Off the casting couch
Written by Writer on Friday, October 31st, 2008
Off the casting couch
The top video in Thailand is a grainy 30-minute short starring… well, that is the question. The leading man in the video is neither a popular actor nor a famous singer. He is a slightly built older man driving around young women, and he bears a striking resemblance to the prime minister.
The 25-minute, must-see video was viewed more than 261,000 times in less than 24 hours after it was posted on the Manager website at about 8pm on Wednesday, and there were reportedly hundreds of thousands of “clicks” on other websites where it was being featured.
With rumours flying around that the scandalous footage would soon be pulled from cyber space, some people hurriedly burned it onto CDs and spread them around.
The footage, shot by an unknown cameraman between March 22 and 27 this year, has become the talk of the town - probably because the man in it looks very much like the embattled Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, a brother-in-law of Thaksin Shinawatra.
The clip is presented in four parts. The first, taken on March 22, shows the man picking up a woman in her 20s, in front of a convenience store, in his red Mercedes.
The couple have dinner at a restaurant serving southern-style Thai dishes, giving more fuel to those who believe the man is Mr Somchai, who is a native of Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The second part features the same man driving a BMW to a love motel after picking up another woman from a house on March 24.
In the third part, the man, who is wearing eyeglasses, is shown parking his white Lexus SUV at a restaurant where he has lunch with his wife, according to a female narrator who called the man the “target”.
The “wife” in the footage looks like Mr Thaksin’s younger sister, Yaowapa.
The final part was taken on March 27 when the target picked up a woman at the Justice Ministry on Chaengwattana road for lunch, and then went to HomePro department store where they bought a refrigerator.
According to the Manager website, the video clip has been shown on the internet since early this week.
When asked about the unusual footage yesterday, Mr Somchai - who drives a Lexus SUV, a Mercedes and a BMW - refused to comment.
He just smiled and hurriedly walked inside the House of Representatives.
Bangkok Post
Friday October 31, 2008
