With a twenty-year career, director Chookiat “Matthew” Savkeerakul comes out with his most ambitious film yet, the sci-fi epic, Taklee Genesis x Worlds Collide.
“Our time and our daily life—do they really exist? Are we human beings, flesh and blood, biological masses or in fact reflections of something? These thoughts have been inspiring me for a long time and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to turn them into a film,” Savkeerakul explains his inspiration for the film.
Throughout his career, Savkeerakul has made films that are considered Thai cinema milestones. His 2007 romance film The Love of Siam, dominated in all local film events of that year, bagging the Best film awards in every major competition. In Taklee Genesis x Worlds Collide, he pivots into the realm of sci-fi. “To begin with, I love sci-fi movies. Having read articles about the world, universe, space and different dimensions, I find that they’re as mysterious as ghost stories,” he says.
He explains the depth of the world he created for Taklee Genesis, and how real-world speculations inspired him for the film. “In the film, the ‘Taklee Genesis’ is an American experiment project during the Vietnam War. The name ‘Taklee’ is because the Taklee district is where the largest US base in Southeast Asia was at the time. There were others too like the ones in Sattahip district and Udon Thani province. I think for such a large base as that in Taklee there must be something else. Recently, there have been many speculations about Taklee’s secrets—for example, extra-terrestrials lived there. Hey, people have talked about these. Check YouTube,” he lightheartedly says.
The casting choices were integral to the story of Taklee Genesis x Worlds Collide, with Paula Taylor, Peter Corp Dyrendal, War Wanarat leading the film. “I worked with Paula and Peter a few years ago. I want Paula to perform in a film because she has a strong cinematic charisma and was a symbol of rom-com in a certain period. She’s also adept and effortlessly sympathetic,” Savkeerakul explains. “Peter also did some research for more background information. He even corrected my mistakes, saying, ‘Matthew, it’s not a million years ago: it’s actually 75-76 million.’ Well, he also made corrections of some details in the script. So nice of him! He’s as geeky as me: he understood everything in the script. I was very surprised how he got it all: he’s also interested in this kind of thing,” he continues.
In the end, Savkeerakul feels like Taklee Genesis x Worlds Collide is an opportunity to broaden the scope of Thai films. “It’s the kind of project I don’t know if I’d ever have a chance to work on again. I realized it’s not easy when I was doing it. It’s another milestone for Thai films. Who else would be courageous and crazy enough to support me to do it? I’m all for it but I wouldn’t call it the acme of my career. I’d rather it be a door which opens opportunities for my more ambitious projects in the future and for those who love sci-fi and challenging film projects to further develop themselves.”
Taklee Genesis x Worlds Collide will take you on an interstellar journey starting September 18. The movie is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Discovery company.
Watch the trailer:
