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Legend of King Naresuan 5: Abandoned, Not Finished”
  By Sorradithep Supachanya /1 June 2014
 

 

The fifth and final installment of Prince Chartrichalerm Yukol’s long-running historical epic The Legend of King Naresuan seems to be abandoned rather than finished. Rushed climax, multiple loose ends, stellenbosched characters, and icarian production bumfuzzle the audience and curb their long-anticipated satisfaction at not only this episode but also the entire quinary series.

The film continues from part 4, released in 2011, with a temerarious ambush on a Burmese army camp to rescue Phra Ratchamanu (Noppachai Chai-Ngam), King Naresuan’s (Wanchana Sawasdee) childhood friend and most trusted comrade. The attack gravely injures Pegu King Nanda Bayin (Jakrit Amarat), which prompts his milksop son Minchit Sra (Napasakorn Mit-Em) to engage the titular king in the elephant battle, a pivotal moment of the 16th-century Siamese-Burmese wars.

Action film buffs will be delighted with plenty of cannons, guns, and battle ships used in the ambush scene. However, the climactic elephant battle, though riveting, disappointingly lacks grandeur with only a few infantry and cavalry scudding across an empty plain, and lasts merely 10 minutes.

Curiously, the film abruptly ends after the elephant battle and leave the audience baffled about outcomes of all other subplots introduced in the previous four installments. For example, does his son’s death placate the ophelian Pegu king? Has King Naresuan succeeded in rescuing his hostaged sister (Grace Mahadamrongkul)? And what happens to the typically voluble abbot and strategic advisor Mahathera Khanchong (Sorapong Chatree)? Instead, a short interstitial bluntly states the impact of the elephant battle, and the credits roll.

In fact, an air of desuetude perfuses throughout the film. Maneejan (Taksaorn Phaksukcharoen), King Naresuan’s sweetheart, is ensconced silently behind the throne as the new queen. Kam (Supakorn Kitsuwan), a deaf-mute hayseed who becomes a royal mahout, could actually be exscinded from the film entirely despite his supposed important position commanding King Naresuan’s basilica elephant in the climactic battle.

What also made the predecessor films awe-inspiring to watch was the sheer scale of the battle scenes. Literally hundreds of extras were employed to reenact key events. Part 5 switches to computer rendering armies instead, but with poor and languid results. The troops appear measly and the fighting lymphatic.

A decade is a long time for a director and actors to be attached to any particular multi-part film, especially when that film is marred in controversies, overrun budget, and declining audience reception. Perhaps everybody was just eager to move on to their next projects, and less care is paid to the film’s details.

And so that is how The Legend of King Naresuan biopic ends, in the words of American poet T.S. Eliot—not with a bang but a whimper.

   
 

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