A real surprise: who would have thought a kids film starring an ex-WWF wrestler could be this good? While the mainstream laps up the antics of Tony Jaa and Jeeja "CHOCOLATE" Yanin, the Thai film industry continues to create fresh, original, and very well made films that don't get as much attention: see SARS WARS for another example. SOMTUM is a light-hearted action comedy that mixes some fantastic kick-boxing action (both in and out of the ring) with some gentle, endearing and, very funny comedy sequences to great effect.
While Nathan Jones, as the naive tourist who "hulks up" at the taste of the spicy "somtum" dish, is a nice screen presence, the stars of the show are the two young Thai girls he befriends. Nawarat Techarathanaprasert shows a good command of English as the street urchin with a penchant for theft, but Sasisa Jindamanee, as her muay-thai kick-boxer older sister, is a total revelation! I urge Pracha Pinkaew and/or Panna Rittikrai to have her square off against Jeeja Yanin in a film as soon as possible: she's that good! The film itself is well-written, well-constructed, and solidly acted: even the "farang" actors, normally an afterthought, do well. There are two awesome cameos: Danny Chupong (BORN TO FIGHT, DYNAMITE WARRIOR) has a brilliant Jackie Chan-style kitchen-battle, and Kessarin "Nui" Ektawatkula (Chupong's sister in BORN TO FIGHT) is hilarious as a market-stall hawker using fruit-and-veg-kwon-do to beat up the bad guys.
