Once Upon A Star: Homage to Thailand’s Film Industry

This time, Thailand is once again producing a worthy international recognition film titled “ Once Upon s Star”. With the backdrop of the 70’s in Thailand, the film tells a progression of film distribution in Thailand as well as the film industry in the country. It starts with the scenic countryside of Thailand and a yodeling style folk song while a caravan car moves along the rice field. But there’s nothing more poetic than when the film starts with a caption, “ We should find out what we love”. Then a woman holding cigarette from inside the caravan seemingly admiring the scenic views.

“ First you should find what you love” then it shows a picture that will also be the main subject of this movie. A picture of Mitr Chaibancha, a Thailand famous actor in the 70’s then shift once a gain to a typewriter which on it wrote “ Before you start to dream”. As you get to introduce some of the premise of the film, you’ll get to know the characters who will retell the progression of film distribution in Thailand.

In this film, it was shown that in Thailand back in the 70’s, traveling pharma troupe was the hype. What they do is basically traveling to rural side bringing and playing the films while also selling medicines. What’s worthy to note is that back in the day, the film was silent and there was no audio on it. It was reel of pictures which is why there’s a live dubber and it was a good profession back in the day.

In Once Upon a Star, it was Kao (Jirayu La-ongmanee), who work on the reels, while uncle Man (Samart Payukaroon) is the driver and Manit(Sukollawat Kanarot) was the live dubber. Their traveling pharma-cinema troupe faces a problem as they weren’t able to sell enough and that they don’t have enough live dubbers compared to their rival company Kampanat Company who has more dubber and even feature female dubber. As the crew passes Kampanat troupe, they got more viewers.

As they got into their base in Lopburi, they eventually met Ruengkae(Nuengthida Sophon), who applied as female dubbing artist. While the crew got excited, there was problem that in their company, none other than the crew could be inside the travel caravan. So, they essentially hide the existence of Ruengkae , who dreamed to work at an office and is trying to save money to buy a typewriter. The 4 of them traveled across villages and after they introduced Chom, they made more profits than they ever did. Halfway through the film, we are back to the narator voice which was revealed to be Chom who wrote that Mitr isn’t his real name but was a name given by director because he values friends above anything else in life. Kao who was at first workig on the reels now under Ruengkae is trained to be a live dubber. He has a dream that he wanted to be an actor just like Mitr.

Eventually what they were always afraid of came true. The manager found out about her but Manit argues that time is changing and they have to change they way they do things. As the repercussion, Manit was told that the last batch medicine could also mean to be the last of them. Then, a shocking news about Mitr dead reached them where the actor died while performing stunt from a helicopter. It shocked his fans as well as Manit who was also a big fan of Mitr. In this film, it also features the documentary of the incident in a vintage footage which also has a caption about it. While the crew was driving, they reminiscence the time they met Mitr and how they eventually got autograph. It was shown that during his time, he was the icon in Thai film industry. Even during his mounting, it was also shown that thousands of people coming to his funeral in Phra Khanong (one of districts in Bangkok).

After atteding the funeral, the crew went back to Phetchaburi to play one of Mitr’s film alongside kampanat’s company. The crew choses a movie that was fun and light-hearted while Kampanat’s choses an action film that was starred by Mitr. It was also shown the progression where the crew was relying on live dubber to now, including sound and music into showcasing the cinema. While manit was dubbing, it was revealed that during the meeting with Mitr, he said to manit “ you make me look good because of your voice, thank you. Thank you truly”.

Fast forward, eventually Ruengkae back to Pratunam and was gifted a typewriter by the crew. They were all separated and it was revealed from letter that Kao is now working as actor in a movie. While uncle Man won a lottery and he bought a new truck. Manit was unknow but in the end it was shown that cinema was eventually established and foreign movie was played in Thailand which marked a start of another era in the film industry.

Although this movie was 2 hours, you won’t really get bored as it was visually stunning and the story was captivating. Even for foreign audience and with little knowledge of the film industry over there, it was quite informative. These days, you see products placement on series or film but in the past, it was done differently where the film was the bridge between company and the consumer. I have to say that the idea of cinema-traveling troupe was quite brilliant especially when a country like Thailand has such a diverse landscape and a lot of its people are also spread around. But obviously, it was also a homage to the icon of film industry in that country at that time. Filled with banter, awesome screenwriting, and as well as actors, 2 hours felt like nothing. Somehow, the movie also shows about the idea of loving what you do and that is the part where I think a lot of us today could resonate. Just like the quotes in this film “ first you should find what you love. Before you start to dream.”

Personally, I did not regret setting notification for this film. I thought at first I was more like a traveling movie which turned out to be right, it involves a part of traveling but I didn’t expect it would talk about such a significant journey of film in Thailand. In the end, I do recommend this film especially if you enjoy browsing through foreign films.

Check out the trailer below!