Netflix crime thriller Bangkok Breaking shines spotlight on Thailand capital’s mean streets, while Museum of Shadows investigates haunted places
- Struggling to earn a living in the big city, a man investigating his brother’s death soon realises he must unravel a shocking conspiracy in Bangkok Breaking
- Amazon Prime’s Museum of Shadows takes a look at some spooky exhibits that have produced ‘real encounters with the paranormal’
It’s the first time in the big city for Wanchai (yes, that’s really his name), who takes a bus into Bangkok to meet his brother, Jo, who has promised him a job. But before they can meet, an out-of-control sports car – looking like a Fast & Furious escapee – flies through the air at their rendezvous point, crashes into a street market and leaves 12 people dead.
Among them is Jo – who, it appears, wasn’t a spotless good guy as thought, but was enmeshed in dodgy underworld dealings orchestrated by a hippie left over from Woodstock calling himself Hardcore (Bhasaworn Bawronkirati).
Such is the intriguing set-up for taut Thai action thriller Bangkok Breaking (Netflix, series one now streaming), which pitches us straight into a conduit for crime few might expect.
With a lamentable safety record on its roads (see above), Thailand and particularly Bangkok (at least in this series) have given rise to private, voluntary organisations whose ambulance crews regularly beat the official rescuers to accident scenes. But as Wanchai discovers, the volunteers also steal valuables from victims and use emergency vehicles to ferry drugs around the capital.
Not surprisingly, corruption’s tentacles reach higher than the tarmac: to a newspaper proprietor who fires journalists rather than publish the truth; a publicity-addict entrepreneur always ready for a photo op; and government representatives who hand out sole-supplier contracts when palms are sufficiently greased.
As for those increasingly competitive voluntary organisations, they start to feel the heat when Wanchai (Sukollawat Kanarot) begins to pursue the truth about his brother, whom he suspects was being coerced into criminal activity.
In this, he is assisted by fearless junior reporter Kat (Sushar Manaying), who smells a scoop; and inevitably, as they pool resources, they begin to pool mutual feelings.
In Bangkok Breaking, the Thai capital, shown in plenty of drone-filmed establishing shots, looks like one of those fabled, shimmering cities full of art, science and philosophy. It’s not until you descend to the granular level of the street that the filth and blood become visible, some of it supplied by the uniformed saviours who are supposed to be the cavalry.
Honestly, you can’t trust anybody these days.
Museum mysteries
In part one, Nate and Kaleigh Raterman, self-styled sleuths on the trail of artefacts touched by the supernatural, hang out in the Christian Specht Building in Nebraska, in the United States, notable for its cast-iron skeleton as well as its boisterous spirits.
The DIY spectre hunters are filmed in infrared for extra spook value; and while smudged shapes apparently shift around in the background, their electromagnetic field detector lights up with glee as we hear unexplained noises off camera.
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Part two features even more “real encounters with the paranormal”, when, through what sounds like radio static, come chilling voices speaking clearly from beyond. Perhaps they are using Google Translate for ghosts. More academic rigour is applied by the makers of the never-ending series Mysteries at the Museum (Amazon Prime), narrated by actor Don Wildman.
Worldwide in scope, the show examines the stories behind real and virtual exhibits related to, among almost countless other historical events, the creation of the Terracotta Army, North Korean kidnappings, the notorious Kray twins’ reign over London’s gangland, a plan to murder Native Americans, Agatha Christie’s disappearance and the embarrassing investment in the fake Hitler diaries by The Sunday Times.
History isn’t so bunk after all.
