Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

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Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, working on the set of his 2003 film, Last Life in the Universe.
Born:	March 8, 1962 Bangkok, Thailand
Occupation:	Film director, screenwriter

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Thai เป็นเอก รัตนเรือง, born March 8, 1962 in Bangkok, Thailand) is a Thai film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his arthouse work, Last Life in the Universe and is considered to be one of the country's leading "new wave" auteurs, alongside Wisit Sasanatieng and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He goes by the nickname Tom and is sometimes credited as Tom Pannet.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Education and early career

Pen-Ek studied from 1977 to 1985 at the Pratt Institute in New York and worked as freelance illustrator and designer with Designframe.

In 1993, he started work at the Film Factory in Bangkok, where he worked with Wisit Sasanatieng. At Film Factory, Pen-Ek made several television commercials, for which he won numerous awards, including a bronze medal at the 1997 Cannes Lion Awards for a Clairol anti-dandruff shampoo spot entitled "Dance".

[edit] Debut film

Monrak Transistor is a bittersweet story of a young man's two loves - a local girl in his village and singing.

He made his debut feature film, Fun Bar Karaoke in 1997. It's the story of a young woman named Pu whose father falls in love with a hostess girl who's the girlfriend of a mobster. A hitman named Noi (Ray McDonald) is dispatched to kill the father, and Pu ends up falling in love with Noi. Far Bar Karaoke was screened at many film festivals after its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Pen-Ek's second film, Ruang Talok 69 (6ixtynin9), is another crime comedy. In it, a young woman (Lalita Panyopas) finds an instant noodle box filled with money that has been mistakenly placed at her doorstep and she runs afoul of some mobsters. The film was Thailand's submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in 1999. It was also screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival and other festivals.

For his work on both Fun Bar Karaoke and Ruang Talok 69, Pen-Ek has been compared to Quentin Tarantino.

His third film, Monrak Transistor (Transistor Love Story), is a bittersweet Thai country music love story involving a young man named Pan (Supakorn Kitsuwon) who marries his sweetheart (Siriyakorn Pukkavesh), is drafted into the military and then goes absent without leave to pursue his dreams of being a singer. The film premiered at the Director's Fortnight event at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. It was also submitted to the Oscars.

[edit] Pan-Asian concepts

For his fourth film, Last Life in the Universe, he teamed up with writer Prabda Yoon, cinematographer Christopher Doyle and Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano. Asano portrays a Japanese man on the run from the yakuza in Thailand. It also features Japanese director Takashi Miike in a small role as a yakuza. It was selected for competition at the Rotterdam festival, won the best actor award for Asano at the Venice International Film Festival and was Thailand's submission to the 2003 Academy Awards.

Pen-Ek worked again with Prabda, Doyle and Asano on Invisible Waves, about a Japanese chef who commits a murder in Macao and flees to Thailand. The film also stars Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang and Korean actress Kang Hye-jeong. It was selected for competition at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, where it had its world premiere. Invisible Waves was also the opening film for the 2006 Bangkok International Film Festival, where it also was in competition.

Pen-Ek was selected to take part in the Digital Short Films by Three Directors project at the 2006 Jeonju International Film Festival. He directed a short called Twelve Twenty, about a young man (Ananda Everingham) who falls in love with a woman he sees on the other side of an airport terminal. The other filmmakers taking part in the project were Singapore's Eric Khoo and Darezhan Omirbayev from Khazakstan.

In addition to directing films, Pen-Ek served as editor for director Nonzee Nimibutr's 2003 film, OK Baytong, and was the narrator on Wisit Sasanatiang's 2004 film, Citizen Dog.

Among his next projects is a comedy called Ploy, which he has submitted to the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival's Pusan Promotion Project in an effort to secure funding.^[1]

Pen-Ek's second film, Sixtynin9, is available on DVD.

[edit] Filmography

• Fun Bar Karaoke (1997)
• Ruang Talok 69 (6ixtynin9) (1999)
• Monrak Transistor (Transistor Love Story) (2001)
• Last Life in the Universe (Ruang Rak Noi Nid Mahasan) (2003)
• Invisible Waves (2006)
• Twelve Twenty (2006) – For Jeonju International Film Festival's Digital Short Films by Three Directors project.
• Ploy (in development)

[edit] References

• Feinstein, Howard (2004). Out of Time and Place: Pen-ek Ratanaruang on Last Life in the Universe, Indie Wire. Retrieved December 28, 2005.
• Tioseco, Alexis A. (2005). A Conversation with Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Criticine. Retrieved December 28, 2005.
• Morris, Ron (2000). "Bangkok Dispatch", Future Frame (retrieved October 17, 2006).

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Pusan Promotion Plan projects (doc file).

[edit] External links

• Pen-Ek Ratanaruang at the Internet Movie Database
• Pen-Ek Ratanaruang at Thai Film Database
• Asian Film Archive: Films From Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
• Film Factory - commercials by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang