When early word of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s latest picture – Ploy - began to circulate the speculation was immediate that the film would represent a return to the Thai auteur’s old form, a return to more straightforward storytelling. It’s a reasonable assumption to make since the film does reunite the director with the star of his crime caper 6ixtynin9, but it is also completely and totally incorrect. Ploy represents Ratanaruang’s continued evolution. It is another step further down the road he began to chart with Last Life in the Universe. Though there is a crime element to it, as there is in every one of Ratanaruang’s films, the film far more resembles the work of his countryman Apichatpong Weerasethakul than it does Tarantino – to whom his early films drew frequent comparisons – while also inviting a re-evaluation of his previous film, Invisible Waves, as a necessary step taken to arrive here. And, yes, it is very good.
Ploy is essentially a lucid dream, a film that takes place in that odd in-between state when you cannot be sure whether you are sleeping or awake and there are seemingly sure pointers that would have you believe both. It is a film about people dislocated and relationships formed while others are breaking down badly.
Set in a Phuket hotel the core story revolves around Wit and Dang, a married professional couple just returned home to attend a funeral. There may have been love in the relationship once but it has gone cold now, Dang turning to drugs and alcohol for support while Wit simply ignores her. An early morning trip to the hotel bar for cigarettes leads to a chance encounter between Wit and Ploy, a teenage girl waiting for her mother to arrive from Stockholm. When Wit realizes that she is simply sitting and waiting in the hotel bar and must continue to do so for the next five hours, he invites Ploy up to use his room to nap, shower and freshen up – a situation which infuriates Dang, who resents that Ploy is receiving the type of attention Wit withholds from her. She eventually storms out and has a chance encounter of her own, one that turns potentially deadly. Also present in the hotel are the overnight barman – played by Shutter’s Ananda Everingham, who is suddenly ubiquitous in Thai film – and a maid having a role-playing affair in the hotel’s vacant rooms using clothing stolen from the in-house dry cleaners.
With the body of the film set between the hours of five and ten AM and all of the characters suffering from some severe sleep deprivation, Ploy moves with a slow, hazy pace. While things appear straightforward in the early going it soon becomes clear that some sequences are in fact dreams had by some characters about the others and the lines between what is real and what is imagined becomes deeply and irrevocably blurred. And this is very likely the entire point of the film. Ploy isn’t really a film about what is so much as it is a film about what might be. It is a film about the different paths a relationship might take, about how we may choose to either support or destroy one another. Both paths are equally valid, both are equally likely, and so Ratanaruang simply leaves it up to you to decide which you choose to follow and label truth and which you choose to label fantasy. The choice, ultimately, is up to you.
Beautifully shot and very well performed Ploy will very likely have difficulty finding widespread acceptance in Thailand thanks to its scenes of explicit – at least by Thai standards, it would likely be a soft R in America – sex. Thailand is notorious for the uneven application of its censorship laws but graphic nudity is pretty much always frowned upon and with equally acclaimed countryman Weerasethakul having just had his most recent film confiscated it seems unlikely that Ratanaruang can rely on his reputation to leave the film intact at home. This is purely Thailand’s loss. Ploy is a beautiful, thoughtful, meditative film, one that requires more effort from its audience than does Last Life in the Universe but one that the patient will find no less rewarding.
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From left, Lalita Panyopas, Apinya Sakuljaroensuk and Pornwut Sarasin, chat with the press.
Following a world premiere during the Director's Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, the latest film by Thai auteur Pen-Ek Ratanaruang made its Thailand premiere on Tuesday night in a screening for the press and celebrities.

Before the screening of the new film, ''Ploy'', the director and his stars took the rostrum for a question-and-answer session, during which Pen-Ek pulled out a digital camera and took photos of the presenter, the press and the actors.

===Film plot===
''Ploy'' is a drama film, about a middle-aged Thai-American couple, portrayed by popular Thai soap opera actress Lalita Panyopas and Pornwut Sarasin, a first-time actor whose day job is working as vice president of Thai Namthip, the distributor of Coca Cola in Thailand. The couple have returned to Thailand for the first time in many years to attend the funeral of a relative. 

They arrive at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport at 5 a.m. after a long-haul flight from the U.S., and check in to a hotel. The wife, Dang, just wants to sleep, but the husband, Wit, wants some cigarettes, so he goes to the hotel bar to buy some. There, he strikes up a conversation with a 19-year-old girl named Ploy (17-year-old first-time actress Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), who's waiting at the hotel for her mother. 

Wit then invites the girl to his and Dang's room, so she can take a shower and relax. This poor judgment by Wit ignites feelings of jealousy and anger in Dang, and causes the couple to review their marriage of seven years.

Lao-Australian leading man Ananda Everingham is in a supporting role as the hotel bartender. As a counterpoint to Wit's and Dang's bickering, the bartender engages in an erotic tryst with a hotel maid (model-actress Porntip Papanai) in a nearby room.

Pen-ek Ratanaruang, second from left, snaps photos with his digital camera, during a press conference for his new film ''Ploy'', which co-stars, starting third from left, Ananda Everingham, Porntip Papanai and Thaksakorn Pradabpongsa.
===Censorship fears===
The press screening was held at SF World Cinemas at CentralWorld shopping mall in Bangkok. Given the presence of Coca-Cola's Pornwut in the cast, it was perhaps not a coincidence that cans of Coke Zero, a new soft drink that is just being introduced in Thailand, were being doled out for free.

According to early reviews at Cannes, ''Ploy'' contains a high level of nudity and eroticism, which is uncommon for a Thai film, because Thailand has no film-ratings system and instead adheres to a strict censorship code that excises nakedness and sex scenes.

Ahead of its Thailand premiere, Aphiradee Iamphungphorn, co-producer for Five Star Production, said she knew the film would have to be re-edited for Thailand, but "hopefully not more than we can bear." To get past the censors, Pen-ek created a special Thailand edit of the film, in which the sex scenes are toned down.

''Ploy'' is the director's sixth feature film since he made his debut in 1997 with ''Fun Bar Karaoke'', which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. Since then, his films are regularly featured on the festival circuit, and are submitted by Thailand's film industry for consideration by the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

Pen-Ek's latest film is a return to screenwriting, after his previous two films, ''Last Life in the Universe'' and ''Invisible Waves'', were scripted or co-scripted by Thai writer Prabda Yoon. It also marks a reunion with leading actress Lalita, who starred in his second feature, 1999's black comedy, ''Ruang Talok 69'', as well as Porntip, who co-starred in Pen-Ek's 2001 musical-comedy-drama ''Monrak Transistor''.

''Ploy'' opens in Thailand cinemas on Thursday.