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Recently, I saw a sneak preview
of the Thai film "Beautiful
Boxer" at the Showcase Theater in Los Angeles. The event
was hosted by Regent Releasing and Here! Films, who aim to enlarge
the menu of pay-per-view GLBT films on Here!TV, the gay channel.
The theater was almost full -- as many women as men, including many
Asians. And no wonder. "Beautiful
Boxer" is based on the
life story of celebrated Thai champion kickboxer Nong Toom. He
started life as Parinya Charoenphol, a young man from a
poverty-stricken village who forged to the top in this supermacho
martial sport. But he had secret yearnings to live -- and to
kickbox -- as a woman.
Sneak previews are held for a reason. Audience reaction tells
producers and distributors a lot about how the public will react
after release. Do people laugh in the wrong moment? Not laugh at
all? Do they walk out? Picket the theater? If so, a film might
get sent back to the barn for major makeover -- a new edit, even a
new ending. But Regent and Here! won't have to worry about this
one. The audience laughed when they were supposed to. They went
sad and poignant on cue. You could feel it in the theater.
Best of all, the gut-jarring muscle-crunching fight scenes had every
politically correct and supposedly nonviolent person in the audience
saying "Yes!" as Nong Toom kicked the @#&% out of his opponents.
(The Foley people must have had a blast as they cooked up the sound
effects. Feet and elbows and fists hitting home would be way less
fun without Dolby Sound.)
The story started in Toom's lonely and questioning childhood. His
mother urged her quiet, gentle boy to learn to defend himself so
other boys wouldn't pick on him. For a time his family left him
with a traveling Buddhist monk -- they hoped that the good karma of
his prayers would help them out of poverty. In Buddhism, karma is
the sum total of our actions in this life, which determine our fate
in the next. But when the serene old monk inspired Toom to follow
his own destiny, it led him to stumble on a boxing camp in the
woods.
Toom was captured by the mystique of the sport -- its amazing moves,
its beauty, the spiritual discipline it demands, but also its power
to compel respect from others.
Everybody saw Toom differently. Other boxers saw his first try at
wearing lipstick as something to laugh and jeer at. His girl
friends saw it as a wonderful secret he shared with them. His coach
saw Toom as a great emerging athletic talent. The promoter of his
bush-league boxing school saw him only as the notorious contender
who would get them to championship matches in the big city. Indeed,
some fans saw him as a freak who wore the lipstick and red nails
just to get publicity. Meanwhile, Toom saw his sport as a way to
earn enough money for sex-change surgery.
But all these different visions wove together to make karma. In a
Buddhist society, karma is...what it is. The film takes us far from
the nasty judgmental and coercive attitudes that our own athletes
face.
Director Ekachai Uekrongtham wrote the script, then did a year's
talent search, looking for a good kickboxer who could act well
enough to bring Nong Toom's life alive for the camera. Handsome
young Nukkid Boonthong did that. He transforms with dignity and
conviction, from gawky village boy to that
amazing figure in a key fight
scene -- a beautiful girl with
long whirling hair and long red fingernails, whose whirling kicks
and fists can knock down an elephant."
When the film ended, it got a standing ovation. The director and
the great kickboxer herself made their way slowly through the crowd
to the stage, for a lively Q & A. Parinya, tall and radiant in a
flowing Thai-style silk gown, spoke through a translator. She is
now retired from the sport and has a new career as model and
actress. But she still has the long hair and long red nails.
"Beautiful Boxer" will
satisfy the most action-hungry movie viewer. But it's way more than
a damn good sports flick. On the film-festival circuit, "Beautiful
Boxer" has already won 4
awards --including Best Actor -- at the 54th Internationale
Filmfestspiele in Berlin.
"Beautiful Boxer" is playing in limited national release, but will
also be on DVD at some point. See the film's
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