Interview with Chatrichalerm Yukol

TEXT OF INTERVIEW
w/ Chatrichalerm Yukol
Bangkok, THAILAND
14 Dec 1993

The evening I met Prince Chatri, I was escorted into a somewhat spartan room with a desk and piles of equipment cases — several 35mm feature film packages. On the desk there was a computer monitor and a VCR: a non-linear editing system. Next to the desk were video cassette recordings of his films. A surprisingly tall Thai man entered: the Prince. I asked him if he minded my recording the session — he didn’t. He played tapes of his films for me constantly during the conversation. The interview took on a split personality:

• a running commentary on the tapes playing on the screen and
• answers to my questions.

Needless to say, something difficult to present as text. Finally, I divided it into three sections:

1. remarks relating to filmmaking techniques,
2. remarks relating to themes found in CCY’s films, and
3. remarks relating to censorship.

Acknowledgements

I was lucky to have had the opportunity to meet with Chatrichalerm Yukol, and to have him take me on a guided tour of his work and his brain. I make no apologies for our conversation’s orientation toward production.

I am grateful to my friend Acharn Rungnapar Pitpreecha for her aid in setting up the interview. At the time, she was an Associate Professor at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University. I also must thank Khun Dome Sukvong of the National Film Archive of Thailand for his support and his heroic efforts to preserve film communication.

Techniques

Can you tell me something about your first film? How you made it. Why you made it.

I was in television before I started in film. And then, I made a film called Out of the Darkness (1971), just for fun, because no science fiction film had ever been made in Thailand. I was thinking about what if some of the ETs would come down in Thailand. So you look at it on three levels. The scientists look at it objectively. For the other people, it is just some phenomenon. But for the very primitive people, like the Chaolae, it is probably the new god sent to earth. So better start with them. It’s the first Thai science fiction film. It was terrible. Then I made Dr. Karn (1973). Dr. Karn is the first film ever made in Thailand about the department of interior. You see, when you look back at it, it doesn’t seem like much. But at that time we were under the iron fists of General Prapaht Jarusatean and Prime Minister Tanorm Kittikachon. Censorship was really strong. But nevertheless all the police, all the “interior” were actually politically corrupt. You make this film for the first time and it passed the censor. It set up a new trend. First, I didn’t see it as a political corruption film. It was kind of fun to make. That’s the first one. The one after that we made a film about the prostitutes, The Angel (aka Hotel Angel, 1974). I spent nine months in a brothel in order to get the story. After that we made the film called The Last Love (aka Last Love, 1975), a love story.

In the beginning, did you have to finance your own films?

Now I still have to finance my own films. It’s pretty expensive in Thailand, now about 12 million baht (500,000 US$). It doesn’t seem very much compared to American film standards, but if it’s out of one man’s pocket, it’s a lot — if it’s out to stay. One million dollars is a lot of money to spend on a film. You can go bankrupt. If you lost on three films in a row, you’re gone. That’s three million dollars out of your pocket. No finance, no bank guarantee, nothing. Back to the beginning.

How do you distribute your films?

We sell it piecemeal to the different regions. Like Salween (aka Gunman II, 1993)showed in 50 theatres throughout eight regions: North, South, East, Isaan (Northeast), Bangkok, and Pattanwat,etc. — eight regions. We just sell it piecemeal.

What about foreign distribution?

Don’t know anything about it. I sell it piecemeal sometimes. If anyone is interested. Like with Salween, we have several interested parties.

There’s to be a retrospective of your work soon?

Yes. In Holland. [Also April, 1994 in Singapore]

Will you be appearing there?

I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. It’s too cold. Last time it was minus five degrees in Amsterdam — it’s too cold. I have to go on filming in the south of Thailand. I have two films set up.

In the last interview of yours I read, you were discussing the fact that you have been using voice over more lately. Do you feel that —

They’ve said it’s old fashioned. I think that if you can bring a story forward, and make it clearer — but they say it’s old fashioned.

Who says it’s old fashioned?

Most of the critics say it. But, you know, I use a lot of voice over. It’s very difficult to photograph a dream and realize your concept. It is easier to use voice over. Saves a lot of time. Freedom of the Citizen (aka Freedom of the Taxi Driver, aka Citizen II, 1984) doesn’t have voice over. Salween has voice over.

Is it narration or voice over thoughts of the character?

It isn’t so much the thoughts of the character as it is when he is writing a letter, or as in The Elephant Keeper (1987).

What do you think about the use of lyrics in the films?

Unlike in other Thai films I’ve seen, I noticed the strong motivation of music in your films.

You see, my films are different from most other Thai films. To begin with, I am one of the only Thai filmmakers who uses the double system. We record the sound at the same time we shoot. In Freedom of the Citizen, it is actually 100% sync sound: no looping. On all of my films we compose the music, we don’t use the music from records.

When I watch other Thai films the dubbing distances me.

With Thai filmmakers, many don’t believe in the double system.

Why do you think that’s the case?

Well, I don’t know. Why? There is no rhyme or reason at all why. First of all, they think that the actor or actress cannot remember their lines. But that’s bullshit. When they act on television they must remember ten to twenty pages at a time, you know. And they talk about the sound in the background, but I think you have to go with that.

When you talk about making films, you say “we” a lot. Who are the “we”?

All the people who make the film are the “we”. Sorapong (Chatree) is the actor, but it’s my script. It’s impossible for me to make the film, Freedom of the Citizen: I photographed and wrote it, I edited it and I do many things, I even mixed the sound. This one here [he picks up another cassette]: I think of the story, I wrote the script, I photographed it, I directed it, I cut it — but I only acted in one shot of the film. I didn’t compose the music for it, a lot of things. It’s not my film, it’s everybody’s film.

What’s your own favorite film?

(Immediately) Citizen (aka Taxi Driver, 1977), the first one.

Why?

Everything is right. Everything falls into place. I wrote the script in three days, filmed it in thirty days, and it cost only one million baht. And for that, it won all the awards in Thailand, and it won best film in Asia. That’s why it’s my favorite film, you know, when everything falls into place.

When you say that you wrote the script in three days —

Yes, here it is. [He hands me the 300+ page script of Citizen.] I wrote the whole story in three days. The first draft was done in three days. The second draft was only changing one scene. The third draft was changing the script to the northeastern dialect. Then, we timed the rehearsals and wrote down the times of each scene. When I began to write this film, I was writing a script for a proposal. I locked myself in a hotel room, but everyday, I’d go down to the coffee shop for one hour. I saw a taxi parked in front of the hotel, on Trocadero Road. I had a Volvo, but I never cleaned the car, it was covered with dust. But this taxi driver was cleaning his car — and it hit me that his car was not actually a car, but his future. What happens if the car is stolen? Or if it is hit by a ten-wheeled truck or something? So I asked the the taxi driver to have a cup of coffee with me. I had nothing to do, so I go with him. He asked me where it is I want to go, I don’t care, so we just go around — while he parks the car, while he picks up his regular customers at the massage parlor, while he went to eat, to drink — So I begin writing the scripts, it took me eight days to write them all. Three days for the first one, all day and all night in three days.

You wrote them all at that time?

Yes, all four. Part of it. But I have to wait until the boy grows up to be a young man to do the third one.

I’m interested in this idea that I read in which you relate your study of the layers of earth to editing. Geology —

Oh yes. To sedimentation. You see, I am a geologist by education. So I always use the soil graph in my films. When you have one of these graphs, you always have a certain kind of rock set up into a formation, into a cusp, or whatever. But sometimes that cusp can bend and put the beginning in the end, the end in the beginning, it can break off the conclusion. This is one approach.

When you say that you shoot your own films, does this mean that you operate the camera too, or just direct the photography?

Yeah, I operate the camera. I light them, too.

The opening shot of Gunman is from the back of a motorcycle. Did you shoot that?

I had a camera on my shoulder, a sun-gun on my helmet, on the back of the bike. It was dangerous, but the driver was a motorcycle racing champion, quite a good driver. Incidentally, that is the exact spot where another man was shot. Exact same place.

I really like that shot. That was the first shot I had seen of any of your films. And I had seen some other Thai films which had disappointed me. So when I see this shot I think,”OK, a travelling night shot.” Then suddenly, it becomes all these things. No longer is it just a car. In the beginning, it could be the point of view (POV) of a car. Then, when you pull into the parking lot of the hotel, it becomes obvious that it is a motorcycle from the way it turns in. And then the walking.

You have to walk like a one-legged man, limping along. And then you go into the lobby — This scene is relative. When you watch it, you should be thinking of it in terms of your own perspective. If you’re tall, you would think, “The suspect must be a short man.” If you’re fat, he’s a thin man. It’s kind of fun, doing that. It was my mistake to do it in the nighttime, the daytime would have been more effective because you have to go through two light changes — from yellow light at 5000 Kelvin to indoor light at 3200 Kelvin — and shoot the guy in the coffee shop and walk back in broad daylight. We could not use the Steadicam, because you cannot fit it on the back of the motorbike. We did it in three takes.

Which one did you use?

I used the third one. Because after the third one I wouldn’t do it again. It was pretty risky. You practically blind, when you get off the bike you have to walk into the coffee shop shoot the man and walk back — back on the motorbike with your eyes on the viewfinder, you have to do all the focus-pulling yourself, it was pretty painful. But that was still an easy shot. There is still a more difficult shot in Gunman. It would be a perfect shot, but there was a bit of jarring, so I had to break the shot up. It would be nice to have it all in one single shot, a helicopter shot, from a man’s face up until the enemy soldiers have cut him off. That’s a handheld shot with a zoom lens, Angenieux zoom, 50mm-500mm. An anamorphic handheld, sitting in the helicopter with the guy holding the back of my seat. Do the closeup on the face, zoom out, and the rest. A person had to hold a mic to my lips so I could tell the helicopter pilot exactly what I wanted. Pretty painful shot, I think. We have a lot of painful shots in that film.

Where did you shoot this scene?

Saraburi province. Had to cut the shot. There was a little jiggle. Some critic said that I copied the shot from Platoon. But it was years before Platoon. It’s difficult because you have to center him the whole time, zoom out at the right time, pull the focus.

What camera was that?

35 BL (Arriflex). It’s handheld. Any other questions? I’m still waiting for my actress.

Themes

In your films The Angel and Gunman, the female characters are interesting. They are strong in a way, but they also seem to subvert themselves.

In The Angel we have three girls. One girl, all you have to do is give her one smack and she’s willing to be a prostitute. She said it’s better than working in the fields. Another girl, you have to beat her up quite a bit before she’s willing to be a prostitute. And the last one, the third girl, no matter what you do she won’t be a prostitute. She’ll jump down, kill herself, but you can’t change her. So, we have three types of girls. Like Malee, you know, you have to understand one word: KARMA — like in the film, Kama (1978). Thai people actually believe in karma. They believe that whatever happens to you in this life, it is a result of what happened in the last life. You see, I have been doing research for an HIV film. I’m astounded by the fact that the people who know they’re going to die don’t feel all that bad. When Dr. Fielding came to Thailand, he discovered the same thing. You see what happened to them is their own karma, what happened to them in their last life. And now, if they make merit, in their next life it will be better. You cannot see it in most Thai people now, but it is brought out, is released, when they are about to die. It’s exactly the same thing when Malee says that it’s her own karma, that’s why she has to suffer, to be a prostitute. In fact, she felt quite happy about it, you know. She sent the money home so her father could build the house, and she turned out to be a sort of star.

She had her own poster —

The angel is the star of a brothel. And one day, she discovers that she is no longer a star, and she falls down. The things change, now. Now we’re working on the child prostitutes. Here. [He hands me a stack of photographs.] These are child prostitutes. Here, she is twelve. Fifteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Now, ask why she wants to be a prostitute? She’s not poor. Check her blood. Her father owns steel mills in Thailand. When she goes out, she takes one-half million baht in petty cash from her father. Now, she’s hooked on heroin. When this photo was taken, she wasn’t on heroin yet. This one already went back home. This is the story I’m working on right now.

It seems that your main character is often an outsider.

Yes, like in The Citizen, he was an outsider. The Citizen is actually part of a trilogy. The Citizen, Freedom of the Citizen , and Citizen Go Home (unmade at the time). I have made two. In two years’ time, I will probably make the third one. For the second one, when he gets out of jail, well, the actor had died, so I used Sorapong [Chatree] instead. The main structure of Freedom of the Citizen is there is no such thing as freedom. Once you’re in jail, you’re always in jail, in this society. Once you get out of jail, you are still branded by the evidence. He is still an outsider. Probably, though I haven’t thought that much about the female characters, but it probably is exactly the same as it is with most of my female characters.

Though, it seems to be a different level of “outside” for the women.

Outside?

It’s a different level of being outside of society with the women.

They’re prostitutes.

Yes —

In Salween, she’s a teacher, in Somsee (1986), she’s a teacher, in Kama, she’s an actress and the other is a student. In Freedom of the Citizen, she’s a tramp, living in the slums.

I think that the point I was trying to make about the women characters is that they seem to adapt even though they are outsiders, they seem to adapt — as opposed to the male characters, outsiders who do not adapt. For example, Malee’s a prostitute. Even though she’s an outsider, she’s making money, a living, she’s sending money back to her father to build a house — but the men, like Marut the artist in Kama, he really has little hope of making it, you know? Of fitting in.

That’s unconscious, when I write it.

It happens in Gunman, too.

Yes. You mean the girl?

Both the girl and the gunman. Even though the girl is associated with the killer, she lives. She’s really in a bad situation in the end.

Yeah.

It’s possible that she could be killed, as well. Just for being associated with him.

She could.

But she’s not. She’s able to make it — and it seems that this is due to the fact that she’s a woman.

I don’t know that I’m aware of that fact at all.

I don’t see many references to religion in your films.

There’s always religion. You see, to me, Thai religion, Buddhism, is philosophy.

Would you say that it’s implicit? Without having to show temples, etc.?

Well, sometimes we show temples, too. Like in Gunman, we use the temple as a meeting point between the gunman and his contact. And in Freedom of the Citizen, we use the temple as an escape for the jobless old man character [formerly the old taxi driver from The Citizen]. In the first Citizen, you remember the old man taxi driver, well now, the main character is trying to find the old man. His girlfriend has married some American and has gone to live in America. His son has disappeared and the only contact the main character has with him is through Boonlaidok, the old man. He has to look for Boonlai, who uses the temple as his shelter. So the temple is a sort of sanctuary for the homeless old man. We don’t have many homeless people in Thailand.

In The Angel and Citizen, there are two instances in which the main characters hear music from their childhood that make them want to return to it. When Malee hears the music from her tape player, but we think that she is in Chiang Mai, and has returned somehow — only to discover that the music comes from her tape player in a Bangkok field. And when the taxi driver hears the northeastern (Isaan) music on the side of a road — he is at a very low point — definitely longing for his home.

I use music like that often in my films to bring back the memories of that region because Isaan has a different kind of music — just like country western music would probably remind you of certain things, or dixieland jazz would remind you of New Orleans, or the King would bring to mind Tennessee.

In Gunman, there are several short scenes in which there are things that happen in the background which seem insignificant, but actually are quite significant. That is, when the killer’s son is having a seizure on the street, there is a man in the background, who passes, just walks by and looks down, but doesn’t do anything.

I got that from New York.

Yeah? But you put it in a Thai film. Do you feel that the Thais are this way, too?

Yes. Sometimes we can say that they are like this.

It seems that most Thais wonder why someone of your position would deal with the lives of the common people.

Well, I don’t live very much like most of the princes, you can see. I have a rented house, just like everybody else. With most of my money, I buy equipment. I buy cameras, I have two Arri BLs. With all these things I feel I have the freedom to do anything I want. Which most people don’t have. Like tomorrow, I’m going to film. If I were someone else, I would have to book the camera, book the crew. So the freedom comes when you have your own equipment.

Censorship

Do you feel that you are different — well, obviously you’re different than all the other Thai directors —

No. No different.

Your situation?

No different. I try harder. You see that Thai filmmakers believe in myths more than facts. They believe that the teenage films will make them money. So everybody makes a teenage film. I think everybody, every filmmaker in the world believes in myths. We’ll probably have ten more Jurassic Park types of films in one year. They believe in many myths, like the censor. They believe that censorship is absolute, not relative. If you do the hardcore pornography, you’ll be censored, you’ll be banned from this country. But if you do the softcore, I don’t think there’s any trouble. The R-rated type of film.

But they are afraid?

Most of them are afraid. So what they do is make them [make scenes which would be censored] and keep them separate, and after the film passes the censors, they put them back.

[he puts in tape of Powder Road]

Powder Road (aka Heroin, 1991) was a Japanese co-production. It was the first [Thai] film ever to show a girl’s nipple. It was censored three times. We tried to get the new censor law. Actually, the Thailand censors are very open. Compared to the America of the 1950s, na? Many of the scenes that we have, for example, in Gunman, wouldn’t have passed in America in the 1950s. You see it’s only sex that the censors are concerned about. Many of shots in several Thai films wouldn’t be able to pass the censors anywhere else in the world.

You don’t feel that censorship affects you very much?

Well, we try to fight against the censorship. It depends on the government. Years ago, we had a sort of dictatorship. It was very strict, but now it has relaxed, and the rules are supposed to be changed this year. Hopefully it will ease a bit more. Or else there will be no more Thai films, only American. But you see, the censors in Thailand are quite generous. You see you cannot look at only part of the film and say, “OK, this is violence,” but you have to see the whole thing and see what it means to the film. To me, I don’t want it to be open. If you have no censorship at all you would probably have the hard core pornography or something like that. Some of the shots you see in Gunman probably wouldn’t pass in any other country.

You mean in any other country that has censorship?

In Europe. You see, in Hollywood you have a censor code. You cannot see the person shooting the gun and the victim in the same frame. I think it’s been repealed, maybe twenty years ago. But it wouldn’t be able to show in any European country, northern Europe. The value of censorship is different. Yeah, like sex. In our culture it is a taboo subject. We have been fighting for it. Even this scene, you wouldn’t be able to see it ten years ago.

[Powder Road: The main character, a Japanese man, has come in to a Thai bar. Women run around topless. They escort him to a seat. A naked woman eats fire on stage. Later, a woman shoots a dart from her vagina. All accessible Bangkok entertainment.]

Even now, before this film, you wouldn’t be able to show a nipple. This is the first film to show a nipple. You see, you have to incorporate the nipple into the film. It’s all integrated into the film. Even for the panel it didn’t seem like much at all, but five years ago, it wouldn’t have been passed.

Do you feel like you’re always testing the bounds of censorship?

I will probably have to fight with the feminists. You see they’re in Patpong and the woman will put in a dart (into her vagina), and shoot a dart at a balloon. What you can do is integrate it into the fabric of the film, into the structure of the film, and it is impossible to take it out. You have to see the nipple. And when you see the nipple, next year you have to fight to get the pubic hair. If you see the nipple you can see the whole tit, front on. So now you have to fight to get the pubic hair. Now, what is the definition of pubic hair? I have one of my actors who has hair from his chest down to his knees. You have to tell the censors, “OK, you draw the line, where is the pubic hair? OK, I will obey it.” But how can you tell which is the pubic hair? It’s equally long from the neck down to the knee. So we won the first round, we won the nipple. Actually, the fight began with a film called, I Am Curious: Yellow, by a man named Sjöman. It was in the Swedish courts for four or five years because it was the first film to show frontal nudity. At that time, you could not show frontal nudity. That was way before Deep Throat. So the law has been repealed because of that. Right there. You can see only a little part of the pubic hair, but not the whole of the pubic hair.

[Powder Road: shot showing the storage of heroin in a tranvestite’s breast, a type of breast implant.]

This is what I was talking about. You see, we must put the nipple into the fabric of the film. It is impossible to take it out. There was a news story about a Canadian who carried heroin to America by putting it into his stomach. By a surgeon. And I was working with a transvestite, and I wondered, was it possible to put it into his tit? The answer is, it is possible. You can put one-half kilo into each of a woman’s tits, and walk undetected. If you have a true transvestite, a female impersonator, he can carry at least two kilos of heroin. So the “road” actually starts in Chiang Rai, comes down the Maekhong on ice, and from the ice, they operate on this male, put it into his tit and the whole troop goes to Japan — and the main character is caught in the middle. He has to discover what’s going on. But you see, there are no laws against showing a male nipple.

[Powder Road: A scene depicting drug smugglers cracking open large blocks of ice to reveal their successful method: the heroin inside.]

This would never have passed. It shows the way to do a crime. This is one of the items forbidden by the censorship law. You see, it would actually work. If you put the heroin inside the ice, there is no way they can detect it. This film is produced by the Japanese, but we have the Thai rights. It showed in Japan. So we give some message to the Japanese. That’s why it’s so wonderful. This is my message to Japan.

[Powder Road: scene in which female Thai character explains to male Japanese character about why she hates the Japanese. She refers to a Japanese factory in the background.]

And they produced it?

Yeah. That’s why it’s so wonderful to make films. You can send a message anywhere. If you want to.

Did they give you full control over the film?

Yes. Or else I wouldn’t make it. Final cut. I have the [written] contract for this film. But I don’t know, you know, I can’t read Japanese.

Did it do very well in Japan?

Yeah. It’s an action film.

[Powder Road: the scene shows naked women in a bar. A young American man tries to accost the female Thai character. She tries to ignore his advances, he calls her a whore, etc. begins to slap her.]

When you ask the censor, “Does this exist?” It exists. My film is a reflection of what exists.

They feel that the fact that it exists is a good enough reason?

No. Like the club. If the story is about the lowlife, if you decide to make a film about heroin lowlife, you cannot avoid it. It is impossible. Either you cover it up and it wouldn’t be any good: or you do it.

Do you feel that one of your main objectives is to push the bounds of censorship?

No. This one we actually did it for fun, you know. A sort of gest. I wrote the script in five hours in a coffee shop in Tokyo. A Japanese friend of mine, Professor Kudo, translated the whole thing into Japanese. They were having a conference and my films were showing in Japan. They said, “Would you like to make a film in Japan? A Japanese film?” I said, “Sure, but I don’t know anything about Japan.” They said, “Well, make it in Thailand. Make it action, if you want to.” So I think that it was a kind of joke. I read the paper in Tokyo about the Canadian who carried heroin in his stomach. Then a Thai transvestite group was doing a show in Tokyo, and I put it together and made the film. Wrote the whole thing in five hours, in a coffee shop. The filming took thirty days. It was more or less, like a joke.

[Puts in tape of Somsee]

This scene here is pretty risky for the censorship board.

[Somsee: scene which depicts a student uprising.]

But we made a battle for it. You see we had an incident that happened on October the Sixth that we do not want to talk about. This problem is going to start again. You see this?

[Somsee: shot of slum area in Bangkok]

It is a prime location for the train station, elevated train. The developers want it, but the land belongs to the crown. And they’ve been corrupted. The developers have been fighting for this land for many, many years. In one year it was burned down eleven times. So this teacher decides that it is time to fight back.

You had problems with the censors due to the political content?

Yes. In Gunman, there were two things. Police brutality and violence. In Salween, it was for helping the Karen. But in this type of film, it is for politics. In my next film, The Outdoor People, about the homeless people —

[Somsee: scene in which citizens group is bounced back and forth in bureaucratic melee.]

This bureaucracy is probably typical to all the countries of the world. Even in America.

Of course.

Red tape. I could make this film (Somsee) again right now. We have this big problem about the traffic. So maybe they are building an underground station. Wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. So maybe it has a second part. The people would be relocated. Most of the people need more area to live.

[Somsee: There are shots in BW of the student revolt.] A lot of these shots are real.

Documentary?

We shot these scenes and cut it in with the real thing. This is the type of sensitive issue with the censors. In the film, we didn’t mention when. But everybody knows what is happening when you start hacking people up near Thammasat University, you know.

Was it censored?

No. But you have to fight for it. And you have to give them a good reason.

And they accepted your reason.

Yeah. They accepted it. Thailand is free about a lot of things. It is probably more free than most countries. Like the arms dump near the border. It was on the front page of every paper in Thailand. Everybody talking about it. In America, you’d probably call it classified, because it’s national security. This is a type of contradiction.

It seems that of the Thai media, movies are singled out as the form which could adversely affect the most people. You can see very graphic things on the front pages of Thai newspapers every day. Everyone’s bleeding, their heads are broken open —

Yeah. You can see the guy who got shot by the AK-47, right in the head, it’s blown half of his head of his head off, his brains spill over. That’s on the front page. Nowhere in the world could that be on the front page. Even on TV you can see it. But, it’s difficult to comprehend it unless you’re here. The form of filmmaking in this country is derived from the society. When I made Salween, it seemed to me really quite logical. It’s a fight. The people there have no money. And the people, since they fight with guns, if someone loses some money, 500 baht, he wants to get it back. He’d shoot a whole family. So the police there use the only means at their disposal. A gun. But when you come back to Bangkok it seems unbelievable. And when I show my film outside of the country, it is difficult for them. Like the first Gunman, Gunman I, it has a lot of violence in it. If you live here and read the newspapers, it’s nothing. See, my philosophy in making films is that I don’t try to change the world, but show it. That’s it. Right or wrong. Most of my characters — some say he’s good, some say he’s bad.

US copyright, 1993 Thomas Richardson