Thailand yesterday hinted at a softening of opposition to allowing a remake of Yul Brynner's cinema classic The King and I to take place on Thai soil.
Pitak Intrawithayanunt, a minister attached to the Prime Minister's Office, became the first senior official to back the movie ahead of next week's meeting of the Thai Film Board to review a revised script.
'If they film here we can supervise and check the accuracy or even change the script,' Mr Pitak said at Government House. 'It could be worse if the film is shot in another country.' Government sources said Mr Pitak was giving a personal opinion and no official position had been taken on the movie because the Film Board was yet to make its final decision.
Chow Yun-fat has been selected by 20th Century Fox to play revered 19th century Thai monarch King Mongkut alongside American Oscar winner Jodie Foster in Anna and the King - a film based on the hotly disputed experiences of a 19th century English governess in the royal court.
The Film Board, a body closely tied to the ruling Thai establishment, three weeks ago rejected an application to film in Thailand.
The new script was still far too close to the long-banned original that ran foul of Thailand's strict lese-majesty laws which demand jail terms for any act that wounds the monarchy, officials warned.
