Kuon puos keng kang (2001) Online

This film is an attempt to revive the once-thriving Cambodian movie-making industry that was decimated by the Khmer Rouge government. Co-produced with Thailand, THE SNAKE KING'S CHILD is based on a folk tale about the child of a peasant woman and a snake god.

For westerners, the film's main attractions are visual. The cinematography is often striking, with atmospheric use of colour and shadow. All the characters wear eye-catching costumes. Actual Cambodian locations were used for many of the beautiful settings. Most memorable of all is Pich Chan Barmey's fabulous snake-hair effect, which easily outstrips any of the unconvincing attempts in western movies to portray gorgons.

Whether THE SNAKE KING'S CHILD will succeed in resurrecting Cambodian movie-making remains to be seen, but it certainly constitutes a promising start.

A letterboxed DVD, with rather eccentric English subtitles, has been released by Hong Kong's Winson Entertainment.

I bought this because it was made to sound like a horror movie. It's not - it's a fairy tale. It's actually a very sweet fairy tale, much in line with stories like "The Little Mermaid" (NOT the Disney version) where a girl who is not quite human falls for a human man and has to choose between her world and his.

(Possible spoilers)

In this tale, a woman living in the jungle with her brute of a husband falls in love with a snake spirit (a really cool giant boa constrictor who can change into a handsome man) while her husband is away. She gets pregnant and when her husband finds out that it's not his, he kills her. He splits her stomach open, and kills all the little snakes she carries - except one. One baby snake escapes and is found by a holy hermit, who realizes what it is (since it is also sometimes a human baby girl) and raises her in a cave.

Years later, three children are playing in the river which flows by the cave and the girl tries to make friends with them, only to be rebuffed because she looks dirty and uncivilized - then they pull off her headscarf to reveal the true oddity - she has a head of snakes instead of hair!

The children flee, as does the poor girl. Again time passes, and one of the boys (one who was nice to her before) falls into the river and she rescues him. The hermit gives her magic to make herself look normal, so she can tend the young man without frightening him. He ends up taking her back to his home as a sort of adopted sister (much to the chagrin of his arranged fiancée, who is a complete stuck-up type).

The movie climaxes in a magical battle between the hermit and a midwife/witch enlisted by the fiancée to get rid of the snake girl.

Cool things about the film: First, the head of snakes. They're not special effects - they're actual snakes!! I wonder if the audition for the part of the snake girl started with a questionnaire "Would you let us slap some snakes onto your head? OK you've got the part!" It looks really cool. Second, there's a long sequence where the young man and the snake girl run around some really cool ruins. The place is soooooo neat.

It may not be worth buying, but it is interesting to watch, particularly if you're into comparative folklore.

I found this movie somewhat by mistake and am glad that I did. While it may not be the best movie ever made, but may will be one of the most important films of the decade. The film is one of the first full features made in Cambodia since the 1970's when the Khmer Rougue Regime took over. In 1975 films and other cultural activities were ordered to cease, and subsequently many actors, writers, and directors were executed. Eventually the Khmer Rougue fell, and Cambodia started to rebuild there film industry. What make this movie even more remarkable is the fact that it was made without any many of the essentials one needs to make a film, or even movie theatres in which to show it. Not to mention the complete lack of acess to such things as "digital effects" that Hollywood is all to reliant on these days. Yet some how they were ale to pull it off. The movie features some beautifully shot scenery, and may be worth the price of admission for the Ankor Wat(sp?) scene alone. Although there are some problems with the visual aspects of the movie, remember the resources the filmakers were dealing with, the color is very good. Pich Chanboramey does an excellant job as Soraya (the lead), as well as the other actors in the film. This film is a must see, and is hopefully a indication of a new renaissance of Cambodian film making. In case you were wondering why that Snake hair looks so real? Well.........it's really live snakes glued and tied to a headset

This is one of my favorite horror movies of the year. On of the first movies to be filmed entirely in Cambodia and in Vietnamese in many years. THe Snake Hair that the heroine wears looks so real..............know why? Because it is really is real live snakes. The director had trouble finding something that looked realistic enough with the budget they had so opted to glue/tape/tie real snakes to a head piece. Lets hope PETA doesn't find out about it. Nonetheless memorable, with excellent camera work.

Story Synopsis: In a rural Thai village, Nhi, the wife of a bead maker, encounters a supernatural entity that takes the form of a snake. The creature informs her that she must become its wife & bear its children so that it can become human. Nhi reluctantly agrees, becoming the snake's lover. Soon she falls pregnant. But when her husband finds out, he kills the snake creature & brutally guts his wife but fails to kill the child, accidentally impaling himself on his own sword. The child is taken under the care of a monk who names the child Soraya. Years pass & the child grows into a beautiful young woman, only with snakes for hair. Soraya rescues Veha, a man who is tossed off a waterfall by his fiancé's brother after refusing to join him in killing a rabbit, the pair falling in love. But Veha's fiancé's mother, who has been using a witch as a means of getting her own way, feels threatened by Soraya's existence so she joins forces with the witch in order to destroy Soraya before Veha can marry her. Soraya must find a way to stop the evil women from ruining her chance at true love.

Film Analysis: This low-budget fantasy flick is perhaps one of the most important films in the history of Cambodia's film industry. It was one of the first films made after the downfall of the Khmer Rouge. For those not in the know, Cambodia was taken over by Pol Pot, a deranged communist who decided that the only way to make Cambodia strong was by restarting the country's history. This meant the removal of anyone who had even the slightest education. Pot's murderous regime caused the deaths of more than a million people before his own demise. As the country began rebuilding after that dark era, the film industry began to build itself up. Snaker is a combined effort between Cambodia & Thailand & is set in a small Thai village.

For all its cultural significance, Snaker is a disappointing film. The plot has been indifferently slung together, with things happening that don't make much narrative sense. There are numerous flaws with the film's internal logic & the story jumps from one event to another without even bothering to link them together. It is never clear why the snake creature wants to sleep with the woman or even how she gets pregnant by it. The visual effects are decidedly mixed, with some surprisingly uneven CGI & the unsettling effect of watching the film's heroine walk around with a mass of snakes stuck to her head (of course the film's low budget prompted the effects designers to glue a bunch of snakes to a headset & plopping them onto the actress's head). This effect is quite impressive given the film's budget.

The acting is quite melodramatic to say the least. The characters of the evil fiancé's mum & her witch friend are very shrill & the snake-girl's parents are both one-dimensional & flat. Having said all that, I must concede that I might have enjoyed this film better were it not for the extremely clumsy subtitles that came on the DVD (which is an imported disc from Hong Kong that was given to me by a friend), which look as though they were written by someone who doesn't seem to understand even basic English, given the rather strange way the words were placed together. The film could have benefited by having tighter editing or even a moderate pace, instead of the plodding mess that has been heaped onto Snaker.

The poster / DVD cover of this Thai / Cambodian co-production looks quite cool, however, the actual movie fails to deliver. We get lots of glimpses of the hair made of snakes (the image on the cover), but that's about all that's fascinating about this film. It lacks suspense, it lacks action, well it actually lacks everything. Some nice visuals don't make up for those lacks.

I haven't seen that many Thai movies (yet) but those I have seen (among them the brilliant "Tears of the Black Tiger", the impressive "Nang Nak", the sensual "Jan Dara" and the entertaining "303 Fear Faith Revenge") made me curious for more. "Snaker" is the first disappointment in the territory. It's not completely bad, it's just not doing anything for me.

Rating: 4/10 (and I'm being rather generous)