The Overture

Poster of The Overture

Before the screening, we were told that we will be watching a Thai movie and the first thing that came to my mind – HORROR movie! It’s very normal that people will think of Horror movie at the mention of Thai movie. Then Ms.Lina told us that it is not a horror movie. To be honest, if it is a horror movie, I will not watch it because it is totally not the genre I like or else I just wouldn’t touch it at all! The Thai movie we watched was The Overture, which is known as Hom Rong in Thailand.

Ranak-ek

The Overture is a Thai movie that is directed by Ittisoontorn Vichailat in the year of 2004. The story of The Overture is inspired by the true-life story of a musician in Thailand – Luang Pradit Phairao. It is a Thai musical drama film and the instrument used in the film is Ranak-ek. It’s my first time seeing this type of traditional instrument and although it looks like a xylophone, the look of Ranak-ek is more towards the oldies and classic. 

Sorn 

The story of the film begins with a little boy, Sorn (played as a young man by Anuchit Sapanphong and as an older man by Adul Dulyarat) chasing the butterfly and the butterfly stop at the instrument, Ranak-ek, that is placed in his brother’s room. Sorn wants to be like his brother, who is a master musician in Ranak-ek. His family especially his father disagree with it because his brother is killed in a fistfight with rival musicians. His father decides to keep the Ranak-ek away from him because he doesn’t want Sorn to play with it anymore. But because of the passion that Sorn has towards Ranak-ek, he secretly steals the Ranak-ek and plays with it without letting his father know it. Then, Sorn’s actions successfully persuade his father to let him become a musician in Ranak-ek. 

Sorn becomes a talented musician in Ranak-ek, he can guess correctly which music note is played by others without looking. That makes him become a more headstrong and lack of discipline child because he thinks that he is very good in playing Ranak-ek.  That is until he is humiliated by a master musician, Kun In (Narongrit Tosa-nya) in a competition. Then he becomes frustrated with himself because he realizes that there are others who play better than him. So he force himself to practice more and in whatever ways to train himself to become stronger than Kun In. He wants to be better than Kun In and beat him down. He is later sent in to the palace for more formal training and to perform and be involved in competition. 

Sorn and Kun In after the competition

In the end, Sorn wins the competition. Instead of being arrogant, he shows his respect to Kun In. On the other hand, Kun In also does not hate Sorn but asks him to keep up his good work. Then, the movie ends with Sorn becoming old and finally dies after playing Ranak-ek.

The main actor - Anuchit Sapanphong

In the movie, the way Sorn plays Ranak-ek catches my attention. This is especially when he plays during the competition. What’s more, Ms.Lina told us that she actually interviewed the main character Anuchit Sapanphong and saying that he used 6 months to practice Ranak-ek and he was the one playing in the film. His effort makes me respect him even more because the way he plays in the competition looks very professional and it looks like he has learned Ranak-ek for many years but it turns out that he just uses 6 months to practice it. 

In conclusion, this film tells audiences to not give up easily on what you like. Hard work will pay off. It is a very interesting film that is worth to watch and to be honest, it is the movie I like the most compared to the last two movies I had watched in this class.