Acting Serious, Living Rationally, Thinking Gay
Next appearing in one-man play in London in July 2012: more info











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Martin Foreman
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Thai Gay Films: 2005
 Thai films 2003-2007: Introduction      Index



Rainbow Boys aka Right By Me
(November 2005)


I don't remember where I first saw this film - probably in the reliable House on RCA soon after it came out - but my memory is of a pleasant enough movie centred on three high-school boys. Two years later I caught up with it again on DVD and was reminded that some pleasures need only be experienced once.

The story is a familiar one, particularly to North American audiences, where it sometimes seems that there is only one plot in gay fiction - coming out in high school or college. You know there are going to be tears, jokes and drama, but there is little suspense because you know that by the end the Hero Will Pull Through And Will Face The World A Confident Gay Man. It's a great theme for teenagers - and their friends and family - who are coming to terms with their sexuality, but it seldom offers anything new to the rest of us.

This budget production is based on US Alex Sanchez's novel Rainbow Boys*, transplanted to a Bangkok high school. Camp, totally out of the closet, Nat lives with his high-flying supportive mother and almost never sees his

The DVD cover for the 2007 renamed "Director's Cut" version. On the left is Jackie Love as Tat, who looks a lot better without the thick black glasses he's saddled with for most of the film. On the right is Palat Ananwattanasiri as Ek, who looks good in or out of anything...

Don't take the strapline "Thailand's first gay pride movie" too seriously. Other films could make the same claim.
wealthy father. Nat is in love, or at least lust, with Tat, who knows he's gay but who hasn't got around to telling his straightlaced middle-class parents. Tat, meanwhile, is in love with Ek, the school athlete from a poor family with an abusive father. Ek has a girlfriend and has a Very Big Secret - he thinks he might be attracted to guys.

And that's all you need to know. This is step-by-step film-making, ploddingly written, directed and acted. It is the cinematic equivalent of Coming Out for Dummies, complete with discussion group with a facilitator from local NGO Bangkok Rainbow. See it if you're under 20; if you're older, check out the gay comedy Club M2 from the same production team. And if you want to see a really good Thai film about high school boys in love, make sure you see The Love of Siam, which took the country by storm at the end of 2007.
* That book and its two sequels have been translated into Thai.

marks out of 10:     social interest: 5     gay interest: 6     film quality: 4
IMDb entry      film website      wikipedia article not found
Index of Thai gay and katoey films


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