Shark-Bite Movie Review: Soul's Code -- Khun Pleum belongs on a Wheaties box

ML Nattakorn Devakula, or “Khun Pleum", is Thailand’s answer to Brad Pitt. If you don’t believe me, just ask him; according to an entertainment column published in The Nation, Pleum himself made the claim in an email sent to friends encouraging them to see the movie. He likened his turn in “Soul’s Code” to Brad Pitt’s performance in the David Fincher film “Seven”.

Surely that’s an exaggeration Khun Pleum?! “That's not an exaggeration," The Nation quotes him as writing. "Must see it whether you like me or not [this is an odd condition to place in an email to friends]. This will be one of my legacies of the year to remember."

Khun Pleum might soon be the most “legacy”-heavy man in all of Thailand. He’s stacking up a pile of them. Those who aren’t familiar with Khun Pleum can quickly cure that ignorance by a) turning on the television: he’s on a host of programmes, even a game show! b) reading the Bangkok Post where he’s a columnist c) turning on the radio: he reads and discusses the news, and has even cut a pop album or d) merely looking up: he’s bound to be on a billboard or moving advertisement selling cars or toothpaste somewhere near you.

In “Soul’s Code”, Pleum plays elite Department of Special Investigation officer Kanon, who is assigned to investigate the case of a teenage girl found bludgeoned to death and stuffed into a cardboard box left behind a monastery. Fingerprinting of the box at this juncture might well have saved the DSI from having to pay overtime hours later on, but why split hairs?

Pleum plays the classic “tough cop with a history that you’d better not ask about for fear of a tongue lashing or worse”. Fortunately, the movie stays away from anything much having to do with the internal workings of the Kanon character and thus avoids overtaxing Pleum, who is at his best in quick moving scenes that require little more from him than a hard stare. When the camera lingers, as in the scene in which Kanon surveys the monastery where the body was found, Pleum’s lack of rhythm shows in the long pauses preceding the delivery of his lines.

Pleum’s other major thumbprint on this one is the presence of Nissan cars throughout. Take note of a scene where Kanon is an on all-night stake out in his Nissan. See how comfortable he looks with the front seat reclined– not a hint of lower back pain despite all that sitting! What comfort! What a car!

Ning’s (Napat Bhunjongjit-pisan) story is tied to that of Cee, a pop singer on the way down. When he finds out Ning is a hooker, making outcalls out of an Internet parlour to high rollers so that she can support his unemployed yet-to-be-discovered ass, he dumps her and takes up with Prae, a wealthy “model” who he can also mooch off and who eventually helps him realize his dreams of pop stardom. (Isn’t the artist’s life grand?)

In the interim, Ning gets brutally murdered. The main suspect is “Mister X”, a mafia boss who digitally records himself having it off with prostitutes. Ning waits until randy Mister X hits the shower before she copies these little vignettes onto her mobile phone. Included among them is “X” rigging a bid on a public-works project and Kanon assumes that he had her rubbed out to keep her from spreading this information. Cee, unceremoniously dumped by Prae and driven to alcoholism at the news of Ning’s murder, pushes him to solve the case.

Kanon’s colleague Nicha (Premsinee Ratanasopha) cautions him that all is not as it appears. In a telling scene, she warns him that because he was educated abroad (in more than one Thai movie, an education abroad robs the recipient of common sense), he relies too much on “facts”. Back in the old days, she says, and indeed even now, detectives worked closely with “special assistants” i.e. the souls of the murdered. “Let the spirit guide you”, is essentially what this high-ranking policewoman is advising.

Kanon responds with the logical question: If the dead woman is actively involved in the case, why doesn’t she give him some hard evidence; couldn’t she just plop the murder weapon down next to his morning coffee and save everybody a headache?

But this is a ghost movie, though one with little suspense that isn’t artificially created through clichés of the genre: characters in these films should avoid lingering in front of mirrors, and theatre sound systems are a director’s best friend when it comes to using brooding music and a subsequent loud crash to drive home a fright.

This is a film made boring by convention where the interesting bits are to be found at its edges – in the characters living in rundown stinking apartments in Lat Prao who consort with pimps and live off their callgirl girlfriends and the thin veneer separating all of this from the capped-tooth world of the “superstar”. There’s a movie to be made in these margins, and perhaps, if Khun Pleun has not become prime minister or the first Thai astronaut by the time a sequel comes up, he can take the starring role.

Noel, Bangkok

Editor's Note: After this review was published in Sukhumvit Eye, Khun Pleum announced that he was running for Bangok governor. The other three horsemen of the Apocalypse are saddling up. And for more on Thai movies, check out the best English-language site on the Internet about Thai film -- Wisekwai's Thai film journal.