The Legend of Suriyothai

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Rating

Violence and some nudity

Director

Prince Chatri Chalerm Yukol

I'll have your head!

This epic film presents a dramatic period in the history of Thailand during the 16th century. Covering the political history of civil wars within Thailand and an invasion by Burma, The Legend of Suriyothai has received considerable attention as it broke box office records when released in Thailand. It has recently been picking up momentum for its US release at the Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals.

Based upon a true story, Queen Suriyothai led her army into battle against the invading troops of Burma to reenergize her legions, which had been snared into an ambush. If they lost that battle, the entire nation would fall. With more than 5,000 extras and 200 elephants, the movie has the scope of Ben Hur.

As a young princess, Suriyothai was in love with Piren but because of two strong political families, she was married to Prince Tien. She acknowledged that it was her duty. Within the Royal family, there were hidden pregnancies, murders, and children from various concubines.

Power struggles existed that make our 2002 US Presidential election look like the walk in the park that it was. As the plotting evolves, a king is poisoned, and a "high consort" manipulates her way into becoming the queen and literally becomes a cutthroat to the king's perceived enemies.

The story line is at times melodramatic, probably because of the editing. That said, although the plot is complex¾covering a period of almost 60 years¾it's very easy to follow. I think the editing also casts the film in somewhat of a B movie shadow. You want to get deeper into a character or relationships that were now truncated. This is a classic case of what Roger Ebert means when he says "A bad movie is never too short and a great movie is never too long." In the US theatrical release format, this is an outstanding movie; in the longer version that will be released on DVD, it's a masterpiece.

Women are portrayed as capable of retaining their sexuality while having the ability to be both smarter and more powerful than a King with respect to their courage, strategy and willingness to fight men one on one on the battlefield. The film portrays a difficult time in the cultural history of Thailand. It took over two years to complete and one should not be surprised that it's the most expensive Thai film ever made.

The budget is unknown and was subsidized by the Thai Royalty, which also provided access to locations that would not normally be opened to the making of a movie. The origins of this film lay somewhat with Anna and the King, which was filmed in Malaysia because Thailand would not allow it there. The Thai Monarchy wanted to make a film that more accurately reflected its history. The Legend of Suriyothai was in development five years before Anna and the King was made.

Frances Ford Coppola "presents" the film and I suspect that he was drawn to it because it had the feel of the bigger scenes in Apocalypse Now, in particular the battle surfing scene with Robert Duvall. Although the US version of Suriyothai is 142 minutes, the original cut was more than five hours. Frankly this film's only real weakness is that it's not long enough. If there ever was a place for home theater and a director's cut on DVD, this is it. But for most people who see the film and do not know that a few hours were edited out, they will not miss what they never had. There is plenty here to sustain you.

For book lovers that have read The Jester by James Patterson, this is a must see movie. The comparison is apparent. Both stories and locations are far away and distant in time, but have epic aspects and romance more personal and realistic than, dare I say this, LOTR: The Two Towers! This one however, is not PG-13 and is definitely for adults rather than kids. The epic battles will be best appreciated on the large screen with a state of the art sound system.