this is not a bad doc and it's a serious issue, but i found myself taking the whole thing far less seriously due to emo jack handy's monotone narration and exploitive nature. this guy when to bangkok thinking he would get a bar girl to cry for him and pushed until he got what he wanted.

that said, i was about ready to cry by the end.

I agree about the narrator, but for me it's all about the girl. Also, she has made me realize what a pussy sense of humor I have.

Narrator's kind of dumb. Bangkok is safe unless you're completely retarded or want to cross a road. You don't get harassed by hookers either, unless you hang around seedy areas like Nana.
Pla is a smart, pretty girl with decent English. There really are much worse off people in Thailand, but they're probably not as photogenic.

"[Her smile] has a wider meaning than western culture can ever hope to understand." But I, narrator and documentarian, understood it perfectly. Here, let me explain it for you!

Fuck that guy.

Ok, like it or not, I'm calling B.S. on this one. Pla isn't dead and this droning, boring narrator has been duped for the 100th time on his trip to Thailand.

Why not just upload the entire documentary?? I can't give this full stars because... you could have uploaded the entire thing.

Hopefully the Aussie was run over by a minicab. Perhaps the documentary man could film it and then tell us about how the Aussie's face, twisted in pain, is actually a reflection of joy.

Just a couple of observations...

The drunk twat was English.
That narrator could make a chimps tea party sound edgy.

That made me, an admitted hard man, humble.

He should visit Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. It makes Thailand look like paradise.

There is something very exploitative and disingenuous about this man. When I was in Olongapo, in the Phillippines, prostitutes would pretty much act any way you wanted them to, whether it be "innocent and pure" (gag, I can't believe he said that) or "drunk and slutty" or "bossy and dominating." That's what prostitutes do. If you were a white man, you simply couldn't have a real conversation with them. No, I didn't sleep with any of them. I was 15.

I think something like this would have to be created by a woman and not a white guy with an obvious sexualized interest in his subject matter.

Four for the girl, not the smug, awful shithead filming this thing. Watch your back in Bangkok, dude? For what? Oh no! That tuk tuk driver is asking you where you want to go! Run for your life, white man!

Honestly, I feel safer in Bangkok these days than I do here in Philadelphia.

Four stars for Pla reminding me so very strongly of one of my best friends from South Korea for some reason.

Aslo, the filmmaking actually very strong. He shoots some beautiful scenery and manages to create an effective atmosphere depite his Monotone McSerious narration. Yes, it's exploitative as hell, he's a probably a twat and it's pretty easy to wonder how much she's stringing him along, but I gotta give him props where it counts.

However, according to one detective on IMDB in Bangkok, it appears that, while the bar Checkpoint Charlie's is not after all closed down, the word as of November of 2007 is that Pla did indeed die.

http://www.thailand.com/travel/nightlife/nightlife_bangkok_cli ntoncheckpointcharlies.htm

I remember watching this documentary. I couldn't STAND the over-the-top emo narration. Stupid falang.

DOCUMENTARY RULE #1: Just because you can film shit doesn't mean people want to hear you talk. Know when to hire a professional voiceover artist to narrate your movie. March of the Penguins wouldn't have made a billion dollars if people had been forced to listen to Gary the Arctic Researcher the entire movie.

DOCUMENTARY RULE #2: All Asians live in misery, and their only joy in life is talking to white guys with cameras.

DOCUMENTARY RULE #3: Try to die during filming. Then your movie will be really successful.

5 stars for the douchiness of this video and for all the comments. It's pretty clear the narrator had all the narration planned out and written before even meeting this particular girl.