Customer Reviews

Bangkok Girl : A Documentary about Thailand's Night Life

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This short documentary tries to be a grand expose of the Bangkok Sex Trade, but the filmmaker doesn't have nearly the expertise or gravitas to pull this off. Where the movie really succeeds is in the personal charisma of its 'leading lady' Pla. She exudes real charisma and absolutely lights up the screen. She deserves a much better movie.

However, if you understand what this is, "An Ultra-Low Budget Indie Documentary" you'll enjoy it. Worth trying out.

Amazon should make an exception and allow Zero stars for this "documentary." The director/film maker/narrator will make you want to claw your ears off. He had no clue about his topic in particular, nor Thailand in general. This video is really not worth my time to type a review of, much less watch. It's free on netflix, but even that is too much.

This is not a documentary. It is a home video of a girl in Bangkock,Thailand. As a movie,anyone could rip it apart with ease. The "cinematography" is equal to the ability of anyone with a camera. The purpose of this thing was supposedly to get an understanding of the sex trade in Thailand. However,at one point Clark is sharing a taxi with two, possibly three, prostitutes, he never speaks to any of them...not one question. This so called film maker is irrelevant because this movie is all about a girl named Pla, a girl with a magical personality. Pla is her "street name", and it means fish. Her real name is Sirirat Rapsithorn. I would like to introduce you all to Sirirat Rapsithorn but I have never met her,even so,she is my friend. I care about her and unfortunately, I will never get the chance to meet her.
Without Pla, this video is just someone's tedious vacation home movie;
with Pla, it becomes a revealing look into the emotional pain of another human being that grabs at your psyche. Her openness, her honesty and her sometimes funny, vulnerability will surprise you; like when she is "attacked" by a cat!!
Most of all there is the heavy pall of fatalism hanging over Pla as she seems to have an epiphanic view of her life and future,right in front of the camera.

Pla said, "Everyone have story....Me too,have story,...but,ah,..nobody care about me...yeah,true. But,it's OK,..never mind".

Look into her eyes, listen to her voice, listen to her story and be moved. Watch her face as she tells of her childhood while she watches some children at play. Listen to the horror that was a part of her own childhood and you will get a glimpse of the truth about her life. She never actually verbalizes it,but listening to what she says,you know being a child with a deformity,she was teased and rejected by her peers. You get it by listening to her...she says, "You know before, I am same everybody,after I have accident,I not same! In many countries any woman with an imperfection is tantamount to being "damaged goods". That goes back to the days of dowry payments when a woman with a defect fetched a smaller dowry.
All one has to do is LISTEN...her English is limited so there are no euphemisms or metaphors to cloud the issue. Her words her eyes and her body language are all that she has and they speak loudly, if you listen. SPOILER ALERT: She is so adept at hiding her hand because she has been hiding it since she was a very small child,you don't notice it until it is mentioned by Clark! She hides it because in her world, it is something to be ashamed of!
END SPOILER.

At the end of this movie, you might hate it or possibly wonder if you have been conned and simply dismiss the whole thing; or then again, you might just hope it is a con. One thing for sure,you will feel something, even if it's only a loathing for that cloddish Austrailian clown at the end of the vid. This bozo gives bozos a bad name. Mr. Clark doesn't come out looking too good in this scene either.I am going to record the movie and delete that Bozo Aussie. My blood pressure goes up and my heart beats too fast each time I see his scene.

There is a short encounter with a tranny street prostitute named "Jennifer" who is a real eccentric character;a piece of work,to say the least. (She has breast implants, but "still has IT"!! As she will proudly announce.) It's amazing to watch as "her" mind switches back and forth between "business and normal conversation." I wonder if "she" is still around and is doing well? I'd like to think she is well and healthy.
Jordan Clark has certainly missed the boat as a "documentarian" for a second time because the REAL story begins at the end of this 40 minute minimovie. He could have called part two "Where's Pla?" I can't help but wonder why he didn't investigate a bit more by at least talking to her mother. How can anyone go to Thailand to do a documentary on prostitution and come back with a scant 40 minutes of material, none of which deals with the declared purpose of the video? I think Mr.Clark has pulled one over on the Tax man. Take a small amount of film and call your vacation a work related tax write off. It is strange to hear a Buddhist exclaim, Oh,My Buddha!and I am not at all religious,however,Pla seemed to be,so I stopped at a Buddhist temple and lit some Joss sticks to help guide her.

Without Pla this video would have rated only a ho-hum one star rating. (Jennifer was a hoot and worth a star.) Clark should have hung out with Jennifer for a while,I'll bet "she" could fill a book with what "she" knows about "the Life"!...40 minutes just doesn't cut it! Anyway, I gave it five stars just because of Pla.... Thank You,Pla, We miss you.

The filmmaker definitely got lucky when he met Pla, the main character for his documentary. She and her story make this worth seeing.

It's a simple film (which is fine) but feels too short. The ending seemed overly rushed, as if all of a sudden in the middle of the movie he skips to the end and didn't have any footage to use for it. The ending is quite sad, and with a story like Pla's so much more could have been done.

There's not a lot more to say about it in a review to keep from spoiling the ending. But this movie is worth watching because Pla's story alone is worth knowing. I would however suggest renting it, not buying it.

It seems from the negative and hateful comments in the previous reviews that some falang egos may have been bruised by the author's so called "cliches" and "stereotypes." I've lived in Thailand for 11 years myself and, though I'll admit the film's production could have been better, the overall content was good. It was a touching and accurate portrayal of this girl's situation and how her plight effected the author. It gave a much deeper and more personal insight than many of the other high profile documentaries I've watched on this subject. I don't think any of the content of this film was "clueless" or "lacking understanding." Its obvious the intent of the author was not to give some kind of exhaustive portrayal of the situation of these girls. Of course there is more to the subject, but the author even states at the beginning that this is about this one example. Even if her situation isn't the majority, there are still many many girls in the same situation. The film successfully caused me to care about this girl who, by her own admission, believed nobody cared about her.

This is the worst documentary I have ever seen for the following reasons:

1. The "film maker" has very little knowledge about the sex industry or Thailand.
2. Jordan's voice is extremely grating, in both tone and the actual words themselves.
3. This "documentary" contains downright fabrications prime example: Pla mysteriously dies in the end
4. This "film" itself is actually more exploitative than the sex trade depicted.

In short do not watch this! You will learn more about Thailand's sex trade from reading a paragraph in the Lonely Planet guide. Jordan has no business making films.

Fewer than 45 minutes, BANGKOK GIRL: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THAILAND'S NIGHT LIFE does not overstay its welcome. Its brevity may be part of the film's message about humanity's proclivity for disposability, even when it is a fellow human being you treat like a toy with which you play and, tiring of it, throw away.

BANGKOK GIRL's closing credits last but a minute or so. Compare that to how long the credits roll at the end of a Hollywood movie and you realize how little money was spent making it, yet you will recall its story long after forgetting big-budget pictures. Even without this documentary's surprise ending, I think I will always remember BANGKOK GIRL.

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST is a title already taken, but filmmaker Jordan Clark plays just that in BANGKOK GIRL even though he never appears on camera. Clark narrates and operates the camera, telling the story of his encounter with a young Thailand barmaid named Pla, whose options for earning better money appear limited to working in the country's sex tourism trade. The documentary seems as happenstance as meeting a stranger as the relationship of Pla, on camera, and Clark, behind the camera, unfolds.

See BANGKOK GIRL.

I cannot believe that with so deep a subject matter we can be presented with such a complete lack of any understanding or comprehension . To add to this the production itself is very poorly exhibited. I've seen holiday home video's of vastly more interest. Jordan Clark should get a job filming televangelists as punishment.

Regards Michael Kent.

Films about the seedy redlight night life in Thailand tend to be either prurient or expository. BANGKOK GIRL is mostly the latter. Director Jordan Clark filmed a brief stay in Bangkok during which time he met a bargirl named Pla. Her real name is Sirirat Rapsithorn and the difference between the two mirrors a larger difference in how Westerners view Thai culture in general. Thailand is a country of staggering disparities with a gorgeous vibrant exterior masking a crushing despondency within. It is unfortunate but true to admit that the majority of tourists to Thailand are males seeking to exploit attractive but impoverished Thai women. The Western men have vast sums of baht (Thai dollars) and a lack of decency at all levels while Thai women have only their looks and brains. Jordan Clark suggests that the winner of this struggle cannot be so easily marked. He adds paradoxically that the more successful a farang (Westerner) is at scoring with vast numbers of Thai women the more that he degenerates into some loutish atavism. Though much of this documentary focuses on the struggles of Thai girls to maintain a balance between economic solvency and emotional equilibrium, Clark still finds time for lengthy interviews with an expatriated Englishman who positively exults in his ability to bed myriads of attractive women at what to him must seem bargain basement prices. This Englishman is the collective equivalent of all Western male tourists who seek relations on a pay as you go basis. In the ongoing plight of Pla, Clark reports that Pla and women like her have to construct a new calculus of human interaction. Rather than the more traditional Western-style boyfriend / girlfriend relation or the hired escort mentality of Vegas, Thai women interact on a level somewhere between the two. When a Thai woman swears eternal fealty to her newest boyfriend, that boyfriend can never be sure about her basic motivation. Jordan Clark more than once wonders how far he can take Pla's word for anything. Perhaps she is playing him even as she does not ask for upfront money. The viewer never learns either with Clark and the viewer hoping that Pla's innocent cries for help are genuine. Still, by the film's end, Clark reports that Pla had to surrender herself to dire necessity by prostituting herself to a Western farang. BANGKOK GIRL is either an exhilirating triumph of human will over brute circumstance or a enervating collapse of that same will to that same brute circumstance. How one sees this film is a marker more of the viewer than of Jordan Clark or an eternally smiling Thai girl named Pla.

I was expecting at least a half way decent look into the night life of Thailand,i.e.Bangkok. I've been there before and have seen lot's of the going's on there day and night, but this film maker, and i use that characterization loosely, really doesn't know how to film anything like this subject matter. The girl, Pla, has more talent then the film maker himself. I'm totally convinced that the amout of money paid to her for filming her was pennies. I'm sorry i purchased it.