SYNOPSIS:
Sao is a beautiful nurse with a horrifying secret. By day,
she is a kind, gentle caregiver but by night, she suffers
under a curse which transforms her into a hideous demon. Sao
meets a handsome but disabled hospital porter named Num. They
seem to have some natural affinity and a gentle romance develops.
A young girl who sells roses on the hospital grounds finds
a box containing an old torn photograph of a nurse and a soldier.
Sao is struck by their similarity to Num and herself and decides
to investigate. Is there some karmic bond between them? Before
she can tell Num about the picture, he is involved in an accident
that renders him mute and paralyzed. Lack of funds makes it
impossible for the hospital to take care of the bedridden
Porter. But in a desperate bid to learn the truth behind the
bizarre photograph Sao decides to personally nurse him back
to health...
MOVIE
REVIEW
Here
is another disc with a cover that cracks us up, like Manop
Udomdej’s Lizard Woman (2004) before it. This one features
a woman’s floating head, carefully photoshop-ed onto
a bloody human organ. Behind it is a man who looks like he
is waiting for his loved one to return.
We seriously
do not know whether this design is supposed to make us laugh,
or evoke sentimental feelings from the cynics in us.
The story
does sound kind of romantic though. A pretty nurse starts
her new job in a hospital and is popular with most of her
colleagues, male ones, that is. The hospital janitor (who
doesn’t look too bad himself) falls in love with her,
but finds out a terribly dark secret about her. Yes, it involves
angry spirits and vengeful ghosts.
The 2006
movie does feel nostalgic with its eye-pleasing set design,
and the story is typically mythic with a traditional Thai
folklore mood lingering indulgently throughout the film. But
its total runtime of 110 minutes is just too much for us to
take.
Looking
at its PG rating, we knew that there won’t be any bloody
and gory scares like Sathit Praditsarn and Teekayu Thamnitayakul’s
Hell (2005). Still, interspersing the movie with cheap and
laughable scares does not do the trick either. Very fake-looking
human organs and yes, the infamous floating head on the cover
makes the flick feel rather low in production value.
So, when
leads Ploy Jindachote (who plays the nurse with very disturbing
effect) and Pitisak Yaowananon (who plays the janitor with
lots of earnestness) put in their most decent performances,
we still cannot forgive this shoddy and overlong piece of
work.
No, not
even the side-splitting cover design can save it from this
unkind review.
MOVIE RATING:
 
Review
by John Li
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