Khan Kluay

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Khan Kluay

Thai movie poster.
Directed by Kompin Kemgumnird
Distributed by Kantana Animation
Sahamongkol Film International
Release date(s) May 18, 2006
Country Thailand
Language Thai
Budget 150 million baht
Official website
IMDb profile

Khan Kluay (Thai: ก้านกล้วย; IPA: [kankluːaj]) is a 2006 Thai computer-animated feature film set during Ayutthaya-era Siam about an elephant who wanders away from his mother and eventually becomes the war elephant for King Naresuan.

Contents

[edit] Plot

When Khan Kluay is born, his grandmother notes that his back is "gently sloped like a banana stalk ... I suppose that is what I should name you". "Khan kluay" is Thai for "banana stalk".

As a young elephant, Khan Kluay is taunted by the other elephants because he is fatherless. Naturally, Khan Kluay is curious about his father, and he's told that his father is a war elephant for the king.

So Khan Kluay wants to find his father. Still a young elephant, he wanders off to begin his search. He is soon captured by a Burmese raiding party. In trying to escape from the Burmese camp, the young elephant is befriended by a Siamese boy prince, Naresuan, who has been ransomed to the Burmese. Naresuan has the ability to calm Khan Kluay into thinking clearly, and Khan Kluay makes his escape.

A weakened Khan Kluay then comes upon a village where humans and elephants are working together. He is befriended by a young elephant cow, Chaba-Kaew, but is then chained up until he is tamed. Khan Kluay soon learns to value the humans who have captured him. Under the training of a wise, old mahout, he becomes bigger and stronger.

A local warlord comes around annually to collect tax from the village, and his taxes have become greedier each year. The village rebels, and with the humans and elephants working together, the warlord and his beasts are defeated.

The call then goes out from the king of Siam for elephants. Khan Kluay is taken to the palace. There, he is seen by his mother, who calls out to him. Khan Kluay goes wild in trying to break free from his chains to meet his mother. Naresuan notices this, and remembers Khan Kluay from his boyhood. The king is able to calm Khan Kluay, and from then on Khan Kluay serves as the personal war elephant of the king.

In battle, Khan Kluay meets a giant Burmese war elephant with fiery eyes that was responsible for the death of Khan Kluay's father, and Khan Kluay gets a chance to acquit himself in battle for the glory of the Siamese kingdom, and take revenge.

[edit] Voice cast

  • Anyarit Pitakkul as Khan Kluay (child)
  • Nawarat Techarathanaprasert Chaba-Kaew (child)
  • Phoori Hiranyapruk as Older Khan Kluay
  • Worathaya Ninlakhooha as Older Chaba-Kaew
  • Pongsak Hiranyapruk as Jitrit
  • Nanthana Bunlong Saeng-daa
  • Suthep Po-ngam as Mahout
  • Channarong Khuntee-tao as leader of the Burmese
  • Juree Ohsiri
  • Koti Aramboy

[edit] Production

Khan Kluay is directed by Kompin Kemgumnird, an animator who had worked on the Disney features as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Tarzan, and Blue Sky Studios' Ice Age.

Produced by Kantana Animation, it was the first Thai 3-D animated feature film to be released, and was also the first animated Thai feature to be released since 1979's The Adventure of Sudsakorn, a cel-animated film by Payut Ngaokrachang.

Khan Kluay took three years to make and cost 150 million baht (about $3.9 million USD).

[edit] Release

Khan Kluay was released in Thai cinemas on May 18, 2006. It was the highest-grossing Thai film of 2006, taking in approximately 91 million baht at the box office.

The movie was shown to an audience of Asian elephants and their mahouts in an outdoor screening in Ayutthaya Province on June 6, 2006.

[edit] Festivals and awards

[edit] Television series

An animated television series, The Adventure of Khan Kluay, has been created by Kantana Animation Studio and is broadcast on BBTV Channel 7.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Thai Film Awards this year, ThaiCinema.org, 2007-02-28.
  2. ^ 115 films on offer at film festival, Siasat Daily; retrieved 2007-11-15

[edit] External links


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