This is an action packed movie, a very impressive production, showing the intricacies of political, cultural and religious life in that historical period. In the background there is the contact with the Portuguese and the Chinese, the first providing smallpox and weapons, the second doctors and medicines. There is the presence of the Burmese coming as military invaders. Among the memorable military scenes are that of a city meeting an invading army by opening the gates and submissively welcoming the invaders and the heroic Thai general defeating a Burmese army and sending a message to the Burmese king asking for the reward that king had offered to whoever opened the Thai gates.
There are some awesomely potent scenes and the climax shown in slow motion is very moving. This movie with its colourful panorama, resplendent on land and water, palace and battlefield, this movie honestly surpassing with its war elephants and the scale of its action and plot, romantic, political and military, such Hollywood historicals as BEN HUR, this film which I watched in Thai with English subtitles, cries out to be more widely available. I hear an English version is in the works. This should be eagerly attended, as this is a film very much worth viewing.