Daniel Nico Laudit says he’s not someone who cries easily, so this month he decided to test his courage at a Manila cinema, documenting the experience for his 4.5 million followers on TikTok.
Before the screening, he filmed himself dancing and smiling, telling the camera, “Me before I saw ‘How to Make a Millionaire’.” About two hours later, he Uploaded a completely different version He sees himself in the bathroom wiping tears from his eyes.
“After the movie ended, I wanted to cry out loud, so I went straight to the bathroom,” Laudit, a 24-year-old content creator, said in a phone interview. He said he cried some more when he got home.
Reactions like Laudit’s have made the movie, shot mostly in Thai in Bangkok, a smash hit across Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, tickets sold out on its first day, cinemas had to add more screenings to meet demand, and one cinema chain started handing out tissues to patrons. In Singapore, it was the top-grossing film from June 6 to 9. In Indonesia, it attracted audiences by the millions. In Thailand, it is the highest-grossing film of the year so far.
The story revolves around M, an unemployed young man with no goal who dreams of only being able to live stream online games. When he finds out that his maternal grandmother has stage 4 cancer, he offers to take care of her. His motivation is not filial piety, but the hope that he can inherit his grandmother’s house.
After M moves into her grandmother’s house, she gains a deeper understanding of the complex characters that make up her Thai-Chinese family: her long-suffering mother, Chu, who feels she is the only one who can take care of her mother; her good-for-nothing youngest uncle, Soei, who borrows and steals from her grandmother; and her eldest uncle, Kian, who is obsessed with his daughter and her materialistic wife.
“The film speaks to something we all have in common – family,” said the film’s director, Pat Boonnithipat.
“It’s common for generations to live in the same house in the area, and I think growing up that way creates a unique sense of memory,” Pat, 33, said.
The film explores the tensions within a family as the head of the family approaches death and the persistence of sexism. One of Chu’s memorable lines is, “The son inherits the house, the daughter inherits the cancer.”
Debutant Usha Seemkum plays the grandmother, commonly known as “A Ma,” who is surly and cranky, but viewers soon learn that beneath her stern exterior she loves her family deeply and feels lonely. Many viewers commented that they liked the chemistry between Usha and her co-star Puttipong Asaratanakul, who plays her grandson.
Mr Puttipong, better known by his nickname Birkin, is a well-known Thai TV actor and pop star.
“The strength of the film lies in its storytelling and how it draws the audience into the story and allows them to compare the story in the film to their own lives,” said Angeline Kartika, 24, a content creator in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, who saw the film last month.
Joy Ni Ni Win, a digital marketing executive in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, said she, like many viewers, discovered the film on TikTok.
“I watched and became interested: ‘So why are people crying so much?'” Joy, 28, said.
She understood immediately. Right after the end credits of the movie, her friend I photographed her at the theater. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Diana Setiawati, who watched the film in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, said it made her reflect on how little time she spends with her mother. After the movie ended, she immediately called her mother.
“How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” is the first feature film by Pat, a self-taught filmmaker who previously worked in television. He said it was an unusual hit in Thailand, where horror and comedy films dominate the box office. New York Asian Film Festival In July.
The film is based on a script by renowned screenwriter Todsapong Thiptinakorn. Pat expanded on the script with his own experiences. His maternal grandmother, now 92, was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer 20 years ago. She helped Pat raise his children, and the two still live together. He added more characters, but based them on his mother’s Cantonese-speaking family, which he explains are “exactly the same, even down to the dialogue.”
They resonated with audience members like Shirley Loh, chief marketing officer of Golden Screen Cinema in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur.
“Everything there was like, ‘Oh, this is like my family,'” she said, adding that she didn’t expect the film to be a big hit because her company was Thai.
“There’s no way we could have foreseen the controversy that has surrounded this,” she said.
In Manila, SM Supermalls vice-president for corporate marketing Ruby Ann O. Reyes said her company’s cinemas distributed tissues to moviegoers, with employees stationed at the cinemas to hand out extra tissues during “tear-jerking scenes.”
“Filipinos love to get practical lessons from the movies they watch, like taking care of your grandmothers and apologizing while they’re still alive,” Reyes said.
Mr Ian Jeevan, 27, a financial consultant from Singapore, said the film reminded him of his relationship with his grandmother. TikTok video uploaded She posted the photo with a choked voice and captioned it, “I’m going to run and hug grandma right now!!”
Muktita Suhartono and Lynn Hindriati Contributed report.
