Butterfly and Flowers

Butterfly and Flowers
The theatrical poster.
Directed byEuthana Mukdasanit
Written byNipphan (novel)
Euthana Mukdasanit
StarringSuriya Yaowasang
Wasana Pholyiam
Release date
  • 1985 (1985)
CountryThailand
LanguagesThai
Pak Tai

Butterfly and Flowers (Thai: ผีเสื้อและดอกไม้; RTGSPhisuea Lae Dokmai) is a 1985 Thai drama film directed and co-written by Euthana Mukdasanit, set in Muslim-majority southern Thailand. The film was screened at the 1985 Hawaii International Film Festival, one of the earliest Thai films to gain exposure outside Thailand.

The film is adapted from a 1978 novel of the same title by Nipphan (Makut Oradee), which won the award at the Thailand National Book Fair. The book has become a required reading for secondary schoolchildren in Thailand. Regarded as one of the best Thai films ever made, Butterfly and Flower highlights the hardships faced by a boy who works selling popsicles at the local train station and forced by economic circumstance to smuggle rice across the Thai-Malaysian border. Aside from exposing Thai audiences to regional poverty, the 1985 movie broke new ground by portraying a Buddhist-Muslim romance. Butterfly and Flower delighted the Thai public when it earned a Best Film award at the 1986 East-West Film Festival in Honolulu.

Cast

[edit]
  • Suriya Yaowasang as Hu Yan
  • Wasana Pholyiam as Mimpi
  • Suchao Pongwilai as Hu Yan's dad
  • Duangjai Hathaikarn as teacher
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