Thailand may ban Eddie Peng movie
I have ordered authorities to check the content of Operation Mekong. If it is damaging, it will be banned.
BANGKOK: The Bangkok Post has reported that Thailand is considering banning a new Hong Kong action film that re- enacts the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River in 2011.
Starring Taiwanese actor Eddie Peng, Operation Mekong has just started screening across China.
According to Prime Minister Prayut Chan- o- cha, the movie will be banned in Thailand if it is found to “damage” the reputation of the country.
“I have ordered authorities to check the content of Operation Mekong. If it is damaging, it will be banned,” Prayut said according to the paper.
The film, directed by Dante Lam, tells the story of the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River in the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai in 2011 by a notorious Myanmar drug kingpin.
During his trial in China in 2013, prime suspect Naw Kham blamed Thai soldiers for the murders.
Thai officials discovered the gruesome murder scene in October that year after boarding two cargo ships that had come under gunfire.
They found nearly one million amphetamines and 12 dead
Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand
bodies that had been dumped in the river, most of whom were found blindfolded and handcuffed.
A Mekong River gang was arrested after a joint police operation between China, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar and were executed by lethal injection in the Chinese city of Kunming in 2013.
After blaming Thai soldiers, Naw Kham later pleaded guilty to the charges, before changing his plea again at the appeal hearing, according to Chinese state media reports.
The Chinese court concluded that the gang had colluded with Thai soldiers in the attack on the cargo ships.
The film’s director Lam told Chinese media he prepared for three years, interviewing anti- drug police, and touring the areas along the Mekong to interview local residents.
“We wanted to do justice to the victims,” Lam said in a trailer released earlier.
Besides Eddie, the movie also stars Zhang Hanyu, and Jonathan Wu (Chen Baoguo).
Yu Dong, CEO of Bona Film Group, which produced the film, said at a press conference in Beijing that he expected the film to earn in excess of one billion yuan ( RM617 million).
Last week, the movie was previewed by nearly 1,000 Chinese police officers in Beijing.
At the preview, Zhao Chengfeng, a police officer who was on the team to track down the drug ring, praised the actors who performed the roles of cops.
According to the script, the movie relates to the event where two Chinese commercial vessels were ambushed while travelling down the Mekong River in the waters of the Golden Triangle, one of the largest drugmanufacturing regions in the world.
Thirteen sailors are executed at gunpoint, and 900,000 methamphetamine pills were recovered at the scene.
The Chinese government immediately sends a band of elite narcotics officers led by Captain Gao Gang (Zhang Hanyu) to uncover the truth behind the murders.
Tea field owner and Golden Triangle-based intelligence officer Fang Xinwu ( Eddie Peng) joins the investigation.
After it is discovered that the drugs seized on the Chinese ships had been planted by the henchman of a notorious drug cartel leader named Naw Khar, the governments of Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and China launch a joint task force to apprehend the criminal.