''Ghost Game'' ( th, ล่า-ท้า-ผี; , or ''La-Tha-Pii'') is a 2006 Thai horror film about 11 contestants on a

reality TV Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

show who must stay in an abandoned military prison where atrocities took place years before.

Plot

1976 in Jedah, the Communist Jiam separatist leader and his men stormed the camp S-11 on his home island Krujaba, he ordered a massacre of the present government soldiers and took 10,000 inhabitants as hostages. When government troops stormed the island, he had executed all the prisoners and killed himself on 9 May, since then the camp itself is May S-11 as a curse. A television team is this advantage, and turns in the stock S-11 a reality show in which the winner gets 5 million baht. The aim is to endure as long as possible in the eerie ruins, with the batch of eleven young people, including Dao and Yut, which were already at the last game this season and Kemtid and Jay. The ghosts make all of their lives difficult and die.

Cast

* Pachornpol Jantieng as Yut * Kittilak Chulakrian * Wacharin Jinamulee * Chanetphaka Korsuwan * Thanyanan Mahapirun as Jay * Taweesak Pamornpol * Supatsiri Patomnupong as Dao * Phongsak Rattanapong as Kemtis * Panweth Saiyakhlaai * Zeenam Soonthorn

Critics

The film was controversial because the setting closely matched that of

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum ( km, សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) or simply Tuol Sleng ( km, ទួលស្លែង, link=no, ; lit. "Hill of ...

, where the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

's neighbor,

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

, tortured prisoners. In the film, the prison was called S-11, which closely resembles the name the Khmer Rouge used for Tuol Sleng, S-21. It also depicts piles of skulls and bones, similar to many war memorials around Cambodia.

Production

The producers of the film had in fact wanted to film inside Tuol Sleng, but were refused by the Cambodian government. The film was then made on location in Thailand. The film outraged Cambodians and calls were made to ban all Thai products. Cambodian genocide researcher

Youk Chhang Youk Chhang ( km, ឆាំង យុ; born 22 January 1961) is the executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge's killing fields. He became DC-Cam's leader in 1995, when the center was ...

has denounced the film as insensitive and a distortion of history for commercial purposes. It was another low point for Thai-Cambodian relations, which turned violent with the

2003 Phnom Penh riots In January 2003, a Cambodian newspaper article falsely alleged that Thai actress Suvanant Kongying claimed that the Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand. Other Cambodian print and radio media picked up the report and furthered nationalistic sentimen ...

. The film's producers apologized and said they had not given the subject enough serious thought.

Release

Though it was banned in Cambodia, the film was given a wide theatrical release in

and later in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

References

"Thai 'Ghost Game' execs apologize"
''Monsters and Critics'', April 26, 2006.

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0817928, Ghost Game 2006 films Thai horror films Thai-language films Films about the Cambodian genocide Controversies in Cambodia 2000s Thai films