There's a turmoil of emotions, daring and unexpected in Tanwarin Sukkhapisit's latest comedy-drama Love Sud Jin Fin Sugoi. This film (whose title is a linguistic potpourri, an English word mixed with Japanese and Thai slang terms) is packed with familiar faces (the Thai cast members) and also features an appearance by Japanese rock star Makoto Koshinaka. It focuses on the tangled relationships among a group of friends, most of whom seem to be harbouring a secret crush on another member of the group. Then there's the added complication of gender: in this film, gender is not an obstacle automatically preventing one character from being strongly attracted to another.
Apinya "Saiparn" Sakuljaroensuk and Makoto Koshinaka in a scene from Love Sud Jin Fin Sugoi.
Apinya "Saiparn" Sakuljaroensuk plays Noona, a Thai girl who's a big fan of J-rocker Makoto (who plays himself quite comfortably). She finally realises her ultimate dream by being cast as an actress in a music video Makoto is here in Thailand to shoot on location. Securing that job, however, affects relations with her boyfriend (played by Setthapong "Tao" Phiangphor from Academy Fantasia).
Noona is a good representation of the modern-day teenager; full of dreams and drama, she is also slightly detached from reality. The film should hit all the right notes with young audiences because falling crazily in love with teen idols is something many of us have experienced at some point in our lives. And, thanks to some splendid acting, Saiparn brings Noona to life without making her character seem annoying or whiny.
This is the kind of role we don't often get to see Saiparn plays. This actress is already a pro when it comes to heavy drama and tears (check her out in Concrete Clouds, still running in local cinemas), but under the direction of Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, her part in the movie is made all the more challenging. Noona is both melodramatic and comic, her characterisation mirroring the nature of the film itself — a roiling sea of emotions. She dreams, laughs, cries, and does it over again — all the while giving a very natural-looking performance.
The film floats along quite swiftly, alternating between realistic dreams and dreamlike reality. The characters get to experience emotional highs and lows as their relationships intertwine or get entangled in a mess of secretive manoeuvres.
Of the ensemble of young cast members, the most surprising performance comes from the tomboyish Suppanad "Tina" Jittaleela who plays Ham, Noona's best friend. While she still has a long way to go before delivering a performance on Saiparn's level, it was a relief to see the way her acting skills have improved in this film. It seems that much of the credit for this must go to director Tanwarin, who has finally been able to tease Tina out of her shell to a certain extent.
I certainly admire Tina's courage when it comes to doing love scenes (the viewing of which had the girl sitting next to me in the cinema emitting squeals of glee). Though she needs to step up her game a lot more as far as her acting goes, she is sure to surprise regular cinema-goers and fans alike with one dreamlike, drunken, romantic sequence — a very bold and daring scene that elicited a few screams from the audience at the screening I attended.
There are certainly lots of moments in this film when the viewer is left gasping. "Are they for real?", I asked myself on several occasions as I watched the story play out. The sharp dialogue had a visible impact on some members of the audience who, in some scenes, didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or do a little bit of both at the same time. But if it wasn't daring and unexpected, it wouldn't be the sort of fare we've come to expect from Tanwarin, director of the banned Insects In The Backyard as well as that modest hit Ther Kao Rao Phee (Threesome).
In terms of technical ability, the film's visual style and editing were both serviceable. Multiple panels are used for some sequences to focus on what is going on between different characters rather than merely advance the overall narrative. Music for the soundtrack was generally well chosen, but in some scenes the songs playing in the background tended to distract from, rather than complement, what was happening on the screen. All in all, however, Love Sud Jin Fin Sugoi is an impressive melange of comedy and drama which was executed to a standard that far too few home-grown films manage to achieve.
