Beautiful Boxer - 2 contrasts of Thai society
Categories: Asia, ENGLISH, cross-cultural, ethnic, "race", multicultural, mixity, culture, literature, architecture, photography, art, society, demography, global trends, Zeitgeist
When I watched this movie, it was in Rangsit (Pathumthani province in Thailand, 50 km up north of Bangkok) nearby my university and a “German” brewery. Huge shopping center and cinema complex, on a crowdy Saturday afternoon, I had to take some distances from this heavy workload, any movies will do… I was living in Thailand then, and since the Hollywood movies playing at that time were just meaningless, I decided to go for this “Beautiful Boxer” Thai movie. Well, it has been released a few years ago now, and frankly speaking, when preparing this post, I got pretty well impressed by the number of prizes it reaped since then. Yes, this is one of these rare positive feedbacks in Loca Lingo, and you’ll see soon why.
Thai boxing is one of the most brutal martial arts I have ever seen - I will always remember this fight at Rachadamnoen stadium in Bangkok, where one of the fighters, who was just blinded with his own blood running down his face, had to carry on fighting until he finally got knocked out. These fights were always covered by this such rhythmic music and illicit betting crowd,… so hypnotizing. Weirdly, I enjoyed this atmosphere.
Similar music instruments were part as well of Thai traditional dance shows. Very mild shows in the countryside, very pleasant to attend to, lots of colors and songs,… everyone sitting on the grass, families eating together, hot weather, and the smell of these grilled meat, and scooter’s backfire… Lots of souvenirs… dancers were heavily made-up with their golden attributes, some men were very effeminate, clearly “katoey” (travestite or transsexual), but even within this very traditional society (despite the common vehiculated stereotypes), they were accepted… sometimes despised, but accepted. It is one of the rarest countries, where travestites could openly show their sexual orientations, and have a normal worklife (in offices or shops), without especially being a sex worker.
These two extreme contrasts of the Thai society were so well featured in this movie, that it will make it standing out of the crowd for quite a long time. Strong feminine and masculine sides of a society put together… I believe it relevantly describes 2 trends of the Thai nation, part in each of its citizen ; an firm smile with a firm fist.
Beautiful boxer story features the real life of a strong Muaythai boxer (Parinya Charoenphol) who decided to undergo a sex change operation to become a woman. Pedro Almodovar could have maybe imagine such scenario,… except Ekachai Uekrongtham did it first 
I was so sure you were going to post such topic sometimes,… it looks like you spot two relevant traits of the Thai society… extreme violence and extreme mildness. Interesting…
you know how much I loved living in Thailand, one of these ultimate experiences… but the conditions were exceptional though, and quite different from the typical expat experience in Bangkok (researcher for a European Program in an international postgraduate university).
I have actually been always amazed by the transitions from an extreme mildness to an extreme violence… not so easy to make someone really and deeply losing his face, but when you reached such level, you really could be in trouble (it depends as well of course on the type of person…)… Thai cultural aspects… very different…
This movie is great.It was in Thai without subtitles the first time
i saw it: but mai pen rai it catched my attention all along !