Lumpinee (2010, Unclassified 18+)

Dir: Chira WICHAISUTHIKUL, Thailand, 95mins, digital

For most western cinema mainstream moviegoers, Thai cinema is all – only – about kickboxing action. Whilst Regional Intersection audiences know that it is more than that, neither sector probably have much understanding of what it’s really like to train up, live and prize-fight within the strict discipline of Muay Thai. Or to live the reality of the dream of many rural Thai boys: to get to title-fight at Lumpinee, the Thai army-run championship stadium in the heart of Bangkok. Wichaisuthikul’s deep insider’s view of life inside a Muay Thai training school, and the experiences of entry-level trainees not even into their teens, draws on the co-operative ethnographic tradition of Robert Flaherty. It’s docudramatic filmmaking which tells their stories in a first-person fashion, as they would want them told, but lays clues about some of the grimmer obstacles on a path that’s often the only way out for many Thai village boys.