Feature Presentation
From The Deer Hunter to The Beach, Thailand has long been used as a venue for Hollywood movies. In the past, safety, political uncertainty, and lack of access have been reasons for films set in countries neighbouring Thailand to be shot here instead, but times are changing. The country has developed some great movie-making expertise and the local industry has seen a boom in recent years, but can Thailand attract the big bucks that come with international productions? Jon Russell investigates.
Shot in Phuket in 1971, James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun is arguably one of the highest profile movies to be filmed in Thailand. The popularity of the film is such that Koh Tapu, the rocky, column island in Phuket which featured as villain Scaramanga’s lair, has been known as James Bond Island ever since.
Fast forward twenty eight years and one would expect the feature film industry in Thailand to be thriving. Instead, its potential is yet to be fulfilled.
Chris Lowenstein, a producer for Thai production company Living Films, has lived in Thailand since arriving to work on Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth in 1991. “There’s been a constant flow of Hollywood films, but it’s never really expanded like it could,” reflects the American, whose credits include films Bangkok Dangerous and Blackbeard and TV’s Survivor series.
