6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
After years of research, Xu Lang finally found success in creating the Supergas Petroleum Enhancer. However, the only way he can get funding for additional development is to go to Thailand and have majority shareholder of his company sign a letter of attorney. Meanwhile, his professional rival Gao Bo wants to sell the technology for a quick buck and will stop at nothing to get his own letter of attorney signed first. On the way to Thailand, Xu Lang encounters Wang Bo, a simple onion cake maker on his first vacation overseas. In the heat of the chase, Wang Bo ends up joining Xu Lang on an adventure across Thailand – with Gao Bo close on their tail.
Starring: Zheng Xu, Baoqiang Wang, Huang Bo, Fan Bingbing, Hong TaoForeign | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Mandarin: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Mandarin: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
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 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'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.
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.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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