What comes to mind when you think of Thailand?

Beautiful islands?

Thai food?

Thai massage?

Or Thailand Shemale?

Don't forget the original Thai movie, especially the scary Thai ghost movie!

Dr. Niracharapa Tongdhamachart, dean of the Film and Animation Department in Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand, told students about the development tendency of Thai Film and animation. Both the movie and TV industry and the advertising industry have developed well because of Thai’s originality. He mentioned that, in 2015, the output value of global animation industry was approaching to 22 billion, mostly from main consumer markets like USA, UK, China, Japan and Korea. For the film industry in Thai, China held a huge market, which pushed Thai movies produced to meet the needs of Chinese audiences. The most popular one is Bad Genius (2017), gaining a cumulative box office at 270 million in China and some good ones in other Southeast Asian countries.

Based on a real cheating case in 2014, Bad Genius told a story about a gifted high-school girl Lynn who was born in poverty. After entering the aristocratic school, she planed to earn a sum of money by helping rich students cheat with another genius poor boy named Bonk. A well-planned cheating scheme crossing two continents was born, but things were not as simple as it seems.

Dr. June also commended another popular comedy horror movie Pee Mak (2013), which had subverted Thai’s old horror film model and added lots of nonsense funny plots. Adapted from a folktale “Ghost Wife”, it showed a man who returned homeland after the Bongkok Dynasty war only to find his beloved wife a ghost.

Creative cultural industries as Film and Animation were, intellectual property rights(IP) and brands are most vital parts. In Japan and Korea, two creative countries in Asia, the flourish of their cultural originality fields relied a lot on supporting from governments, for example, the famous Doraemom and globally popular K-Pop. Just turned to brands, originality could be sold all over the world. Dr. June specifically highlighted one point that to save the cost, did not invest in film production alone but to get them from other investors to spread risk.

At the end of the lecture, Irene from Malaysia raised a question to Dr. June: Is there any taboos in Thai movies? Dr. June said that it had, like plots about politics and religions must be avoided or they might be cut. Kisses and moderately Sexual senses also showed up in films.

With having a photo together, Dr. June ended this excellent lecture to everyone.

Editor: Weiwen

Translate: Rain

Photography: Choy Yi Hong