'Drive' steers into Thailand

The filmmaker of the moment is Nicolas Winding Refn, who won the best-director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for his movie "Drive".

He's in Bangkok now, making his next flick, "Only God Forgives", but on Tuesday he helped promote next week's local release of "Drive" with a question-and-answer session after the press screening.

"Drive" - a darkly violent existential thriller about a movie stuntman and getaway driver played by Ryan Gosling - has been controversial.

It languished in Hollywood for years until the Danish director got hold of it. He tinkered with the script so much that the studios said it wasn't the movie he promised them. So he ended up releasing it independently.

Not only were the studios upset, but some viewers were miffed as well. One woman in the US has filed a lawsuit over the critically lauded movie, saying she expected "Drive" to feature lots of hot rods like "The Fast and the Furious". Instead, she got Gosling kicking some guy in the head.

"I think she was as confused as the US government was when they were looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Refn told his Bangkok audience.

In "Drive", Gosling wears a jacket with a giant scorpion embroidered on the back, something Refn added to the script. It's a superhero symbol, says Refn, who notes his main influences are Grimms' fairytales and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Gosling has his scorpion, just like Thailand has the Red Eagle, Refn says, referring to Insee Dang, the masked vigilante of movies famously portrayed by Mitr Chaibancha in the 1960s.

Just like "Drive" is a new spin on the Los Angeles crime thriller, his new movie "Only God Forgives" aims to cast Bangkok in a different light. It's about an expat gangster who tangles with a Thai police lieutenant and the two settle their differences in a muay thai match.

Oh sure, it'll be the usual Bangkok that foreign audiences see, revelling in all the sleazy cliches. "But that's why people come to bangkok," says the director.

Gosling also stars in the new movie. In fact, he's attached himself to Refn - even going as far as planting a kiss on the director on the red carpet at Cannes.

And what was the kiss like? the "Drive" press wondered.

"Ask my wife," Refn quipped.