Are Thai films a hit in the UK

A.� The Thai film industry is slowly emerging as a rival to its Asian counterparts. A number of successful films have attracted interest locally as well as internationally. A select band of New Wave direcotrs is remaking western cinematic cliches - in the form of cowboys, gangsters, hitmen - adding a twist of Thai spice and then reselling them back to the west. British audiences are gradually discovering them.

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Q.� When did Thai cinema start

A.� Although its international screen profile pales beside its South-East Asian neighbours, Hong Kong, Vietnam and even Japan, it produced its first silent epic, Chok Song Chan, in 1927.� However since the country's postawar golden age of 16mm pulp dramas died out in the Seventies, Hollywood has dominated.

However, over the last five years, there have been significant developments in the Thai film industry. The arrival of a group of directors, mostly schooled in advertising, was spearheaded in 1997 by Nonzee Nimibutr's thriller Daeng Bailey and the Young Gangsters and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's urban take Fun Bar Karaoke. Foreign film distributors began to take an interest in Thai features after Fun Bar Karaoke premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 1997. Soon after, the Young Gangsters became the most lucrative Thai film, clearing a profit of over 75 million baht (�1.2 million). Last year three Thai films competed at Toronto.

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Ratanaruang's next project, 6ixtynin9, was a critical smash, while Nimibutr's follow-up, the more mainstream ghost story Nang Nak, broke box office records. This success was followed up with the arty hitman thriller Bangkok Dangerous, directed by Hong Kong twins Danny and Oxide Pang.

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Q.� Which Thai films are shown in the UK

A.� Yongyoot Thongkongtun's Iron Ladies, a frothy comedy based on the true story of a transvestite volleyball, becaome the first Thai film to be released nationwide in the UK earlier this year. The second, out recently, is Tears of the Black Tiger. This hallucinatory cowboy melodrama boasts a deliberately stylised tone� and is shot in saturated ultra-rich hues.

It was the first Thai film to�compete at Cannes and distribution rights were snapped up by Miramax, the Disney-backed home of global successes such as Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction.

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By Katharine MacColl