LAAPFF 2015: HOW TO WIN CHECKERS (EVERY TIME)

Oat (Ingkarat Damrongsakkul) and Ek (Thira Chutikul) in How to Win Checkers (Every Time).

Oat's meal ticket

By Miranda Inganni

Oat (Ingkarat Damrongsakkul), an 11-year-old living in poverty, idolizes his older brother, Ek (Thira Chutikul), in the coming-of-age morality tale, How to Win at Checkers (Every Time), from director Josh Kim.

Having lost both parents, Oat and Ek have an especially close relationship, which is threatened when Ek must participate in the Thai military conscription lottery. Ek’s boyfriend, Jai (Arthur Navarat), must also take his chances with the lottery. But as Oat will eventually discover, having a wealthy family gives Jai the unfair advantage of bribing his way out of having to serve his country. Wanting to secure his brother’s safety and keep him at the modest home they share with their Aunt (Vatanya Thamdee) where Ek is the primary breadwinner, Oat turns to crime.

After Oat finally outsmarts his big bro at a game of checkers, Ek decides it time to take Oat out. Heading to Café Lovely, where Ek works as an escort, Oat is finally exposed to Ek’s seedier side, including prostitution and a nasty drug habit. Oat learns quickly that this is not the path he wants to take and begins taking whatever measures are necessary to ensure that he will not follow in his brother’s footsteps.

Based on short stories by Rattawut Lapcharoeensap and set in the outskirts of Bangkok, the moral of How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) seems to be that one should do whatever it takes to win, even if it means someone else has to lose.

The sweet relationship between Oat and his brother -- and that between Ek and Jai -- lends the film a familiarity and sweetness in this otherwise grim and gritty feature.

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LAFF 2012: BUNOHAN

A scene from Bunohan: Return to Murder.

Kicked out of home

By John Esther

Adil (Zaharil Adzim) is about to lose a serious fight, if not his life, when his friends kidnap him and rush him out of the ring and across the Thai-Malaysia border. This makes a group of thugs quite mad, so they send Ilham (Faizal Hussein), a particularly ruthless and efficient assassin, after Adil. Meanwhile, Baker (Pekin Ibrahim) is trying to swindle his family out of some precious land for foreign development.

Eventually merging into one story with multiple metanarratives in the fictional town of Bunohan (which means “murder), Adil, Ilham and Baker find they have a connection dating back many years. Rather than come to terms with their estrangement and reunite, the three men embark on a lonely mission, which may undermine everyone, plus Bunohan itself.

Written and directed by Dain Said, Bunohan: Return to Murder opens up in pretty spectacular fashion, with Said, cinematographer Charin Pengpanich and the editor HK Panca brilliantly piecing the parts and pace of the players participating -- with just a hint of the final result of their story. It is some cinematic genius the rest of the film fails to offer.

The film is too ambitious for its own skills. An attempt to be a martial arts action film and mediation on family dynamics for the working poor, the film achieves too little either way. After the opening fight scene the rest of the fight scenes are almost superfluous if not part of a larger narrative contrivance. Moreover, the mythical tones and tropes come off as a faux nod to Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Bunohan: Return to Murder screens June 19, 9:40 p.m., Virgin America Theatre.

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