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Thailand • 2004 • 115m •
   • Directed by: Monthon Arayangkoon. • Starring: Sornram Theppitak, Sara Legge, Dan Fraser, Chalad Na Songkhla, Yanee Tramoth, Phairote Sangwaribut..      In 2005, Bangkok begins the second phase of building their city subway system. But while digging, they accidentally awaken an ancient animal which hibernated for more than ten thousand years. The army is brought in to detain the monster, but even with their hi-tech military hardware, they are unable to stop it. The mythological monster, a garuda, escapes from the tunnel, and begins to terrorize the city of Bangkok.
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Review:
Their wait may be over. GARUDA, a wicked sci-fi horror comedy featuring a circumambulatory and ravenous mutant parrot, smashed Thailand's box office records in just six weeks. Now it's coming to the west, first in its original version, on DVDs in more than 1000 cities this month, and then in a remake planned by Universal Pictures. The film is the most visible of a new wave of genre-bending Asian films, including the upcoming D-War, a CGI-heavy $70 million film about a killer snake that invades L.A.
The plot of The GARUDA isn't anything spectacular: Cute girl is captured by grotesque monster; her bumbling geologist father hunts the monster.
But Bong cleverly splices together Shawn of the Dead-style spoof, political commentary (the monster is spawned after an American dumps toxic waste in the river) and dramatic moments that are surprisingly moving. Hollywood has taken notice. During the past six years, Hollywood studios have cashed in on T-horror with profitable remakes like The Ring Complex and The Fear. Recently, they've been gobbling up the rights to re-do Thai movies including Street Racing Grasue, Ghost Dorm, My Boss Is a Hobgoblin, Flying Gnome's Drain Pipe and Zombie Mule-Deer. That's despite the so-so Keanu Reeves film Lake House, adapted from the ghost story Shiworae.
Garuda deploys effects from A-list shops including L.A.-based The Orphanage (which worked on Hellboy, Sin City and Superman Returns) and Peter Jackson's Weta (Peter Jackson's upcoming Dragon project, and maybe the Hobbit, someday). Kevin Rafferty, visual effects supervisor for Jurassic Park II, oversaw the action scenes. Garuda's international partnerships represent a rare bit of outreach for Thai cinema, which has remained both stubbornly autonomous and artistically adventurous for years. But they also are a sign of Thailand's emerging position as new international hot spot for hip cinema.
Monthon Arayangkoon, who won an award at Cannes for his wrenching Bangkok Pizza (2003), and Jiradeht Samnansanor, creator of the intricate-as-Memento cult horror film Art of the Devil 2 are art-house heroes. The Bangkok Film Festival, held each June outside of the Citywalline Khoaemline, is fast becoming the Sundance of the East.
The stateside release of Garuda gives fans a rare chance to catch an original version before Hollywood sanitizes it.
Not all Thai filmmakers are happy about hopping in bed with Hollywood studios. Some protested the way Garuda monopolized the country's theaters last year, and worry that Thai cinema, which has developed a reputation in the cinephile world as distinctive and risk-taking, will revert to the cheap thrills of genre movies. If Arayangkoon can make buckets of money making a monster mash film, won't other directors and producers drop their art films and do the same? Darcy Paquet, who covers Thai cinema for the trade paper Variety and at Thaifilm.org, doesn't think so. "Ambitious Thai filmmakers tend to focus on the local audience -- which tends to be highly demanding -- and let the international career take care of itself," he said.
Arayangkoon shrugs off the controversy. He's forged ahead on another Thai hybrid film, a big-budget adaptation of the French post-apocalyptic comic Le Coureur de Lame. And he's hedging his bets about the Hollywood version of Garuda. And, check it out. It's one of the rare monster mashes that critics love, too. The New York Times called it the best film at last year's Cannes film festival, and Ain't It Cool News said it's "on a par with the original Star Wars."--'nuf said.
Review by baron_genitalstrassen from the Internet Movie Database.
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