Krai Thong (2001)

A giant crocodile wipes out the population of a Thai village, and is soon terrorising another one. Legendary diver and croc hunter Krai Thong is lured by the wealth of the village head - or is it his beautiful daughters? - and travels up for the hunt. He soon discovers that there is more to the big crocodile business than meets the eye, for this crocodile has a terrible secret .

Krai Thong is a bad movie, the first Thai movie I've really been able to say that about. It's a low budget movie clearly, and I'd guess most of what budget it had went on the bad special effects. The script and direction are of that muddled and inept quality that make it clear these are not grade A movie makers, and they're not being given the time or cash to overcome their lack of natural ability with hard work. The plot does loosely hold together, but is developed in a haphazard manner that makes it difficult to take the movie seriously. The fundamental weaknesses are compounded by some awful CG effects for the crocodiles, whose attacks are anyway mostly achieved by shaking the camera around a lot and cutting in odd frames of rubber teeth and tails. Add to this the incredibly bad post-dubbing with hardly any foley effects and the inexplicable lapses into soft porn, and the whole thing takes on a surreal quality wherein it actually becomes quite entertaining. Too bad to be a cult or camp classic, but bad enough to keep a smile on my face throughout its length. Watchability was heavily increased by the presence of some very attractive young ladies, and the main feeling of tension that kept me watching was less to do with evil crocodiles than the hope that the next soft porn scene might not be quite so soft

Krai Thong is an odd Thai movie to have received an overseas release (Hong Kong) - I imagine Winson picked it up more because it was cheap than because they thought it was good. Certainly there are many better Thai movies out there - all of them in fact, based on my experiences so far. Definitely not a movie I recommend rushing to pick up, but not actually a complete waste of money or time as long as you don't mind the fact you'll only really enjoy it because it's easy to laugh at it (no, it's not a comedy). Doubt I'll watch it again though, so I think I'll go add it to my trade list right now