Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Lost in Thailand Blu-ray Movie Review

'Lost in Thailand' finds quite a few laughs.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 27, 2014

Many people think of martial arts spectaculars, historical epics or gritty crime thrillers when Chinese cinema is mentioned, and so it may come as something of a surprise to hear that the amiable if lightweight comedy Lost in Thailand has rather remarkably become the most successful film in the history of that country. While Lost in Thailand may seem rote and formulaic to Western eyes, it has its own share of well earned laughs, and if there’s nothing overly surprising about the film’s wandering narrative or in its ultimate outcome, like any good road movie, it’s the journey that ends up counting the most. What may set Lost in Thailand at least somewhat apart from countless other films that share its basic premise—two ill matched partners on an improbable quest of sorts—is its exotic locations and its unusual amount of heart. This is a film that is patently silly quite a bit of the time but which also delivers a fair amount of emotion along the way. The film’s central conceit is built around the high tech machinations of scientist – inventor Xu Lang (Xu Zheng), a workaholic who has ignored his estranged wife and child for too long in his pursuit of a so-called Supergas, a formula which magically expands volume and therefore could solve China’s burgeoning energy crisis. Xu Lang needs to obtain an authorization letter from a stakeholder named Lao Zhou before he can push the Supergas into production, and his harried secretary has tracked down Zhou to “a temple” in Thailand. That doesn’t really help Xu Lang, since there are hundreds (if not thousands) of temples in Thailand, but he decides to fly there to try to find Zhou. Meanwhile, Xu Lang’s office rival Gao Bo (Huang Bo) wants to head Xu Lang off at the pass and, despite attempts by Xu Lang to mislead him, discovers his nemesis’ destination and heads there himself. Things get even more complicated when Xu Lang’s seatmate on the flight turns out to be man child Wang Bao (Wang Baoqiang), a sweet but dunderheaded guy who makes his living making pancakes and who claims to be the secret boyfriend of international film star Fan Bingbing.

Lost in Thailand will be somewhat familiar to anyone who has ever watched a kind of Odd Couple pairing of two disparate souls, or a road movie, or in fact a combination of the two like Midnight Run was. Xu Lang is all about business, as is made clear from virtually the first moment of the film, though there is the hint of redemption when his wife (Tao Hong) tells him the marriage is over and that she’s leaving with their child. That at least seems to stir something deepr in Lang for a moment, though it’s almost instantly replaced by the desire to make big bucks getting the go ahead for his Supergas formula.

Wang Bao on the other hand is naïvete and innocence personified. The guy carries around a cactus insisting planting it will create all sorts of good fortune and healing, and he also has a huge scrapbook full of pictures of Fan Bingbing, insisting to Lang that she is his girlfriend. Lang’s single minded obsession leads to almost instant disaster once he gets off the plane, for he figures out he’s being followed by Bo through a tracking device on his cell phone, and so he manages a quick switcheroo with Bao’s mobile phone. That only leads Bao right back to Lang, which of course is not the intended consequence. However, Lang soon finds out he actually needs Bao, since Lang has lost his passport and is thus stranded, unable to even check in to a hotel or take a train anywhere. Bao, for all his childlike silliness, at least has a passport than can provide Lang some access to the country and, hopefully, ultimately Zhou.

Though Bao is far too young to call it by this name, he has a Bucket List of sorts, a compendium of completely unrealistic accomplishments he wants to attain and which Lang rather petulantly tolerates in order to further his quest to find Zhou. These of course lead to several comedic setups through the film, and anyone who has even an inkling of how these things typically play out will not be overly surprised by a series of unlikely events that transpire and deliver virtually every one of Bao’s fondest dreams directly to him. The film takes its time actually revealing the motive behind Bao’s fantasy life, with the revelation being a perhaps over obvious but still unexpectedly affecting conceit involving one of Bao’s relatives.

Lost in Thailand may not offer much in the way of nuanced, overly developed characters (both Bao and Lang are types when you get right down to it, and Bo serves as little more than a cartoonish foil as the plot moves along), but there is some effective if not overly inspired physical comedy sprinkled throughout the film. One of the running gags has Lang continually getting wounded in his tribulations with Bao, whether that be from Bao’s own cactus, which finds an unpleasant target in Lang’s bald pate, or an actual martial arts skirmish that breaks out at one point. The film delivers a completely expected plot arc for Lang, who of course comes to his senses about the importance of family and personal relationships and learns that business and moneymaking are means to an end rather than an end in and of themselves.

While on some levels completely routine and predictable, there’s an undeniable sweetness to Lost in Thailand that at least partially accounts for its perhaps unlikely popularity. The two main characters are perfect antagonists who of course learn to work together and ultimately maybe even love each other, and the locales are lush and exotic. There are at least a handful of laugh out loud moments sprinkled throughout the film, but it’s an underlying geniality that may be Lost in Thailand’s greatest virtue.

Lost in Thailand Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lost in Thailand is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. This digitally shot feature looks fantastic on Blu-ray, with bright, bold (almost surreal at times) colors and an appealing lack of egregious color grading (one or two brief sequences have a yellow or blue tint to them, but otherwise this looks refreshingly "natural"). The image is very sharp and extremely well detailed—to the point where individual spikes on Bao's cactus are easily discernable. There is some mildly fluctuating contrast at times, most evident in one or two montage sequences, where things look just slightly blown out. The Thai locations look largely spectacular throughout this high definition presentation, with a couple of exterior shots providing exceptional depth of field.

Lost in Thailand Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lost in Thailand's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Mandarin mix is a lot of fun, providing good (and sometimes goofy) foley effects in several sequences (not necessarily limited to a couple of "battle" scenes). Both the insane cityscapes and more sylvan rural terrain of Thailand provide opportunity for good ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, despite the fact that this tends to be a pretty boisterous, noisy affair quite a bit of the time.

Lost in Thailand Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080p; 16:25) features some enjoyable interviews and behind the scenes footage.


• Theatrical (1080p; 1:20)

Lost in Thailand Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some of Lost in Thailand's humor is admittedly juvenile, like its obsession with the country's so-called "Ladyboys", but that's more than offset by some great physical humor and a couple of well done sight gags. The two lead characters are instantly accessible and Bao is one of the more lovable doofuses to populate a film comedy in recent memory. While the film would hardly serve as a travelogue, given all the problems the main pair encounter along the way, the unusual locations only add to the overall allure of the film. Western audiences may not find this as gut-bustingly hilariously as the Chinese evidently did, but it's still routinely amusing and a brisk, breezy entertainment that gets the job done without any pretentiousness or delusions of grandeur. The technical merits of this Blu-ray are top notch and despite the lack of any really great supplementary material Lost in Thailand comes Recommended.