13 Beloved (13 Game Sayong)

2006, Thailand

Director: Ma-Deaw Chukiatsakwirakul

Writer: Eakasit Thairaat (comic), Ma-Deaw Chukiatsakwirakul

Cast: Krissada "Noj" Sukosol, Achita Sikamana, Sarunyoo Wongkrachang, Achita Wuthinounsurasit

Producers: Prachya Pinkaew, Sukanya Vongsthapat

Genre: Horror. Thriller

Rating: This film is not yet rated.

Distributor: Sahamongkolfilm International

Running Time: 113 minutes

 
My main problem with Fear Factor was that the show just didn’t go far enough. Labour laws, common decency, and FCC regulations stopped the program from going too far past eating cow eyeballs, or live bugs, or anything else that you could get the mentally handicapped kid at your grade school to eat for a dollar. I always promised myself I’d start watching reality TV when Survivor started killing its contestants, or Joe Rogan fed his participants the week-old corpse of an executed convict. While that never happened, thankfully those of us with a taste for brutality still have 13 Beloved.    

The film plays exactly like what you’d imagine Fear Factor would be like were it filmed in a country without a judicial system. Moments after being laid-off, salesman Pusit receives a call on his cell-phone informing him that he’s been selected to compete a gameshow, wherein completing 13 tasks will earn him a fortune. He agrees, and the tasks begin.  The first is to kill a fly; the second is to eat it. Things go downhill from there, and as the levels of the game grow more depraved, Pusit grows more frantic to complete them, for if he should fail or give up, all the money he’s accrued will disappear. And that’s what makes the film more than a ham-fisted commentary on reality TV and greed: the realization that all of us are capable of terrible things not when we have nothing to lose, but when we have everything to gain, and less to go back to. Director Ma-Deaw Chukiatsakwirakul wisely avoids the surreal touches that can overcome Asian genre films, and the sense of reality he infuses into 13 Beloved makes the sickness of the story hit that much harder. A strong performance by lead actor Krissada Terrence increases the harrowing and disgusting mood, as well. In the age of reality programming, 13 Beloved shows that while truth may be stranger than fiction, fiction can still make me want to vomit more than a supermodel eating animal testicles.

Rating 9 on 10

alkratina@comicbookbin.com