Ghost of Mae Nak
There are numerous “vengeful ghost” type of movies, but this one takes the concept in a different direction. Mae Nak is a vengeful ghost, yes. She kills people, yes. But she has a good reason for doing so; she's protecting a couple that's deeply in love. She eliminates those who have hurt them or will hurt them.
Some of the methods of death remind me of some of the stranger ones from Dead Like Me, although one, where a guy is cut in half, is truly gross.
The audio commentary notes that there is a real legend of Mae Nak in Thailand. There apparently is even a shrine to Mae Nak. He says that the Thai people believe that the really is a piece of bone that holds the spirit of Mae Nak.
This is a very good movie; different from most others.
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A narrated opening.
A guy (Mak) wakes up and goes to get a drink of something. Meanwhile, we see a figure pass quickly by.
He hears someone knowing rather loudly but when he looks out his apartment door there is nobody there. As soon as he closes the door the noise starts again and gets really loud, going from a knocking to a pounding sound.
He turns around and finds someone standing there. It all turns out to be just a dream, though.
He talks to Nak on the phone.
Apparently he and his girlfriend are going to look at a house together.
Nak shows up. As they eat breakfast together he tells her about the woman he saw in his nightmare.
The house which the realtor said needed “a few repairs.” Looks more like a disaster area to me.
Mak leaves his bag in the house. He goes to get it and hears a female voice calling out his name.
Then he sees the woman from his nightmares.
After signing the contract for the house he enters a curio shop and spots a piece of jewelry of the kind that Nak likes.
Mak, Nak and friends gather to start working on the old house. It does look a lot better when they finish with the outside.
Some crooks are watching them move into the house.
In another sort of “this doesn't follow,” the real estate guy has called Nak's attorney and wants to talk about the contract with him. He's being followed by the woman from Nak's nightmare.
While the guy's on the subway his briefcase, with the contract in it, catches fire.
He sees the woman and he falls partially through the door and the doors hold him stuck. He is decapitated by a subway going the other way. Meanwhile, someone on a motorcycle is following Mak.
The next morning she runs into some guy named Kong, and he's the one who was following her the night before. Apparently he has a thing for her. He admits he's in love with her and he doesn't want her to marry Mak.
She goes to meet with a fortune teller according to some custom. The guy's helper is running a scam operation on the side, getting money from the people and putting it in his own pocket.
Mak and Nak get married.
On their wedding night Mak again dreams of the woman from his nightmare. He goes to the restroom and thinks he sees Nak in the mirror. He turns around and the two talk, then he turns again, turns back, and she's gone. This apparently is a dream within a dream, though.
The next morning she shows him a leaf that turns the lips and teeth black which is what the image of Nak had told Mak in the dream-within-a-dream nightmare the night before.
The get home from being with Mak's parents and find they have been robbed.
The crooks with the stolen stuff in their van.
Mak sees the crooks selling his stuff the next day and chases them, but they get in their van and run him down. He ends up in the hospital.
Suddenly he seems to say something about finding Mae Nak, but it's just some kind of illusion. Nak later tells her grandmother what Mak had said, and her grandmother points out that Mae Nak is a ghost.
The grandmother says that Nak existed about a hundred years ago. She married a young man named Mak. Nak became pregnant, and Mak had to go to war. Mak was injured in the war but was helped by monks and was eventually able to return home.
Nak had already had her child and everything seemed fine, but Mak noticed that no one would stop by his house. The villagers told him that Nak had died in childbirth and was a ghost.
Anyone who had tried to take Mak away from her died. The villagers confront Mak again and locate the grave of Mae Nak. The child had also died. The high priest did an exorcism and that supposedly ended the problems.
One of the two crooks gets a call on his cell phone and then hears a voice. (Not from the cell phone, though.)
He sees Mae Nak. He jumps out a window and falls to his death.
The second crook has the van and he also sees Mae Nak. The van ends up being crushed with the guy in it. (It's at a scrap yard.)
Mak's lawyer tells Nak that the guy that sold them the house is dead. The real estate guy was going to double the price of their home after a week, and the contract that Mak signed would have let him get away with it. He was running a scam to get money out of newly-wed couples.
Then he tells her something else about the house.
Mak is out shopping and finds some of her stolen clothes and another of the crooks.
The crook encounters Mae Nak. He falls backward into a cooking area, gets splattered with hot oil, stumbles, gets hit by a car and lands on a grill, then catches fire.
She gives the broach to Nak and as she is holding his hand she has a vision of their first kiss. She goes to see the fortune teller and encounters the crooked assistant.
The monk that exorcised Mae Nak removed a piece of bone from her skull and made it into a broach, trapping her spirit inside. Nak shows him the bone broach and the “master” freaks out. The crooked assistant later tries to talk Nak into giving him the broach. He basically steals the broach, sees Mae Nak, and gets killed. He gets sliced in half, literally.
She finds out that the place she and Mak first kissed was the burial ground where Mae Nak had been buried.
She seems a form of Mae Nak.
She encounters Kong.
She explains to her friends about Mae Nak. She wants to return the bone piece to Mae Nak's skull.
While they are digging a monk and his assistant are praying in the hospital. Mak's eyes open, and the heart monitor shows two beats. They find the body of Mae Nak's child.
Mak's body starts to rise off the hospital bed.
The doctor explains that Mak might have suffered brain damage. They are going to do an emergency procedure that night.
Suddenly he opens his mouth and some sort of fog comes out, then he sits up.
Things get worse and one of the doctor's sees Mae Nak on the table instead of Nak.
Lightning flows from her body and suspends the doctor and the nurses.
Mak leaves the hospital and returns to the old burial ground. She doesn't know that Kong has followed her.
She finds the skull just as the people in the operating room drop to the floor after the energy flow stops.
Shortly thereafter (and way too soon as far as I'm figuring time was going), Nak's friends come to the burial ground and find her.
She collapses and later asks her grandmother something.
Mak was taken to a monastery to be exorcised by the monks.
The next day Kang checks out the burial ground.
The grandmother takes Nak to someone to get help.
Mrs. Grimm is a spiritualist. She holds the piece of bone from Mae Nak. As she talks, she writes on a tablet and the guy reads what she writes since she is blind. She says the presence is that of a woman who is not at peace. The presence identifies itself as Mae Nak. The spirit asks Nak to help her. The spirit asks Nak to release her.
Mae Nak appears (but no one sees her.) Later, Mrs. Grimm says Mae Nak was awakened by the pure love between Mak and Nak. It's the same type of love she had and she misses it deeply. Nak must return the bone piece to Mae Nak. Mras. Grimm tells her the exorcism on Mak must be stopped.
Mak asks her friend to help her get into the police morgue (since he works at the police station.) He refuses to help her.
The exorcism begins.
The guy gets in his car that night and Mak is there. Then he sees Mae Nak's reflection in the mirror. He manages to sneak her into the morgue while the monks are still setting up for the exorcism.
She finds the remains of Mae Nak.
She puts the piece of bone back in the skull and the entire body reforms itself. At the same moment Mak wakes up.
They arrange for a proper funeral for Mae Nak.
Mae Nak appears to Mak.
Nak, meanwhile, is in Mae Nak's coffin.
He frees Nak just in time.
But it turns out to be a dream both of them were having at the same time. In my own opinion,I think this was Mae Nak having a little fun with them before her spirit was finally released; she realized how deep their love with and that Mak would rush to Nak's rescue.
Scenes from Video Diary of the making of the movie
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