Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya kills it once again with his hotly-anticipated feature, “One for the Road.” The Thai director first attracted attention with his 2017 high school testing heist, “Bad Genius” (now available on Netflix!) — the highest grossing film of the year in his homeland. Now, in his 2021 feature, he’s joined forces with legendary Hong Kong producer Wong Kar-wai to spin a nostalgic tale with a modern twist.
“One for the Road” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
“One for the Road” kicks off at New York bar. Boss (Tor Thanapob) is an attractive, but noncommittal bartender; he treats his customers with more than just drinks on the regular. One night, an old friend from Bangkok, Aood (Ice Natara) asks him to return. It turns out that Aood has cancer, and furthermore, has a strange request: he wants to revisit all of his exes again before he dies. Boss...
“One for the Road” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival
“One for the Road” kicks off at New York bar. Boss (Tor Thanapob) is an attractive, but noncommittal bartender; he treats his customers with more than just drinks on the regular. One night, an old friend from Bangkok, Aood (Ice Natara) asks him to return. It turns out that Aood has cancer, and furthermore, has a strange request: he wants to revisit all of his exes again before he dies. Boss...
- 4/23/2022
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya’s latest feature “One for the Road” turned heads at its premiere in this year’s Sundance World Cinema: Narrative Film competition. And rightly so, too: Poonpiriya’s last work, “Bad Genius” (2017), broke Thai box office records upon its release. Furthermore, “One for the Road” boasts an eye-popping producer on its credits, the legendary Wong Kar-wai — known for Hong Kong classics like “In the Mood for Love” (2000) and “Chungking Express” (1994).
Now, in the spirit of a virtual Sundance, we settle down with Poonpiriya over Zoom. Poonpiriya speaks to us from Thailand; with a leafy green set-up (compared to that of the rainy Bay Area!), his easy humor is contagious. Poonpiriya gives us the lowdown of what it was like to create this deeply personal work with another superstar director, and some of the scenes that spoke out to him.
How did your project get started?
After my...
Now, in the spirit of a virtual Sundance, we settle down with Poonpiriya over Zoom. Poonpiriya speaks to us from Thailand; with a leafy green set-up (compared to that of the rainy Bay Area!), his easy humor is contagious. Poonpiriya gives us the lowdown of what it was like to create this deeply personal work with another superstar director, and some of the scenes that spoke out to him.
How did your project get started?
After my...
- 2/20/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
If you were in a bar with Thai director Nattawut "Baz" Poonpiriya, his idea of just one more for the road would probably take you through until the milkman did his rounds in the morning - he just can't resist adding shot after shot to this shaggy dog road trip about two friends. Perhaps it's the combination of flavours or the way he cuts through the syrup with just the right squeeze of astringent, but though this is long, the structure proves strong enough to take it and, in that regard, having Wong Kar-Wai as your producer probably doesn't hurt. Boss (Tor Thanapob) runs a bar in New York, where he woos a different woman each night with his cocktails. When he unexpectedly gets a call from his old friend Aood (Ice Natara), who tells him he is dying from leukaemia, he finds himself boarding a flight home. After he arrives.
- 2/2/2021
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
This year’s Sundance Film Festival only sees two Asian entries in its World Cinema Dramatic Competition — and Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya kills it with his hotly-anticipated feature, “One for the Road.” The Thai director first attracted attention with his 2017 high school testing heist, “Bad Genius” (now available on Netflix!) — the highest grossing film of the year in his homeland. Now, in his 2021 feature, he’s joined forces with legendary Hong Kong producer Wong Kar-wai to spin a nostalgic tale with a modern twist.
One for the Road is screening at Sundance
“One for the Road” kicks off at New York bar. Boss (Tor Thanapob) is an attractive, but noncommittal bartender; he treats his customers with more than just drinks on the regular. One night, an old friend from Bangkok, Aood (Ice Natara) asks him to return. It turns out that Aood has cancer, and furthermore, has a strange request: he...
One for the Road is screening at Sundance
“One for the Road” kicks off at New York bar. Boss (Tor Thanapob) is an attractive, but noncommittal bartender; he treats his customers with more than just drinks on the regular. One night, an old friend from Bangkok, Aood (Ice Natara) asks him to return. It turns out that Aood has cancer, and furthermore, has a strange request: he...
- 1/30/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Months after director Baz Poonpiriya first started working with Wong Kar Wai, the legendary filmmaker came to a realization about his protege.
“One day he turned to me and said, ‘You know what? I don’t think you believe in this story. You should do something that you totally believe in,’” Poonpiriya tells Gold Derby. “So that’s why I had to go back and come up with this one.”
The suggestion paid off. For his third feature, Poonpiriya mined his own life experiences for the emotional drama “One for the Road,” which premieres at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic competition section.
“It now feels like ‘One For The Road’ is the first time that I can express my own voice and feel through this medium,” Poonpiriya said in a statement. “It is a chance for me to turn the filmmaking process into therapy,...
“One day he turned to me and said, ‘You know what? I don’t think you believe in this story. You should do something that you totally believe in,’” Poonpiriya tells Gold Derby. “So that’s why I had to go back and come up with this one.”
The suggestion paid off. For his third feature, Poonpiriya mined his own life experiences for the emotional drama “One for the Road,” which premieres at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic competition section.
“It now feels like ‘One For The Road’ is the first time that I can express my own voice and feel through this medium,” Poonpiriya said in a statement. “It is a chance for me to turn the filmmaking process into therapy,...
- 1/29/2021
- by Christopher Rosen
- Gold Derby
Somewhere in Bangkok, Aood (Ice Natara) sits alone in a car listening to the radio. Meanwhile in New York, Boss (Tor Thanapob) yuks it up with the ladies as a bartender. If nothing else, the ostentatious camera movements drive home the fact that this guy really is—wait for it—a boss. It’s not until much longer that he gets a call. It’s Aood. The two were best friends, and Aood has called to let him know that, like his own father beforehand, he has terminal cancer.
Boss flies back to Thailand; the two hit it off like nothing’s changed. As expected, they wax nostalgic about their pasts. Also as expected, they ride around visiting Aood’s old flames, among them a dance instructor (Ploi Horwong) and an actor (Aokbab Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying). As for another thing to be expected? It seems Aood has something up his sleeve...
Boss flies back to Thailand; the two hit it off like nothing’s changed. As expected, they wax nostalgic about their pasts. Also as expected, they ride around visiting Aood’s old flames, among them a dance instructor (Ploi Horwong) and an actor (Aokbab Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying). As for another thing to be expected? It seems Aood has something up his sleeve...
- 1/29/2021
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
Wong Kar-wai hasn’t directed a film in eight years, but the Hong Kong maestro has just done the next-best thing, having produced a film by a young protégé that’s both swooningly beautiful and honestly affecting in its account of some young emotional searchers. Director Baz Poonpiriya has made two previous films, the second of which, Bad Genius, became the most successful Thai production ever throughout Asia four years ago, and while his style has clearly been amply influenced by the works of his producer, he’s also delivered a palpably personal and involving story of thwarted love, long-distance longing and incipient mortality.
Ping-ponging half-way around the globe between its settings on the roads of Thailand and the streets of New York, this gorgeous work is an account of young love/lust mixed with hindsight poignance, as well as a consideration of the variable fruits of trying to make amends for past mistakes.
Ping-ponging half-way around the globe between its settings on the roads of Thailand and the streets of New York, this gorgeous work is an account of young love/lust mixed with hindsight poignance, as well as a consideration of the variable fruits of trying to make amends for past mistakes.
- 1/29/2021
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
One of the precious few movies that Wong Kar-wai has produced for another filmmaker in the last 20 years, Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya’s “One for the Road” is a syrupy glob of romantic melodrama that has as much in common with the likes of “The Bucket List” and “Elizabethtown” as it does with the lovelorn poetry of “2046” or “Chungking Express.” Despite his art-house cachet, Wong’s producing credits have always tended to fall on the commercial side of the fence.
Anyone familiar with Poonpiriya’s “Bad Genius” won’t be surprised to find that the director’s follow-up fizzes with the same pop sensibility that made his high-school heist thriller the most internationally successful Thai film ever, and afforded him this chance to make something more personal. To his credit, it does feel personal, even (or perhaps especially) as it speeds over a few potholes of forced schmaltz. For all...
Anyone familiar with Poonpiriya’s “Bad Genius” won’t be surprised to find that the director’s follow-up fizzes with the same pop sensibility that made his high-school heist thriller the most internationally successful Thai film ever, and afforded him this chance to make something more personal. To his credit, it does feel personal, even (or perhaps especially) as it speeds over a few potholes of forced schmaltz. For all...
- 1/29/2021
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The overloaded Thai equivalent of one of those YA weepies where terminally ill teens scramble to fulfill their bucket lists before expiring at a young age, all-the-feels buddy movie “One for the Road” is determined to leave audiences both shaken and stirred. Your mileage may vary as director Baz Poonpiriya (“Bad Genius”) packs this concoction with a lifetime’s worth of romances, breakups and reconciliations; a cancer diagnosis; a cheek-tweakingly adorable kid; all sorts of overdue apologies; several family surprises; and one of those scenes where the music swells as someone’s ashes are scattered to the winds.
Seeing so many emotions squeezed into 137 minutes surely explains why Sundance Film Festival programmers picked this broadly appealing international selection as one of half a dozen films to screen on opening night of the 2021 virtual edition. Well, that and the fact it was produced by Wong Kar Wai, whose blessing gives this...
Seeing so many emotions squeezed into 137 minutes surely explains why Sundance Film Festival programmers picked this broadly appealing international selection as one of half a dozen films to screen on opening night of the 2021 virtual edition. Well, that and the fact it was produced by Wong Kar Wai, whose blessing gives this...
- 1/29/2021
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
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