SYNOPSIS:
A
heart warming, yet funny story of a first co-ed school where
boys and girls are merged to study in the same class for the
first time. The difference between boys and girls bring such
a big headache to the two teachers, Ms. Sompat and Ms. Gaysorn,
so they try to teach the students many lessons of life and
living. But these two female teachers that were sent with
the girls are not sure what to make of the advances made to
them by the teachers of the boys’ school. Confusion,
chaos and hormones abound, the school prepares for the groundbreaking
merger. Will the girls subdue the boys or will the boys break
the girls? Will love blossom and if so who will it blossom
for first? The teachers or the students?
MOVIE REVIEW:
When an idea is mooted by the Ministry of Education to
send a class of girls and their teachers to an all
boys school as a seed for the formation of a co-ed
school, you can almost be sure of pandemonium amongst
the ranks, from the principals right down to the
students. But of course, school politics aside, this
is actually a comedy of sorts, one that tried too hard
to please.
Set
in 1957 Thailand, you'd come to expect the usual
from a movie about life in high school, with the usual
ghost stories, rowdy boys, studious girls, and just
about every cliche that you can think about, get
thrown around. It's quite like the usual settings and
dramatic material that even a local television series
starring Chen Liping would be hard pressed not to be
different. The story, if there is one, centers on two
female teachers, Miss Sompat (Pratcharasri Benchamas)
and Miss Gaysorn (Meesuke Jangmeesuke), best of
friends but yet rivals in various aspects like
popularity amongst students, and the much dreaded
romantic subplot that slowly muscled its way through.
Girls
being introduced into a class full of boys is
fodder enough for teenage romance to brew, except that
what happened here is the forgoing of the creation of
any memorable characters amongst the students. They
are as cardboard as students can get, and frankly, you
can't be more than bothered if they pass or fail their
exams. Miss Sompat, being the slightly less attractive
teacher than Miss Gaysorn, sees green obviously when
teachers and even the principal shower their attention
on her, again with the usual lecherous few, and
there's this really long drawn out saga about love
letters getting passed around, that you'd soon prefer
for someone to tear them all up and move the story on.
I'd
had expect things to pick up when Miss Sompat
slowly inches her way to positions of power, and given
that her character had potential to develop into
something meatier, such as with her misguided
principles, but alas, this gets reduced to
melodramatic tear-jerky moments which lack oomph, and
the finale for making amends to lift the movie, goes
down the drain. Miss Gaysorn on the other hand, was
quite the flower vase with her lovely smile used to
disarm and entice men into doing her favours, but I
guess this being a PG rated movie, there's no avenue
for vampish, trashy behaviour in milking looks for
unfair advantage.
Mor8
contains many situations which are quite
artificially plastered together to make some semblance
of a movie. It's done quite haphazardly, and there
certainly are aspects of it that can be tightened, and
would have been more palatable if there were some
mature storytelling and situations thrown in. The art
direction is almost flawless though, transporting you
to a believable 1950s, but unfortunately the story
doesn't live up to that technicality.
Comedy
in itself, as touted, would be nice, but only if they genuinely
make you laugh out loud. Mor.8 is neither inspirational, nor
funny, though extremely safe for the family as entertainment
to pass time only.
MOVIE RATING:
Review
by Stefan Shih
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