Going to the movies in Thailand

On a whim this afternoon, I went to see a movie. Josh and I have already seen one so far-- The Spiderwick Chronicles-- and the experience confirmed for us that Thai movie theaters are crazy awesome. But more on that later.

I took the Skytrain down to National Stadium to go to the EGV Grand Cinema at Siam Discovery Center. The movie I wanted to see was a Thai one, Pidtermyai Huajai Wawoon (which gets translated simply as "Hormones" on all of the movie posters I've seen). Here, Thai movies are commonly (but not always) subtitled in English, rather than dubbed over. I paid 120 baht for a ticket in one of the standard theaters, plus an extra 80 baht for a bag of popcorn (sweet, not salted and buttered; they serve multiple flavors here) and a bottle of lemonade. (As before, I leave the currency conversions to the reader.)

The theater itself was comparable to a very nice stadium-seating setup in the US, with comfy chairs with movable armrests. When you buy your ticket, you always pick your seat ahead of time off a monitor or a diagram.

Like the US, the movie was preceded by quite a few previews (for both US and Thai movies) and a bunch of commercials. Given the previews we've seen, it seems that "band of adorable scamps getting the better of adults in a particular setting" is a common plot outline for comedies here. There was one in the theaters a while back about a bunch of kids kidnapped by pirates, and the two I saw trailers for today were 1. a bunch of young boys become monks, as is common here, and raise havoc in the monastery and 2. a bunch of young boys form a competitive tug-of-war team for their school sports competition. Invariably, hilarity ensues. There are also several movies that seem to revolve around a priest or spirit medium who is responsible for quelling ghosts and has bumbling assistants that get into trouble (if you've seen the unspeakably awesome Hong Kong action movie Mr. Vampire, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about, only this is the Thai version).

The trailers are always followed by the King's Anthem, which everyone stands up for and which is played over a montage of images and scenes (the content of this depends on the theater chain). I really liked the one shown in the EGV theater, actually-- it made me feel patriotic and this isn't even my country!

The movie itself was better than I expected-- a romantic comedy about a series of highschool and college kids having "adventures in love" over their school's summer break. There are four interlocking stories: a pair of best friends compete to win the same girl, a shy kid gets up the courage to talk to his secret crush, a girl prepares for her favorite Taiwanese pop star to come to town for a concert, and a college guy struggles to stay faithful to his girlfriend while she is on an internship down south. I thought the quality of the acting was very good, and the writing was excellent (the subtitles must have been as well, since I found myself laughing at the same points as the Thai audience!) There were some interesting cultural aspects but overall it was very accessible to a Westerner like me-- and there was none of the raunchiness I've come to expect from American movies about "teenagers in love". I hope it comes out on US DVD, but I plan to get a copy when it comes out here, at least.

Now for why Thai movies theaters are awesome: the theater I was in today, which was equivalent to a nice US one and which was VERY comfortable, is actually on the low end of the amenities scale here. Most large theaters have one or more "extra" levels of comfort ("Gold", "Premium", etc., depending on theater and chain) that might involve things such as smaller screening rooms, cushier and more varied seats, special food options, and other goodies. When Josh and I went to see Spiderwick, the next available showing was in something called the "Friendship" Theater, the "intermediate" level of service. We were given three choices of seats: 1) a block of four chaise-lounge type sofa seats, allowing four people to stretch out, for 1200 baht per block; 2) a loveseat-type thing with built-in recliners and footrests for two people, for 600 baht total; or 3) big overstuffed beanbag chairs for 300 baht each! We went for one of the loveseats-- they were ridiculously comfortable, and almost put us in danger of falling asleep during the movie. Our 300-baht-apiece tickets also included a popcorn-and-drink combo for each of us, which was delivered to our seats before the movie started, as well as some blankets to cover up with in case the air conditioning was too much!

Remember, this is only the "middle" level of a nice but not top-of-the-line cinema. I'm really looking forward to what the fanciest options include. I think there is a more extensive food menu that is served to you in the theater-- there was assorted nice international food and an extensive selection of wine and beer available at the theater itself for before or during the movie.

I don't know of anywhere else in the world that is reputed to have a movie-going experience this nice, not even Japan. The USA seriously needs to get on the ball here. We're going to be thoroughly spoiled by the time we head back...