Controversy and Re-release
When the film was due to be released on May 18, 2006, the story was about the national soccer team of Laos. Laotian foreign ministry officials raised concerns that depictions of the Laotian players would be seen as offensive by Lao people and could trigger anti-Thai violence in Laos, similar to the 2003 Phnom Penh riots.
The controversy also came shortly after another Thai film, Ghost Game, sparked outrage among Cambodian officials, because the teen horror movie made light of the atrocities that occurred under the Khmer Rouge and Tuol Sleng Prison.
The movie was completed at a cost of 60 million baht, and for a time it appeared that the film's production company, GMM Tai Hub, would have to permanently shelve the film. But through re-editing and reshooting some scenes to remove any traces of Lao flags and national emblems and creating a fictional country called Arvee, the company was able to release the film. Dialogue was looped so that whenever anyone said "Laos" they instead would say "Arvee."
Remaining prints of the original film were burned at an event witnessed by the film's producers.
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Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)