Tsunami(The Aftermath) TV - 26th

[Brad the Impala]

A reminder to anyone interested that this drama, made by the BBC and HBO, will be shown in Thailand on HBO tomorrow evening 26th. It has generally been very well received and is recommended viewing.

Agree - see it if you can!

[dab69]

tried watching it earlier in the US,
just couldn't put myself throught it all again
even though i wasn't there or anything

just hits me wAy too hard

[2lz2p]

Just watched it -- a good show.

[TrongpaiExpat]

The Bangkok Post gave it a very bad review today. Not sure if you can get a link to it with the on-line edition.

If not, the reviewer did not like the movie because it did not have enough Thai people in it, all farangs. He also felt that they too many liberties with the "truth".

[Brad the Impala]

Trongpai, I would be interested if you or anyone can provide a link to this negative article. Thanks

[dab69]

it was on again so i tried watching a bit.
yeah it did seem
over centered on farang

I just finished watching Part II. I also felt that they could have focused more on the stories of the Thai people. They had started several story lines in Part I involving characters from England and they spent most of this second part telling us what happened to them. Certainly, it was an artistic choice, but it ignored the thousands of Thai families that were impacted. There was reference to the forced displacement of the Thais whose villages were destroyed but not much of a follow-up. In the closing remarks they told of over 1/4 million people who died....they chose to illustrate the tragedy by showing us a microcosm of 2 English families, 1 English diplomat, 1 NGO worker(not sure where she's from but "farang"), a journalist (farang) and his Thai photographer and 1 Thai young man. Part of the difficulty in portraying "real-life" events of this magnitude is that, inevitably, much is omitted that could/should have been used to give a more accurate and representative picture of what happened. When measured against the option of not telling the story at all, this was certainly better than nothing but much less than it could have been.

[Sen Yai]

The Bangkok Post gave it a very bad review today. Not sure if you can get a link to it with the on-line edition.

Here's the link: Bangkok Post - HBO 'Aftermath' review (http://www.bangkokpost.com/tsunami.php?id=115474)

and here are some quotes:


When a film starts by bragging that it is "inspired by true accounts," it means it is fiction. Just two years to the day after it occurred, the awful tsunami and what it did to the millions involved are not worthy of a movie, really. So on Tuesday night we will get the regional premiere of an Airport-esque TV miniseries filmed in Phuket, about a fictional tsunami and how it affected the foreigners involved.

The making of this TV movie caused some controversy. The end result is so bland as to blunt the outrage.

The movie centres around about a dozen foreigners vacationing or working in a strange, exotic and vaguely threatening place called Phuket, when an event occurs that tests their spunk and changes their lives. Some terrible things happen, some of the characters turn out to be compassionate, while some are useless in a crisis and therefore harmful to themselves and others.

Did I mention this movie is a "fictional drama"? The natives are colourful but fortunately stoic, because you couldn't have them chattering and trying to become important characters in the drama.

I've seen this film and agree with the writer above. Most of the action is totally bland, with characters that can be found in any TV drama: the young couple (black! - how PC!) blaming each other for the loss of their child; the 'twit' from the British Embassy; and of course the token local - in this case a 'look kreung'.

It may be interesting to many of us to see a TV drama about events in LoS, but I think the target audience are those farangs back home in Manchester, Memphis or Melbourne who have little real understanding or interest in how the Tsunami effected the lives of millions of Indonesians, Thais and Sri Lankans - not only the unfortunate tourists caught by it too.

It may be interesting to many of us to see a TV drama about events in LoS, but I think the target audience are those farangs back home in Manchester, Memphis or Melbourne

Well said, it's nice to read a comment by someone who doesn't laud a program just because it's about LOS!

[dab69]

was one part in USA.

no movie could begin to touch the awful reality that killed
a quarter million people.
watching real time on computer then as
it happenned was truly awful, even from
far away in farangland.
couldn't bring myself to watch the first time
it was aired because of this, but saw abit later.
the movie was barely that, a movie.

centering it so it was mostly about
farang was a bit lame, but did try to
put the tragedy of a very few to light.