims to shore and turns into a fashionable young man in bright red pants. His reason for existing in the narrative is a bit unclear. After doing battle with a floppy man-sized dinosaur [who, afterwards, does battle with another man-sized dinosaur - both end up falling to their deaths] he meets up with hunter Narane [Methanee] and promptly disappears from the film. The hunter does hunter stuff, like shooting rhinos, and narrowly escapes a flood [and compulsory crocodile attack - a recurring theme in Sands' work] before eventually happening upon Chaba and the old man. Chaba and Narane waste no time in falling in love and go off for a fun date in Bangkok.
There they visit a temple and meet up with both Yak Wat Jang and Yak Wat Pho [apparently a Chinese giant and who is literally just wandering around the place]. Chaba uses her magical powers to transform both of the stone giants into flamboyant men – they have fun catching up for a bit before a dispute erupts over Jang owing Pho money. Soon the two have transformed themselves into truly gigantic giants who tower over the surrounding Bangkok. Yak Wat Pho blows up a helicopter while Yak Wat Jang pukes water at a bridge for a lengthy stretch to no good effect, then both start flailing at each other with their staffs. A homeless man who’s been meditating in the local temple for so long that he has gained supernatural powers solves matters by returning the statues to a smaller and more sedentary state – the end.
Other odd things occur throughout the film, like a strange sequence involving a drunken pervert and a guy in a gorilla suit spying on two women swimming nude in a river – none of which play into the plot in the least. In fact, one will have a distinctly difficult time discerning just what, if any, plot there is to the proceedings once the opening credits have concluded. The rather disparate events are held together by stock shots of bats, monkeys, and tropical birds, all of which seem to have at least as much screen time as the main cast. There are amusing moments, none involving the frequent comic relief and all seemingly unintentional [the laughable slap-fight between the two absurd men in dinosaur suits, for instance], but nothing that makes the 99 arduous minutes that TAH TIEN is on screen worthwhile.
The experience of seeing it could be best analogized to watching paint dry on a train wreck – I couldn’t keep myself from watching, but I never came up with a good reason why. Sands’ special effects work, TAH TIEN’s biggest selling point, is in a pretty sad state of affairs here. While the design of the two giants is interesting enough, based on real statues that can still be seen today, their implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Neither of the large puppets used to bring them to life have any real range of motion, and the climactic battle is comprised almost entirely of shots of them being wheeled from one place to another inter-cut with inserts of their feet trashing a few unconvincing miniatures and mis-matched footage of real cars or river boats. Other effects, from the various ratty monster suits to a handful of utterly immobile mock-ups, fair far worse.
The quality of other aspects of the production are equally lacking, with Sands and his crew proving themselves utterly oblivious to the very basest facets of film-making. Things like framing, blocking, and lighting are either amateurishly handled or ignored all together. Timing varies wildly, making it all but impossible to tell what time of day is being portrayed and establishing shots go on for far, far too long – it’s all quite a chore to sit through and I can’t imagine much of anyone beyond those who have never been exposed to the medium being impressed. Soundtrack cues are pretty typical for this kind of effort, and I doubt any of them were officially licensed. Aside from the frequent usage of Holst’s THE PLANETS, Sands also employs a bizarre disco rendition of Ennio Morricone’s theme to THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY.
TAH TIEN was an impulse buy on my part – I found a VCD of it listed on eBay under the awesome title of TWO BIG GIANT IN TEMPLE and, given its utter affordability, made the executive decision to procure it. I beg of all of you to please, please not make the same mistake I did, no matter how tempting TWO BIG GIANT IN TEMPLE may appear. Once the bizarre charm wears off there is little to gain from this venture but pain. Not recommended.
Want a second opinion? I recommend the review of TAH TIEN over at Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!, who have covered far more of Sampote Sands’ work than I imagine I will ever dare.
