Mah Nakorn

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Mah Nakorn (Citizen Dog)

Cover of the Thai DVD (no English subtitles).
Directed by Wisit Sasanatieng
Produced by Charoen Iamphungporn (exec)
Aphiradee Iamphungporn

Kiatkamon Iamphungporn
Rewat Vorarat
Written by Koynuch (novel)
Wisit Sasanatieng
Narrated by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Starring Mahasamut Boonyaruk
Saengthong Gate-Uthong
Music by Mahasamut Boonyaruk
Wisit Sasanatieng
Modern Dog
Cinematography Rewat Prelert
Editing by Polarat Kitikunpairoj
Dusanee Puinongpho
Distributed by Five Star Production
Release date(s) Thailand December 12, 2004
Running time 100 min.
Country Thailand
Language Thai
Budget 60 million baht[1]
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
Scene from the movie
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Scene from the movie

Mah Nakorn (English title: Citizen Dog, Thai: หมานคร) is a 2004 Thai romance film, directed by Wisit Sasanatieng and based on a story by Wisit's wife Koynuch, which was illustrated by him. The second film by the director of Tears of the Black Tiger, it is a colorfully surrealistic story set in contemporary Bangkok, where a boy (Pod) without a goal in life falls in love with a girl (Jin) who lives for her dreams. The movie is frequently compared with the French movie Amélie. One of the main themes of the movie is that people will only find something from the moment when they stopped looking for it.

The movie has been distributed outside Asia by Luc Besson's EuropaCorp.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Pod is a country boy who moves to Bangkok, despite his grandmother's warning that he'll grow a tail. He finds a small house to live in and takes a job in a sardine cannery, getting rides to work on the back of a motorcycle taxi, the rider of which has been made a zombie after one day it rained motorcycle helmets and he wasn't wearing one.

One hot day the assembly line at the cannery malfunctions. In the confusion, Pod chops his index finger off and it ends up in a can that is trucked away to a local grocery store. He searches everyday, buying can after can of sardines. Eventually he sees a can jumping around and opens it to find a finger. He attaches it simply by pressing it into place.

But something doesn’t feel right. He must have someone else’s finger. During a lunch break, he recognises his own finger on a co-worker who’s getting ready to pick his nose. He wrests the finger away and gives the man the other finger in return. The nose-picker is named Yod, and the two become friends.

Not wishing to lose any more fingers, Pod quits the factory and becomes a security guard. On the job in an office, he meets Jin, a maid who has her nose perpetually buried in a mysterious white book written in a foreign language that she dreams of someday understanding. The book literally landed at her feet one day while she was still living in the countryside, and since then she has been trying to decipher its meaning. She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which makes her want to constantly clean and set things in order.

Pod is smitten and wishes to be closer to Jin. Inspired by Yod and his Chinese empress girlfriend, who consummated their relationship on a crowded bus, Pod asks Jin if she would like to ride the bus. But Jin refuses, saying she breaks out in a rash whenever she takes crowded public transport. Pod quits his job as a guard and becomes a taxicab driver so he can drive her to work.

Eventually, he expresses his true feelings for Jin, but she’s become obsessed with a hippie farang, whom she's seen reading the same white book she has. She imagines the man is named Peter and believes he is an environmental activist. Inspired, she starts collecting plastic bottles, gathering enough to create a mountain that towers over the city, and joins an environmental protest movement calling for a ban on plastic.

Meanwhile, Pod has adventures in his taxicab, giving rides to a little girl with a foul mouth who smokes cigarettes and plays videogames. She has a teddy bear who also swears, smokes and drinks whiskey, and she eventually throws the teddy bear away. Another passenger is a man who incessantly licks things, and Pod must find a solution to make him stop. He also meets his grandmother, reincarnated as a gecko, who repeats her premonition that he'll grow a tail if he stays in the city.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

  • Mahasamut Boonyaruk - Pod
  • Saengthong Gate-Uthong - Jin
  • Sawatwong Palakawong Na Autthaya - Yod
  • Chuck Stephens - Peter/Andre
  • Raenkum Saninn - Grandmother of Pod
  • Pen-Ek Ratanaruang - Narrator

[edit] Festivals and awards

[edit] Soundtrack

No soundtrack album has been issued. The opening and closing theme is "...Before", performed by Thailand indie rockers Modern Dog. The song is used as a recurring motif. The soundtrack also features songs by Mahasamut Boonyaruk, who starred as Pod and is a musician in the Bangkok underground band Saliva Bastards. Director Wisit Sasanatieng also composed songs for the score. The closing title sequence features a blind band performing on a Bangkok footpath, but the backing track is actually Modern Dog.

[edit] DVD

The DVD has only been released in Thailand (Region 3) and contains no English subtitles. The film has been licensed for release in Hong Kong with English subtitles, but there is no word yet of what company will issue the film on DVD. [3]

[edit] Reference

  1. ^ Phataranawik, Phatarawadee (December 10, 2004), "Thereby hangs a tail", The Nation.
  2. ^ Corliss, Richard (December 23, 2005). 2005's Best Movies, Time (retrieved July 18, 2006).
  3. ^ Brown, Todd. September 28, 2006.The Dog Is Coming. Glory, Hallelujah, The Dog Is Coming, Twitchfilm.net (retrieved on October 7, 2006).

[edit] External links

Wisit Sasanatieng
Films: Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) | Mah Nakorn (2005) | The Unseeable (2006) | Armful (in development)
Screenplays: Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters (1997) | Nang Nak (1999)
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