Cinema with both movies and series is and always will be a hot commodity. For decades, Hollywood has been claiming the thrones as the leader of cinema around the world.
But lately, Asia shows its powers especially with the success of South Korean cinema and challenges the domination of Hollywood. Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, Thai cinema is currently on the rise and thriving in the global scale thanks to these factors.
Astonishing Culture
Movies and series from Thailand often takes maximum advantage of the rich culture of the country such as heritage, history, folklore and even social issues. Thai cinema offers their unique and fresh perspective and then combining it with excellent storytelling techniques and also modern cinematic styles. This lethal combination makes Thai cinema is specific in term of culture, but also relatable universally.
Thai Cinema’s Specialty: Horror
Almost every Southeast Asian would know that if you want to watch an excellent horror movie, then one of the things you should do is make sure that it’s a Thai horror movie. Thailand has been famous for making excellent horror movies since around two decades ago with excellent horror movies such as ‘Shutter’ which was such a success, Hollywood with 20th Century Fox decided to make a remake.
Even though Thailand is great with horror, they are not afraid with making experiments and ‘Pee-Mak’ was an amazing proof of that. ‘Pee-Mak’ which was released in 2013, is an excellently unique movie where two genres of cinema that are hard to combine, horror and comedy, are mixed together beautifully. To this day, ‘Pee-Mak’ is still the highest grossing movie of all time in Thailand.
Ability to Adapt with The Streaming World
The success of Thai’s cinema only gets better with the introduction of streaming services which is shifting the world’s view of entertainment. Because of this, Thai movies are way more accessible to the rest of the world, and Thailand is determined to say that they could compete with major and more experienced players such as the USA, the UK and South Korea.
Some of the latest Thai’s series are living proofs of that. ‘Girl form Nowhere’ which was released by Netflix in 2021 became such a global hit. This show is a unique take on Thai cinemas specialty which is horror, and then mixed it with unconventional takes and storytelling of conventional idea of immortal being punishing bad people, with the modern society of high school.
Blending Genres
After they made ‘Pee-Mak’ and it became such a success, Thailand starts to make experiments about contents with blending genres and they are doing well with it. ‘Bad Genius’ is a movie released in 2017 and became such a hit with the mixed genres of thriller, drama, crime and comedy. ‘Tee Shot’ is also a great example of this where you can enjoy how comedy and sports drama are being harmoniously blended.
Government’s Help
Thailand Government is also playing a vital role in developing the country’s move industry. Cultural diplomacy, active supports of film festivals, film tourism and marketing, advancements of digital infrastructure, funding, and even tax breaks are really helping making Thai’s cinema able to go further and better.
The Openness
The last thing that makes Thai cinema could compete globally is how they are open to various aspects that are unacceptable in several Southeast Asian countries like sensuality and same-sex love stories. You can easily find various same-sex love stories shows from Thailand such as ‘Hormones’, ‘Gap: The Series’, ‘Until We Meet Again’ and also ‘TharnType: The Series’ where it would be almost impossible to find similar shows in Indonesia or Malaysia.
In conclusion, Thailand has the ingredients to be one of the major players in the world of cinema, following the trail of South Korea and they are growing rapidly. It wouldn’t be such a surprise if we see another hit movies or series from Thailand in the near future and we would be glad to see it happens.
