Movie Review - Closet Case?

Closet case - Movie Review, Bangkok Post 14th July 2006
KONG RITHDEE

No serious discussion of gender politics is to be expected from Yongyuth Thonkongthun's fourth feature, Metrosexual, but at least the film is lubricated by constant giggles as four mean ladies try to determine a good-looking man's sexual orientation. Yongyuth has made his name from directing two films on the squad of gay/transvestite volleyball players called The Iron Ladies. His shift towards the urban phenomenon of cosmeticised men has given him a platform to craft an agreeable gender comedy about how a perfect man is only slightly different from a perfect mo.

Five female news anchors - whose status as celebrity journalists testifies that such a conceit is all about celebrity and nothing to do with journalism - play a gang of gossip-loving chanee, a queer slang for straight women. One of them, Pang (Meesuk Changmeesuk) is getting married to Kong (Tienchai Chaisawat), a handsome, stylish guy whose knowledge about the latest cosmetics and fashions is simply staggering.

Sensing the Sissy Syndrome as Kong seems too nice to be a real man, the four female buddies enlist the help of a senior gay expert Bee (Michael Shaowanasai) in uncovering the truth whether Kong's playing for the other team. Their detective work includes finding the queer tendency in Kong's family line, breaking into his apartment to look for sex toys, and searching for evidence from his years at an all-male boarding school.

The jokes range from cute to racy, and sometimes the film cannily toys with the ultimate fantasy of some women - modern women - who dream of bumping into a perfect guy. Metrosexual tries to give the impression of being a film that promotes unconventional attitudes, though that is largely drowned out by the compulsive need of the actresses to be funny.

The film has the merit of addressing an issue that's hardly been touched before, but I doubt if it will really encourage the closet cases to come out, or to discourage paranoid women not to judge a man from the brand of his eyeliner.

The BF went to see this yesterday. Since the adds in the papers were all in Thai I assumed that there were no English sub-titles and opted not to go. Some of these Thai movies are better to see without sub titles as they're not saying anything that makes sense anyway.

He came home and said, "movie no good", thou he does judge a movie on the number of way someone gets impaled or the number of high speed chases.

One gay movie we both like was, The last Song, funny and not a dry eye in the house at the end. It fun to spot the pattaya location shots.

We bumped into the staring katooy on the BTS about a week ago. She is quite a nice person and said she is working on more projects now.

It fun to watch the choices of locations and what they pass off as a typical home in Thai movies and TV. They use a lot of the National Parks as locations and some of the homes are beyond extravagant.

One TV show had all the actors wearing these big fluffy house shoes. The BF latter read in one of the TV magazines that the owner of the house allowed them to film his house but wanted everyone to wear foot protection to preserve his teak floors. They did not even bother working it in the story.