Although this is supposed to be an erotic film about a boy's early life under a despotic and sadistic father, I found the sex scenes to be too long and too many. In some cases, the sex scenes were gratuitous - it served the eroticism well, but since the director makes attempts to actually tell a story as well, those scenes took time better spent on developing the story.
There are attempts to tell a serious story, yet it seems that every time you think there'll be an interesting development to the characters in the movie, a sex scene pops up to distract you. Some of the sex is necessary for the sake of the story - eg, the flashback scenes, the father using sex to grab power at home, but many of the other scenes took too long to tell us that so-and-so are having a sexual relationship. They'll definitely serve to titillate those who come for those scenes, although I've seen better sex scenes.
I had hoped that the master-servant and best-friends relationship between Jan and Ken were explored further though. That, and the relationship between Jan and Aunt Waad were the more interesting character relationships of the movie. I suppose the former will be explored in the sequel.
Mario Maurer didn't do well in this movie. It's a case of the actor not suiting the role I suppose. A pity, as I liked him in Love of Siam. But his emotional range is certainly not sufficient for a character as complex as Jan, even in his teenage years. Chaiyapol Jullian Poupart did better as Ken, though admittedly, his character had less to do in the film. The 3 women with significant roles (Aunt Waad, Kaew and Mrs. Boonlueang) were played decently enough. As for the others, all I remember are bare breasts or bare butts since all they seem to do is have sex with this one or the other.
It's not entirely without value - you can still salvage about an hour's worth of decent storytelling. As an erotic film, it's okay but you'd get your money's worth better elsewhere.
There are attempts to tell a serious story, yet it seems that every time you think there'll be an interesting development to the characters in the movie, a sex scene pops up to distract you. Some of the sex is necessary for the sake of the story - eg, the flashback scenes, the father using sex to grab power at home, but many of the other scenes took too long to tell us that so-and-so are having a sexual relationship. They'll definitely serve to titillate those who come for those scenes, although I've seen better sex scenes.
I had hoped that the master-servant and best-friends relationship between Jan and Ken were explored further though. That, and the relationship between Jan and Aunt Waad were the more interesting character relationships of the movie. I suppose the former will be explored in the sequel.
Mario Maurer didn't do well in this movie. It's a case of the actor not suiting the role I suppose. A pity, as I liked him in Love of Siam. But his emotional range is certainly not sufficient for a character as complex as Jan, even in his teenage years. Chaiyapol Jullian Poupart did better as Ken, though admittedly, his character had less to do in the film. The 3 women with significant roles (Aunt Waad, Kaew and Mrs. Boonlueang) were played decently enough. As for the others, all I remember are bare breasts or bare butts since all they seem to do is have sex with this one or the other.
It's not entirely without value - you can still salvage about an hour's worth of decent storytelling. As an erotic film, it's okay but you'd get your money's worth better elsewhere.