Ghost Game is a 2006

2006 in film

- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...

 Thai

Cinema of Thailand

The cinema of Thailand dates back to the early days of filmmaking, when King Chulalongkorn's 1897 visit to Bern, Switzerland was recorded by Francois-Henri Lavancy-Clarke. The film was then brought to Bangkok, where it was exhibited...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 about 11 contestants on a reality TV show who must stay in an abandoned military prison where atrocities took place years before.

Plot

1986 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 Kemtis and Jay. The group expects indeed a time of terror, because sometimes the ghosts make their lives difficult.

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

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 by the Khmer Rouge communist regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979...

, where the Khmer Rouge

Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...

 in Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

's neighbor, Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

, 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 has denounced the film as insensitive and a distortion of history for commercial purposes. It was the another low point for Thai-Cambodian relations, which turned violent with the 2003 Phnom Penh riots

2003 Phnom Penh riots

In January 2003, a Cambodian newspaper article falsely alleged that a Thai actress claimed that Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand. Other Cambodian print and radio media picked up the report and furthered the nationalistic sentiment which resulted in riots in Phnom Penh on January 29 where the Thai...

.

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 Thailand and later in Singapore.