Fridae

Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng made a splash with his eccentric debut Tears of the Black Tiger (2000), a cowboy movie set in Thailand and shot in bright candy colours. Now he's back with Citizen Dog, a similarly quirky and idiosyncratic film that should attract its share of arthouse fans.

Mahasamuth Boonyarak plays a country bumpkin who goes to Bangkok to look for work, despite his grandmother's warning that doing so would cause him to grow a tail. He falls in love with a pretty girl (Sangtong Ket-Utong) who always has her nose in a strange book written in a foreign language she cannot understand. All manner of funny occurrences happen, like pink helmets raining down from the sky and teddy bears talking to humans.

Indeed, Citizen Dog is filled with so many unusual ideas, images and characters that you're never quite sure what's about to hit you. Director Wisit certainly has a vivid imagination and an off-beat sense of humour. But ultimately, it feels like a series of clever gags strung together, instead of a full-fledged movie with flesh-and-blood characters and an engaging story.

At best, Citizen Dog is an arthouse curio that would be appreciated mostly by admen, cinephiliacs and film studies students.