Fridae

The world may know of Mark Zuckerberg and how he became one of the world's youngest tech billionaires by watching David Fincher's The Social Network. In Thailand though, a teenager by the name of Aitthipat "Top" Kulapongvanich became a multi-billionaire not through creating a website like Facebook but by selling fried seaweed snakes that you can find in 7-Eleven stores all over Asia – though he had a start as an enterprising illegal arms merchant on an MMORPG.

In this not-quite rag-to-riches story, Pashorn Jiratiwat portrays "Top" as a pampered teenage son of a Thai-Chinese family whose business in Bangkok is going under. Yet blessed with a fistful of not-quite entrepreneurial genius and armed with some means to put his not-quite entrepreneurial skills to use, "Top" cuts school and lurches from one money-making scheme to another while knowingly or otherwise flouting several laws and business regulations along the way.

The Billionaire may be an inspirational film and biopic that had input from its still-living subject but it clearly doesn't take itself too seriously. Yes, part of this film plays like a business school textbook on marketing strategy but it is made so much more palatable because it is hilarious to see the protagonist slip up in one misadventure after another on his journey to financial success.

Like The Social Network, The Billionaire is ultimately a celebration of capitalism and the spirit of entrepreneurship. Their message may well be that for a country to create a nurturing environment for business talent, some leeway, flexibility, and slack need to exist in that country's legal and regulatory climate. Let's hope Singapore, internationally ranked as low in entrepreneurship as it does in press freedoms and creativity, heeds this.