Review of KUMAN THONG: Mother in Mourning

July 10, 2024

Online English tutor Clara (Cindy Miranda) was a single mother raising two energetic kids -- Katie (Althea Rueda) and Isaac (Emmanuel Esquivel). One fateful day, Isaac suddenly passed away in a freak accident. Clara could not move on from her extreme grief, and would always brought the urn with his ashes with her everywhere she went, even when she travelled to Thailand with her Thai boyfriend Sai Chon (Max Nattapol).

Sai Chon had proposed marriage to Clara, so he brought Clara and Katie with him to visit his mother Khun Nam (Jariya Therakaosal) in his home country. They wanted to ask for her blessing so they can get eventually get married in the Philippines. While out shopping in the market, Clara saw a crazed laughing woman (Pateharaporn Tongtiva) carrying a doll of a baby. The stranger said she how Clara could get her dead son back. 

Movie star Xian Lim dons his director's hat for the third time, after "Tabon" (Cinemalaya 2019) and "Hello, Universe!" (2023).  Lim also co-wrote the script with Iris Lee, who was also an associate producer in this project. Troubled personal life aside, this film does prove that Lim does have good directorial aptitude for this horror material. His camera angles, lighting decisions, suspense build-up and startle techniques were not bad. 

The story was actually better than what I thought. Kuman thong is a real item in Thai folk culture with roots in black magic, so that is interesting.  However, the script was not too good. Clara bringing the urn to Thailand and carrying it in her arms around the market was just too weird, a screaming red flag. Also, I get that a dead person can be revived if a spirit possessed it, but why would the body remain alive and normal, if the spirit had left? Absurd.  

It is very good to see Cindy Miranda out of Vivamax, but too bad that her Clara only had two moods here -- either depressed or angry.  Lim may need some more experience in directing child actors so they do not come across as annoying brats. This is Thai actor Nattapol's first feature film after starring in several TV series since 2016. He did well in his challenging role of a man caught between his gloomy lover and his clingy mother. 5/10.