Phuket: the ultimate movie location
So you’ve been to James Bond Island? Pop quiz: which Bond movie was shot around there? Give up? It was The Man With The Golden Gun, way back in 1974, with Christopher Lee as arch-villain Scaramanga – he of the golden gun – and Roger Moore as Bond – he of the the blow-dried quiff.
Koh Tapoo, or James Bond Island - just can't take a picture without pesky tourists getting in the way...
Koh Tapoo (Nail Island) was swiftly renamed by savvy tourism operators to cash in on the twenty seven and a half visitors who came to Phuket each year in those days. The renaming was prescient; these days it’s hard to take a picture of Koh Tapoo without 10,000 tourists in the foreground.
But Golden Gun is far from the only movie short in part or completely in or around Phuket. There are dozens of them.
In fact, Phang Nga Bay appeared in another Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, released in 1997. In this case the baddie, Elliot Carver, hid his evil stealth ship in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay. The movie makers found it a great deal easier to film the marine shots in Phang Nga Bay, which looks a lot like Ha Long.
Remember The Killing Fields, the grim 1984 movie about Pol Pot’s days in charge of the rapidly dwindling population of Cambodia? Remember the scene of desperate Cambodians climbing over the fence into the French Embassy in hopes of getting asylum? The fence belongs to the Provincial Hall in Phuket City.
Or how about Good Morning, Vietnam, the bitter-sweet-funny romance starring Robin Williams? Vietnam was still deep into Communist paranoia in those days, and shooting the film there would have been impossible, so director Barry Levinson settled on Thailand, with the streets of Thalang standing in for Saigon.
The grim Brian de Palma Vietnam War movie, Casualties of War, released in 1989, and starring Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox, also used locations in Kanchanburi, Phang Nga and Phuket for the same reason.
But it hasn’t all been spies and soldiers. The 1992 journo flic, Turtle Beach, starring Greta Scacchi, Joan Chen and Jack Thompson, though purportedly set in Malaysia, was shot in Phuket. Phang Nga Bay featured again in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Sort of. The limestone towers of Phang Nga were shot from the air and then CG’d massively to create Kashyyyk, home world of furry spaceship pilot Chewbacca and his cuddly cousins the Wookies.
Leo, with Maya Bay in the background.
Probably the most successful movie in terms of drawing tourists to Phuket was The Beach, the 2000 Leonardo di Caprio backpacker adventure movie. Phang Nga Rd in Phuket Town stood in for Khao San Rd in Bangkok, and Maya Bay on Phi Phi Lay Island was The Beach.
There was considerable controversy over alterations the movie makers made to the foreshore at Maya Bay, remodeling the dunes and planting extra palm trees. Environmentalists protested and made filming difficult. Arrayed against the greenies were the boatmen ferrying movie staff and equipment – and palm trees – to and fro. It came close to fisticuffs on a number of occasions.
The Observer’s sources indicate that darker forces were behind all of this – a battle between hotel owners for the lucrative contract to house hundreds of movie people for months on end. Details of that story, of course, are not likely to see the light of day.
But the movie was a big success, and thousands of people poured into Phuket and headed for Maya Bay, then wondered disappointedly why they were sharing the beach with thousands of other people.
One surprise: in 1987 the Aussie love story Echoes of Paradise, starring Wendy Hughes and purportedly set on Bali, was shot in Phuket. Maybe Indonesia was miffed that Wendy’s love interest, supposedly a Balinese dancer, was played by Hong Kong’s John Lone.
A large chunk of the second Bridget Jones movie, The Edge of Reason, which starred Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, took place in Phuket. This piece of romantic froth eventually grossed 263 million bucks worldwide. Must have been the scenery.
The list goes on, and it’s not just movies; it’s TV, too. And it’s not just Hollywood, but movies and TV productions from many other countries.
The 10-episode Australian TV series, Vietnam, was shot partly on Phuket, and last year scenes for Bollywood action star and heart-throb Sanjay Dutt’s Blue were filmed in Thalang Rd in Phuket Town. Dhoom Dadakka, The 2009 Indian contender for unfunniest comedy of all time, was also shot partly on Phuket. The Amazing Race, the TV “reality” show, has twice visited the island, and another Bridget – Bridget Marquardt – rode an elephant and went parasailing in Phuket in her travel series Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches.
Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant discuss romance with Phang Nga Bay in the background.
In 1996, Phuket featured in an episode of the German doctors-and-nurses series Klinik Unter Palmen, and one of Portugal’s longest-running soaps, Tempo de Viver, also paid a visit. Even the Danes have got in on the act, with travel series På togt med Troels Kløvedal – Nordkaperen i det Indiske Ocean (how do you pronounce that?) sailed the waters off Phuket in a schooner. And there are many more – too many to mention here.
Finally, a mention of a Thai movie made recently in Phuket: Tin Mine. This revolved around a young man coming of age on a tin dredge in Phuket in the 1940s. It was the official Thai entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2005 Academy Awards. It didn’t win, but it’s not a bad movie, so if you want a taste of Phuket before tourism, watch it. If you can find a copy, that is.
And we are here ,as production house, to help them