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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
More on pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodian films
The girl with a head full of baby-snakes wasn't the only screen celeb of the pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodian cinema.
Dy Saveth survived the Khmer Rouge reign, but the film's lead actor, Chea Yuthorn, was believed to be killed during the war.The film's director, Tar Lym Kun, fled to Canada and is believed to still be alive.
Pous Keng Korng was remade in 2001, with a Thai actor, Vinai Kraibutr, starring opposite Khmer beauty Pik Chanboramai (see trailer below). Strangely, the Thai title of the film, Ngu Keng Kong, spawned a number of B-grade copycat movies, usually with soft-core nature. Inter-species erotica has a strange pul.
But the serpent-headed beauty wasn't the only screen celeb back then before Pol Pot arrived. It's reported that around 33 out of nearly 400 films made during the pre-Khmer Rouge decade survived -- recently there was a screening event of those titles in Phnom Penh, called The Golden Reawakening. Here, check out the clip of Puthisen Neang Kong Ray (see clip below), or 12 Sisters, a Khmer tale that has an exactly similar Siamese version, called Nang Sib Song (it's often made into TV series). The story is truly bizarre, with a touch of the exotic grotesquerie typical of our supernatural Souteast Asia: A wonderfully virile king impregnates 12 sisters, all of them his wives. But an ogress seduces the king (an ogress!) and convinces him to gouge out the eyes of the 12 sisters and banish them to a cave -- which the king duly does. Later, the sisters give birth to their babies, and all but one of them decide to eat their own children. So one boy survives, and when he becomes a young man he reveals the truth to his father, much to the hysterical thrashing-about of the wicked ogress.
Finally let's hear a song from the film Thansua Soben, which was released in a Thai theatre in 1971 (see clip below). The influence of Chinese opeara is all over, and the music is really sweet. The film tells the story of a girl who disguises herself as boy and later falls in love with a male student.
It's believed that the film's cast perished during the Khmer Rouge war.
(Thanks to Donsaron Kovitvanicha)
Read comment
It is a shame that Khmer film industry has suffered irreparable decline after the Khmer Rouge rule.
date : 17/11/2009 time : 22:48
date : 18/11/2009 time : 03:05
date : 19/11/2009 time : 06:00Most Khmer in the 60s & the 70s were intelligent, conservative and artistic. Today people are only care about US dollars. The real intelligent ones are too poor to publish any things as there are no supports.
The latest movie I seen after the Khmer Rouge was called Mak Teung & Tom Tev. the other one I can't recall what it was called but the girl who in it was Sok Sreymom.
date : 19/11/2009 time : 21:11Thanks a lot for your comment and information. I still remember Dy Saveth in Puos Keng Korng then. Cambodian cinema could become as good or even better than Thai cinema today if the country hadn't have suffered the terrible event for so long time. The radical change in political regime clearly showed us all how those precious culture and artistic works could be harmed by communism and dictatorship.
date : 21/11/2009 time : 05:00Is there any recent history of Cambodian film festivals in Bangkok? That might be good for us all and just the antidote for the swirling politics of the moment. Thanks for the article. Cinema is a great way to bring the East westward further.
date : 23/11/2009 time : 15:57
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