Bad Genius (2017) Thai Movie Review

Bad Genius or known in Thai as 'Chalard Games Goeng' has just released in Malaysia on August 10th, 2017. This movie has already been released in Thailand on May 3rd this year, which placed the movie first at the Thai box office for two weeks and earning over 100 million baht, making it the highest-grossing Thai film of 2017 at this moment of writing. What attracted me to watch this movie is not just the interesting trailer that I have seen but also that it has won multiple awards from New York Asian Film Festival and Best Director at the Fantasia International Film Festival.


Director: Nattawut Poonpiriya
Writers: Tanida Hantaweewatana, Vasudhorn Piyaromna, Nattawut Poonpiriya
Stars: Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, Eisaya Hosuwan, Teeradon Supapunpinyo, Chanon Santinatornkul
Genre: Heist thriller
Runtime: 130 minutes
Language: Thai with subtitles
Malaysia release date: Aug 10, 2017

Synopsis: Inspired by real-life news of students cheating on the SAT, the film transplants the heist film structure to a school-exams setting, and features themes of class inequality as well as teen social issues. Lynn, a genius high school student who makes money by cheating tests, receives a new task that leads her to set foot on Sydney, Australia. In order to complete the millions-Baht task, Lynn and her classmates have to finish the international STIC(SAT) exam and deliver the answers back to her friends in Thailand before the exam takes place once again in her home country.


This is not a typical teen movie which I have seen and totally never expected this from Thai film maker. They are usually more popular with ghost, comedy or martial art action film. The main character – Lynn, helped her friends cheating in exams in return for some good amount of money after realizing that his dad has paid a large sum of money as the school maintenance fees. Although she's not pretty but she was correctly chosen for her role as a young nerdy genius girl in comparison to her beautiful classmate Grace who's more of a dumb blonde.

Honestly some of the cheating technic in this movie has been done by myself back in my school days. However, they made it way cooler. I also like the way they edited the timeline which leads to the final act. At the end, it was a turning point for Lynn and a 360 change of attitude shown by her cheating partner – Bank, who is also a genius from her school. The plots are pretty straight forward and not confusing with very minimal stupid jokes for comedy relief. No special effects or high budget action but the final act did made me feel slightly 'kanjeong' (nerve-wracking).

Conclusion: I wouldn't mind watching it again on TV and I recommend that you will watch this in the cinema just like I did.

Censorship: None that I know of.

I'm rating this movie 4 out of 5 stars!
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆


.: Peace Out :.

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