ARTICLE
Nichkhun Strives to be the ‘Brother of the Year’.
By Flora / 05 Jul 2018 (Thursday)
Photo Credit: Golden Village Pictures
Siblings have a complicated relationship with one another, but beneath all the arguments and teasing, deep down we know it comes from a place of love.
This very reason is why director Vithaya Thongyuyong made this movie - ‘Brother of the Year’, that has since broken the box office record and is the current no.1 movie in 2018, in Thailand.
At the press conference on Monday at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, director Thongyuyong shared that there “hasn’t been a Thai movie that focuses solely on the brother-and-sister relationship”, and explained that it could possibly be the reason this comedy became a hit with its viewers in Thailand.
Photo Credit: Golden Village Pictures
He added: “(The movie) is really about the relationship between the brother and sister. Typically, we talk a lot about father-daughter or a father-son relationship where parents will always love them. When we talk about brother and sister (relationship), what happens is that they are people that don’t get along but still love each other. So that’s an angle that is really interesting.”
In ‘Brother of the Year’, Sunny Suwanmethanont plays Chut, a demon brother who is messy and constantly irritates his sister, Jane (Urassaya Sperbund, Yaya). But he turns into the overprotective brother when he finds out Jane is dating a half-Japanese boyfriend, Moji (Nichkhun Horvejkul).
Thai actor-singer and a member of Kpop band 2PM, Nichkhun, shared that he is “really supportive of my family members”. “I try to be there for them - spiritually, financially, you know, whatever they want. I try to be the ‘brother of the year’,” he quipped.
The 30-year-old actor explained: “Since I’m never home and I don’t see them often, I don’t get much opportunity to be there for them, so whenever we have time, we just talk. Whenever they want advice, I’m there for them.”
Cue the ‘Awwws’.
Nichkhun seems like the perfect actor to play the charming boyfriend, but in real life, he hopes to challenge himself with a bad-boy role, similar to the character of Chut, played by Sunny. “Up till now, I had only played the nice guy, someone bright and playful. You know, bad boy will be a type of role that I would like to challenge myself. It looks like it’ll be fun.”
Sunny, on the other hand, joked that he hopes to play a superhero…. “like Captain America,” he laughed.
Photo Credit: Golden Village Pictures
25-year-old Thai model-actress, Yaya, plays the bossy sister in the movie, but she is nothing like her character in real life. Affirmed by her two co-actors Nichkhun and Sunny, they revealed that Yaya is “like an angel” and that she is "perfect with everything that she does”.
Nichkhun recounted: “There was a scene where she had to speak in Japanese. There were a lot of lines for her to memorise and learn to speak (Japanese) fluently. It took her only about a week to memorise everything and when we filmed (the scene), she didn’t even have the script with her because she memorised all her lines! She did it so perfectly without even stopping… She’s a genius!”
Yaya even impressed the media with her fluent Japanese when the host requested her to deliver her lines again.
“I think it is probably one of the most difficult languages I had to do,” she said. “There are so many different dialects in Thai that I’ve done before, but Japanese (is really tough)! I pretty much just copied the voice recording I had, but the language is difficult! You kind of have to understand the culture as well. There are different words to be emphasised in relation to the person that they are talking to, as a form of respect. There are a lot of layers to understand what I was saying as well. That was really hard.”
Photo Credit: Golden Village Pictures
Apart from the press conference, the trio, together with director Thongyuyong met with the fans at Bugis+, followed by a gala premiere at GV Vivocity.
Director and cast of 'Brother of the Year' went to Bugis+ for a meet-the-fans session. Photo Credit: Golden Village Pictures
Don’t miss Brother of the Year, opening InCinemas 12 July!