‎Nang-Nak (1999) directed by Nonzee Nimibutr • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Nang-Nak

1999 ‘นางนาก’ Directed by Nonzee Nimibutr

In a rural village in Thailand, Mak (Winai Kraibutr) is sent to fight in a war and leaves his pregnant wife, Nak (Intira Jaroenpura). Mak is injured and barely survives. He returns home to his doting wife and child, or so he thinks.

Intira Jaroenpura Winai Kraibutr Manit Meekaewjaroen Pramote Suksatit Pracha Thawongfia

100 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Zen ★★★½

Nang-Nak was apparently a huge success in it's native Thailand and I can see why. Successfully blending a tragic story of a love that transcends life and death, with sometimes harrowing horror elements—the film as a whole is very solid.
Review by Abu Sudar ★★★½

Nonton film dari cerita rakyat Thailand ini agak rancu.

Si suami dipanggil, Mak.
Si istri dipanggil, Nak.

Gitulah. Sebenarnya ini bukan film yang di-remake GTH dengan aktor Mario Maurer. Ceritanya hampir sama. Mak ini pergi perang, meninggalkan istrinya yang hamil muda. Menarik, rambut istrinya pendek. Mungkin tahun segitu merawat rambut agak susah, atau budaya. Laki-lakinya kebanyakan tidak berbaju, iyalah harga kain mori kan mahal. Tapi justru itulah estetikanya, dicari yang rata-rata aktor cowok yang badannya atletis. Biar enak ditangkap kamera. Sayang, tidak ada eksploitasi dada wanita.

Oke, kita bikin perbandingan ke film modernnya aja yang didistribusikan di Indonesia oleh Intersolusindo Film (peduli amat siapa importirnya!). Filmnya Mario Maurer lebih komikal, Nang Nak tahun 1999 lebih serius. Pee Mak mengandung twist…
Review by Dave Vonderhaar ★★★

1868 Thailand. Mak leaves his pregnant wife (Nak) behind to go to war; he returns shortly after the baby is born, and all is well. Except unbeknownst to him: .....they are both ghosts. And every time a friend drops by to tell Mak the bad news ("Hey, man, your wife and child died during labor; that woman you're living with is a ghost") Mak refuses to believe them....and Nak uses her ghost powers to haunt and kill them. (All of this is apparently based on a very popular Thai folk tale.)

Okay. That's the story. How's the movie tell it?

* Well, in terms of pure story-telling: it tricks us a bit, allowing us a couple of scenes of Mak…
Review by tobe_whooper ★★★★

Visually-accomplished, moving tale of love and loss. It took me a while to acclimate to its rhythms--which is probably due to cultural illiteracy--but once I did it was very rewarding.

Cf. Ghost of Yotsuya
Review by WraithApe ★★★

One of many retellings of an ancient Thai folk tale, the story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong or Nang Nak; the restless spirit of Mak's wife, who dies in labor and comes back from the dead. On returning from his tour of duty, Mak is bewitched into seeing her as she was before he left, along with a healthy newborn baby - the rest of the villagers see her as she really is and try to warn him before it's too late. It's a solid retread of an old story, with some nice cinematography but it's not without problems. One is Nak herself, who doesn't possess an ounce of menace and just mopes around - she spends most of the…

Recent reviews

Review by Lorenzo Benitez ★★★½

This could've easily been schlock, but instead it's a deeply-probing film about subservience, devotion and how the obfuscation between dreaming and reality mirrors that between reality and death.
Review by Celestine Pang ★★½

Better than that Pee Mak crap
Review by Gerard Nagulendran ★

Romance, horror, drama. These are three things the film does mediocrely
Review by Abu Sudar ★★★½

Nonton film dari cerita rakyat Thailand ini agak rancu.

Si suami dipanggil, Mak.
Si istri dipanggil, Nak.

Gitulah. Sebenarnya ini bukan film yang di-remake GTH dengan aktor Mario Maurer. Ceritanya hampir sama. Mak ini pergi perang, meninggalkan istrinya yang hamil muda. Menarik, rambut istrinya pendek. Mungkin tahun segitu merawat rambut agak susah, atau budaya. Laki-lakinya kebanyakan tidak berbaju, iyalah harga kain mori kan mahal. Tapi justru itulah estetikanya, dicari yang rata-rata aktor cowok yang badannya atletis. Biar enak ditangkap kamera. Sayang, tidak ada eksploitasi dada wanita.

Oke, kita bikin perbandingan ke film modernnya aja yang didistribusikan di Indonesia oleh Intersolusindo Film (peduli amat siapa importirnya!). Filmnya Mario Maurer lebih komikal, Nang Nak tahun 1999 lebih serius. Pee Mak mengandung twist…
Review by Zen ★★★½

Nang-Nak was apparently a huge success in it's native Thailand and I can see why. Successfully blending a tragic story of a love that transcends life and death, with sometimes harrowing horror elements—the film as a whole is very solid.
Review by Guo Cheng ★½

A very predictable romance ghost story, so sentimental that it's cringy sometimes, my rating 3.4/10.
Review by WraithApe ★★★

One of many retellings of an ancient Thai folk tale, the story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong or Nang Nak; the restless spirit of Mak's wife, who dies in labor and comes back from the dead. On returning from his tour of duty, Mak is bewitched into seeing her as she was before he left, along with a healthy newborn baby - the rest of the villagers see her as she really is and try to warn him before it's too late. It's a solid retread of an old story, with some nice cinematography but it's not without problems. One is Nak herself, who doesn't possess an ounce of menace and just mopes around - she spends most of the…
Review by BrunoLD ★½

Spanish/English Review:
'Nang-Nak' tiene algunas cosas buenas, como el tema de los fantasmas y las tradiciones tailandesas, que junto a la ambientación en algunos momentos sería lo único salvable de una película muy aburrida en la que no me interesó en ningún momento lo que estaba pasando con los personajes, ni la historia en sí.
Una película bastante extraña, olvidable.

English:
'Nang-Nak' has some good things, such as the theme of ghosts and Thai traditions, which together with the setting at some moments would be the only thing that can be saved from a very boring movie in which I was not interested at any time of what was going on with the characters, or the story itself.
A rather strange movie, forgettable.
Review by Dave Vonderhaar ★★★

1868 Thailand. Mak leaves his pregnant wife (Nak) behind to go to war; he returns shortly after the baby is born, and all is well. Except unbeknownst to him: .....they are both ghosts. And every time a friend drops by to tell Mak the bad news ("Hey, man, your wife and child died during labor; that woman you're living with is a ghost") Mak refuses to believe them....and Nak uses her ghost powers to haunt and kill them. (All of this is apparently based on a very popular Thai folk tale.)

Okay. That's the story. How's the movie tell it?

* Well, in terms of pure story-telling: it tricks us a bit, allowing us a couple of scenes of Mak…