An Interview with the director Beautiful Boxer
By Peter Fraser
Beautiful Boxer has been winning plaudits around the world for its vibrant portrayal of a man who boxes to become a woman. Made in Thailand and based on a true story, the film follows the journey of central character Nong Toom from an impoverished childhood to international stardom as a kick boxer and transvestite.
'It's not just about wanting to dress up' says the Director Ekachai Uekrongtham, 'It's something very complex. How can we ever understand someone in whom the body and the soul don't match?' It was this conflict that attracted him to the story. 'To me, she's a walking paradox: a lethal kick boxer who fights like a man but dreams of becoming a woman. There's certainly a fertile ground there for dramatic exploration.'
The film recounts the difficulties of a childhood in which Nong Toom has to hide his desire to be feminine first from his family, then from his fellow monks when he joins a Buddhist monastery, then from his fellow trainees at a kickboxing academy. Initially, Toom sees kickboxing as a way to earn money for his family but ultimately it gives him the courage to assert the identity that he has hidden for so long.
The gulf of understanding between society and someone who seems so different is clearly something that preoccupies Uekrongtham. An accomplished theatre director who has previously directed a musical about the original Siamese twins Cheng and Eng, Uekrongtham confesses that he has an affinity with the underdog. 'Can you put your hand on your heart and not be prejudiced at all?' he says earnestly, 'I think that the film is really about how prejudiced we all are when we see someone who is not the same.'
'As an artist, if you can do something in your own small way that helps people think, then that's the greatest gift. Beautiful Boxer is about someone who was trying to follow their feelings, to answer their calling and I think that we all go through that.'
Nevertheless, Uekrongtham had to conquer his own prejudice to make the film. Like many others in Thai society he initially felt that Toom, who has now had a sex change, had tarnished the sacred tradition of Thai kick boxing. It was through seeking to understand her from an artistic viewpoint that he came to accept her as a person.
'When I met her, Toom impressed me as someone who has a genuine love of her family and I was moved by that. I realized that in this extraordinary person there was something quite ordinary and I thought that if I do my work right then there's a way of making her story meaningful to other people'.
As a theatre director Uekrongtham is used to dealing with actors yet one of his hardest challenges for Beautiful Boxer was finding someone who could convincingly portray both a kick boxer and a transvestite.
Asanee Suwan was discovered through nationwide auditions. A professional boxer since 12, Suwan has fought in nearly 200 matches and won most of them. Though Suwan was more than equipped to deal with the intense fight scenes, as a non-actor he posed other challenges for his director.
'In Thailand we have a particular culture of portraying transsexuals but I told Asanee that he should never think that he's trying to play a transsexual. I wanted him to play the role as a man that has a woman's heart. That to me is more truthful.'
'I worked with him a lot. You help him get the mannerisms: how much is too much and how little is too little and how to pitch the voice and so on. As well as how you understand what the character is going through.'
In fact Suwan had to spend nearly a year preparing for the role attending acting, movement and ballet classes. He went through an intensive personality-grooming course usually taken by beauty queens. Physically he had to make himself more feminine. Before certain crucial scenes in the film he had to stick to a strict skin and body-care regime and Nong Toom herself gave him one-to-one sessions to perfect her trademark dance rituals. Reportedly they have since become good friends.
The choreography of the fights was clearly important to Uekrongtham. Beautiful Boxer holds its own against heavyweight contenders such as Raging Bull and Rocky . The violence is there but so is the beauty. The visual parallels with dancing create poetic images that implicitly question dogma regarding performance and gender. To Uekrongtham this was crucial to the film and our understanding of its central character.
'I tried to show Thai kickboxing in at least two different ways: as something very beautiful like a ballet but at other times as something so brutal. I think that the feminine side of Nong Toom responded to the artistic side of Thai kickboxing.'
There are a host of memorable sequences in the film. Nong Toom says at one point, 'the more make-up I put on the harder my opponents kick me so I kick them back harder'. In a remarkable episode Toom fights an old friend who has betrayed him amidst a storm that disperses the spectators until only the fighters are left. It's clear that Toom is really fighting his own demons and the injustice of other people's prejudice.
In another sequence a match from 1988 was reenacted in one of the world's largest indoor stadiums, Japan's Tokyo Dome, with Nong Toom's original opponent Japan 's top female wrestler Kyoko Inoue. All of Tong's opponents in the film are professional kick boxers with more than 1000 professional bouts to their name.
It's this combination of authenticity with Uekrongtham's poetic sensibility that gives the film its considerable appeal. Later on when Toom is reluctant to undress for the weigh-in prior to a crucial match, his manager says, 'are you going to throw away your career because you don't want to appear naked?' The struggle for Toom is to have the courage to appear, and to be accepted, as he really is. As Toom says at one point, 'the most difficult thing is trying not to forget who you really want to be.'
Of Nong Toom's reaction to the film, Uekrongtham says, 'She is a big fan although the first time she couldn't watch it because it's her whole life in front of the world. She has seen it again quietly and was very moved'.
Given the film's popular and critical acclaim Uekrongtham has certainly succeeded in translating her unique story to a wide audience. 'I think honestly that people come to see Beautiful Boxer because they are curious' he says modestly, 'however once they see the film they become our champions.'
Peter Fraser
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