2024 movie moments
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2024 movie moments

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How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. (Photo: imdb.com)
How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. (Photo: imdb.com)

The past year was surprisingly fantastic for Thai cinema, and a pretty good one for the rest of the world too.

Grandma and ghosts rule Thai screens

The movie did make millions after Grandma died.

The story of Thai cinema in 2024 hinges on the tear-soaked phenomenon of How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (in Thai, Larn Ma), a film with such a poignant reputation that it has earned over 1 billion baht worldwide and even sparked crying contests in theatres across Southeast Asia. It proves that a Thai film need not fall into the much-maligned genres of horror or comedy to achieve box-office success -- a well-crafted family drama that pulls all the right emotional strings can travel far and wide.

Grandma tells the story of a grandson bonding with his terminally ill grandmother. Despite its massive local success, it is not the highest-grossing title of 2024. That distinction belongs to Death Whisperers 2 (Tee Yod 2), an action-horror spectacle that unapologetically delivers blood, sweat, guns, muscles, evil-banishing spells and ghost-slaying fists drenched in holy water. Death Whisperers 2 grossed 730 million baht at local cinemas, the highest for a Thai film in a decade.

Meanwhile, Grandma made 340 million baht domestically and an additional 1 billion baht internationally, captivating audiences from China to Indonesia and the United States. Positioned at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, these two films have kept the economic engine of Thai cinema humming.

That engine shows no sign of slowing down, as seven Thai titles surpassed the 100 million baht mark in the past 12 months. Beyond the two top earners, the list includes Paradise Of Thorns (Vimarn Narm), Haunted University 3, My Boo (Anong), Pee Nak 4 and Hor Taew Taek: Haek Sappayod. Except for Paradise Of Thorns, a melodrama of family feuds, land disputes and homoerotic betrayals, the remaining films are a mix of horror and horror-comedy, eliciting varying degrees of critical acclaim.

A late-November release hoping to join the 100 million club is In Youth We Trust (Wai Noom), a prison drama featuring strapping young men adorned with dizzying tattoos. The film is currently inching towards its goal, though it has lost some momentum after two weeks in theatres.

A Complete Unknown. imdb.com

A Complete Unknown.

Notably, Thai films have outperformed Hollywood blockbusters in recent years, partly due to superhero fatigue and a surprising surge in enthusiasm for local content. In 2024, the biggest Hollywood release, Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire, earned 220 million baht -- a figure dwarfed by the 730 million made by Death Whisperers 2. Other notable Hollywood titles include Deadpool × Wolverine (180 million baht) and Inside Out 2 (108 million baht).

With these numbers, Thai films are expected to claim approximately 50% of the 2024 market share -- a remarkable feat considering Hollywood's historical dominance of over 70%. However, the post-Covid recovery is still ongoing. While Thailand's total box-office revenue before Covid was over 4 billion baht, it now hovers at around 3 billion. Additionally, the growing prominence of streaming services, now a staple of global content consumption, continues to reshape the industry.

On the non-mainstream front, Thai films had a relatively subdued year compared to their counterparts from Vietnam, Taiwan and Indonesia, which have become regular selections at A-list festivals. No Thai films were chosen for Berlin, Cannes or Venice in 2024, though Paradise Of Thorns did feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. This quieter year is likely due to a few promising indie projects still in production or post-production; 2025 should see a more robust presence of Thai arthouse cinema on the global stage.

All We Imagine As Light. imdb.com

All We Imagine As Light.

One Thai film that gained international recognition in recent months is Regretfully At Dawn (Arunkarn), a tender family drama about an ex-soldier grandfather and his young granddaughter. The film premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival and went on to screen at Busan and other festivals. It will be released in Thailand next year.

To summarise the state of Thai cinema, you might be waiting for this writer to drop the word of the year -- soft power. Overused though it may be, this buzzword encapsulates the hopes of industry players, both mainstream and independent, who are looking for creative and financial support under the government's soft-power initiatives to sustain momentum and nurture talent. This year, a dying grandma and a muscle-bound ghost warrior have carried the dreams of Thai cinema largely without state support. But with a careful strategy and the right push, we can look forward to a thriving film industry and a new wave of talented filmmakers in the years ahead. Fingers crossed.

On the world stage

No matter what some people say, cinema is still irrefutably relevant as an art form, a living medium, a force of political and ideological resistance, a report from the end of the world, a futile warning to the approaching apocalypse, a precipitator of imminent dystopia, or just the comforting dialogue of human emotions in a world increasingly mechanised by algorithms and non-human things.

Paradise Of Thorns. imdb.com

Paradise Of Thorns.

The good news is that many of the films that matter in 2024 will be released in, or have already been shown in, Thailand.

All We Imagine As Light, Payal Kapadia's rapt, humid poetry of longing and resilience set mostly in the teeming city of Mumbai is opening on Dec 25, next Wednesday. Grand Tour, Miguel Gomes' quirky fiction-doc hybrid in which picturesque colonial fantasies are undercut by post-colonial gritty realism, a sort-of travelogue shot across Southeast Asia including Thailand, is opening next year. The Seeds Of The Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof's gutsy report of a society in the grip of autocratic paranoia, is opening next February. The Brutalist, Brady Corbet's architectural drama and prime Oscar contender, is also coming to Thailand early next year. James Mangold's much-hyped Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothy Chalamet, will land in Thai theatres soon also.

And of course we've already seen Anora, Sean Baker's stripper romance, Palme d'Or winner and Oscar contender.

We were thankful for the World Film Festival of Bangkok in November, which brought a few dozen important films from around the world that might not secure regular distribution. To name just a few: Dahomey, Matti Diop's documentary on the restitution of African artefacts; April, Dea Kulumbegashvili's outré body horror and a study of social asphyxiation in Georgia; The Room Next Door, Pedro Almodovar's English-language film starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as two friends, one of them about to die of a terminal illness; Viet And Nam, Troung Minh Quy's dream-infused love story that doubles as a study for the haunting past of Vietnam -- this is probably the most high-profile Vietnamese arthouse film of the year.

Grand Tour. imdb.com

Grand Tour.

The festival also brought Mongrel, Chiang Wie Lian's and You Qiao Yin's brooding drama about Thai migrant workers in rural Taiwan, as well as a slate of Southeast Asian films such as The Snow In Midsummer (a Malaysian film on the racial uprising), Culie Never Cries (another Vietnamese film about the ghost of the past), and Ma, Cry Of Silence, The Maw Naing's film about a protest by female factory workers in Myanmar.

Last year, Justine Triet's Anatomy Of A Fall became a buzz title that drew attention from even those who didn't follow cinema closely. There's not an equivalent of that film this year. Perhaps Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez will try to challenge that: a narcotic thriller musical featuring a transgender Mexican drug lord, a gaudy hodgepodge that flaunts enough hot buttons for international cinema-goers. Karla Sofia Gascon will be nominated for the Oscars Best Actress, thus igniting the debate and pontification on gendered categories, while the film itself will likely be shortlisted for Best International Feature (the category that How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies will aim a historic shot at).

There are more titles from 2024 that you should look out for. Happy watching, and may cinema enlighten you.

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