Entertainment
Stay updated with the latest happenings in Thailand and globally by visiting our Entertainment section. Catering to diverse interests, this news page offers a wide variety of topics, ranging from celebrity gossip and film reviews to updates on music festivals and cultural events. Keep yourself informed and entertained with our engaging local and international content in one convenient location.
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Sponsored Do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?
Thailand’s healthcare system is well-regarded across Southeast Asia, with options ranging from public hospitals to world-class private facilities. But when it comes to foreign residents or tourists, healthcare access isn’t as straightforward. So, do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?...
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Even Chris Hemsworth hates Bangkok traffic
MONTAGE IMAGE: Coconuts Once again it seems that even the gods must succumb to one of life’s most dreaded challenges, traffic. Even worse, Bangkok traffic. Last month in a previous post from India, Chris Hemsworth is seen in his car trying to deal with the traffic of Ahmedabad, amazed the Australian actor and Marvel’s cinematic universe ‘Thor’ is heard saying “beautiful…
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Minister promises a year of ‘Khon’
“The ministry will next year nominate nuad thai (Thai massage) and the southern traditional dance nora for inclusion on the UNESCO list.” The Culture Ministry is planning a year of activities to further promote ‘khon’, the classical masked-dance theatre that has now been added to UNESCO’s list of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’. Members of the UN Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation…
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SHOW DC launches new 60,000 capacity outdoor SHOW DC Arena
Latest event space establishes SHOW DC’s positioning as the events venue of choice in downtown Bangkok with combined capacity of 90,000 Large scale events have a new stage in downtown Bangkok at SHOW DC, which has launched the biggest outdoor event venue in the city. Named SHOW DC Arena, the 120 million baht investment in a 31,790 sqm outdoor entertainment space…
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Kata Rocks celebrates its fourth anniversary in grand style
Kata Rocks’ fourth anniversary was yet another celebration of the finer things in life, with guests enjoying a lavish Champagne Brunch Pool Party. Kata Rocks GM Somjai Tungkoo, said the fully-booked champagne brunch pool party on Saturday, November 24 was the resort’s best anniversary celebration to date. “It is truly gratifying how much people look forward to our anniversary parties…
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More than 80 dance groups from around Thailand compete in “SHOW DC Dance Battle Revolution”
Dancers from all around Thailand took part in the recent SHOW DC Dance Battle Revolution 2018, which saw more than 80 dance groups going head-to-head for the inaugural championships crowns in three categories: B-Boy, Hip Hop and Cover Dance. Held at the popular shopping mall and entertainment mega-complex in Rama 9 area of Bangkok, prizes worth more than 100,000 baht…
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Thailand Yacht Show & Rendezvous now joined by the Phuket Yacht Show
ONE united yacht show will now present next January in Phuket. Event organisers have united to show support for the yachting industry and Thai Government’s drive to make Thailand the yachting hub of Asia. Phuket’s one and only boat show is to be called “Thailand Yacht Show & Rendezvous.” In a joint statement issued today by Andy Treadwell, CEO of…
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Everything is OK – KCon 2018 comes to Bangkok
In case you’ve been living under a rock, K-Pop, the garish, highly-produced pop/RnB/hip-hop fusion coming out of South Korea, is the biggest ‘thing’ in international pop music sales at the moment. And KCon – a celebration of everything K-Pop – has just swept through Bangkok. No fewer than 40,000 devoted fans of the Korean Wave massed at Impact Arena and…
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SHOW DC to host “Dance Battle Revolution 2018”
Dance competition with three categories – B-Boy, Hip Hop and Cover Dance. Prizes worth more than 100,000 baht. SHOW DC invites dance lovers from all over Thailand to showcase their dancing talent at “Dance Battle Revolution 2018”. An all-new dance competition hosted by SHOW DC, it’s open for three dance styles – B-Boy, Hip Hop and Cover Dance. Dancers will have…
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Twinpalms hotels & resorts celebrate their 14th anniversary
PHOTO: Collard Studios One of Phuket’s home-grown brands, Twinpalms is inviting members, guests and residents to join the revelry at Catch Beach Club on Saturday, September 22, to mark 14 years of offering luxury hospitality and entertainment on Thailand’s largest destination island. Bang Tao Beach will once again be adorned with party- goers beautified in white clothing (as is the…
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Sony’s new Xperia XZ2 Premium with ultra-high sensitivity dual camera
ADVERTISEMENT Sony Thailand steps up its game with new smartphones introduced to compete offerings from some of the Chinese companies as well as Samsung and Apple. Sony have announced the new XZ2 Premium, which has one of the most remarkable cameras ever integrated into a smartphone. The new phone boasts the world’s highest ISO 12800 sensitivity for video recording in…
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TECNO hit the smartphone sweet spot
PRESS RELEASE Leading Chinese smartphone brand, TECNO Mobile, is experiencing exponential growth in Thailand on the back of success with its Camon CM and SPARK CM models which have proven a big hit with Millennials due in large part to their mid-market price point and use of the latest state-of-the-art technologies. “The Camon CM and SPARK CM are the first…
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Are huge LED screens coming to your cinemas?
First there was celluloid film, then digital projection. Now cinemas are toying with using giant LED screen technology. Ben Hobbs from H3-digital.com reports on the emerging cinema technology… If you go to the cinema, today, anywhere in the world to watch a movie – you will be watching a projected image, shone onto a white (or grey) screen. It’s been…
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Water Park Wars – Phuket wettest battlefield
by Xinyi Liang-Pholsena of ttgasia.com ttgasia.com is reporting that the water park battle in Phuket is getting very intense as new players enter the marketplace. Among them Blue Tree Phuket, poised to open its doors early 2019 as an upscale family entertainment and lifestyle complex. The sprawling 22.5ha development, located around Cherngtalay, is the result of a joint venture comprising…
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AXN Announces Asia’s Got Talent Season 3 – Open Auditions in Bangkok
PHOTO: Thailand’s “Powerstorm” made it into last year’s finals. Thailand, it’s time to get your act together! AXN has announced that the Bangkok open auditions for Asia’s Got Talent Season 3 will be held at SHOW DC, Thailand’s first entertainment and retail mega complex on Sunday, 17 June, 2018. Bangkok will be the first to kick off the regional Asia’s…
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4K TV – Is it worth it? Three times when it might be for you.
Ben Hobbs from Phuket’s H3-Digital knows his smart homes and home theatres. Here’s his thoughts about 4K TV… First off – 4K TV, what is it? 4K refers to the horizontal resolution of around 4,000 pixels – Mostly 3840 x 2160 pixels (dots on the screen) of a TV picture. More pixels means more detail and a sharper image, think…
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Laguna to hold charity concert
PHUKET: Laguna Phuket is holding a charity concert at Laguna Grove on Saturday, August 13. The ‘Big Body + Charity Concert’ and will feature Thai rockers ‘Bodyslam’ and ‘Big Ass’, as well as up and coming artist Justin Pongumpai. Part of the proceeds of the concert will go to Phuket Punyanukul School located in Pa Khlok, a special school for…
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Books: A great love story
PHUKET: Plot, characterization, dialogue, descriptive style – many elements combine to make a good novel, but the most mysterious is empathy, that magic emotional connection that makes a reader care passionately about fictional characters. In this, first-time novelist Atticus Lish succeeds magnificently. His Preparation for the Next Life (Tyrant Books, New York, 2015, 417pp) opens with this sentence: “She came…
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Books: Failed search for next giant
PHUKET: I’ve long sought for the successors to the twentieth century giants of Brazilian literature, Jorge Amado and Erico Verissimo. So far, I’ve failed. Daniel Galera’s novel Blood-Drenched Beard (The Penguin Press, New York, 2014, 374pp) is the latest disappointment. The prose is pedestrian, the pace leaden and the plot improbable, shading into preposterous. The entire mess limps along in…
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Books: David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks – Great, if taken seriously
PHUKET: David Mitchell’s third novel, Cloud Atlas, was an audacious break from traditional narrative form: six wildly different characters in divergent, stylistic voices and places ranging from the South Pacific in the 1850s and Los Angeles in the 1930s to the far-distant future in Korea and Hawaii. Surprisingly, Mitchell followed this with a traditional autobiographical novel of his English youth…
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Books: An awful waste of time
PHUKET: In 2002 Michel Faber published The Crimson Petal and the White, an extraordinary novel of shifting social strata set in a time and place when they were most rigid: the early Victorian Age in London. By dint of cunning and determination, Sugar, a prostitute from the age of 13, rises from brothel inmate to kept woman to household governess…
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When in Rome, read Hughes
PHUKET: In the 1950s, Robert Hughes was part of a group of students at Sydney University – including Germaine Greer and Clive James – who went on to lead brilliant careers outside Australia. Hughes became a hugely influential art critic at Time magazine. Besides eight books about art, he wrote a wonderful history about Australia as a penal colony, The…
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Henning Mankell lets down readers with ‘A Treacherous Paradise’
PHUKET: I picked up Henning Mankell’s A Treacherous Paradise (Knopf, New York, 2013, 360pp) because I was interested in reading a novel about Mozambique. It was only later that I learned that Henning Mankell is part of a coterie of Swedish crime writers who have recently attained international popularity. His Detective Kurt Wallander mystery series has been translated into 40…
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Phuket Humor: Introducing Geckoman, Thailand’s newest superhero
PHUKET: Many years ago I invented a superhero for Thailand called Geckoman. He was modeled on Spider-Man, but with significant differences to make him more relevant to Thailand. Now I believe it’s time to resurrect and update him. The scenario: Nerdly young high-school student Worrawit Worrawitworraworrapong (nickname: “Worry”) has a problem. Skinny, frail, and undersized, he wears thick glasses, trips…
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Phuket Humor: The robots are coming
PHUKET: Robots are now writing newspaper stories. A “Quakebot” used by the Los Angeles Times recently wrote a report on an earthquake just by using information it picked up online.This suggests that human journalists may soon be replaced by robots. Alarmed at this prospect, I arranged to interview a prototype robot journalist. Our conversation went like this: Q: Is it…
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Moving walls, puzzles, sacred tombs – escape if you can
PHUKET: In that magic moment between when the sun has set on Patong Beach and the nightlife hasn’t kicked off, there now exists the embodiment of a childhood fantasy: a world of hidden tombs, moving walls, lasers and code cracking. Chamber of Secrets, Phuket’s first real-life escape game, has opened its doors, but the light only shines a short way…
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Crowning glory of a great novelist
PHUKET: Once a decade, Donna Tartt produces a hefty, great novel. At age 28, she published The Secret History, a murder mystery centered on a clique of young classical scholars at Bennington. A decade later, she returned to her Mississippi childhood for The Little Friend. And now she has just won the Pulitzer Prize for her third and best novel,…
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Video Report: Get ready for Snow White
PHUKET: The cast members of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ are already in Phuket, getting ready for their weekend performances of the evergreen childrens’ classic, the latest Phuket Gazette Headline Event presented by Jagota in partnership with Events International. You should get ready too! This 90-minute show, performed by a 12-member cast from London will take you on a…
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Author Michael Chabon dishes up overripe Rococo
PHUKET: Michael Chabon’s third novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize. This exuberant romp about two young Jewish cartoonists during the golden age of American comic books in the 1930s and 1940s is one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve ever read. Now we have Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue (HarperCollins, New York, 2012, 468pp), and…
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The Amazing Spider Man 2 left hanging in Columbia’s web of indifference
PHUKET: Marvel took quite a lot of stick from reviewers over the movies that they released prior to The Avengers, with Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man 2 all being condemned by a certain element of the online whinge brigade as blatant prequels to the mega-success that was to become The Avengers. While there may be a…
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Soap suds: A sidelong glance at Thai melodrama
PHUKET: Any “farang” who lives with a Thai partner will be familiar, possibly all too familiar, with the rarefied world of television soap opera. As I watch, I wonder what impact these soaps are having on the Thai psyche. That they are amazingly popular is beyond doubt. Viewing figures are massive; they are watched religiously in most households, and especially…
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