Thai Blockbuster Director Reveals He Defecated on Camera for Real

"The Undertaker" director Thiti "Tongte" Srinuan showed a photograph of himself defecating on camera for real during a session at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest in Taipei. The image came from his early days as a supporting actor at Taibaan Studio, the Thai company behind the blockbuster franchise.

"I was a supporting actor, and I played a crazy person," Srinuan said. "Because he's crazy, he relieves himself wherever he likes." The production skipped props and had him do it on set. "Forty or 50 people were sitting there watching me, and I felt like I couldn't go," he said.

The session's moderator, Mr. Knee — senior public relations manager at Vieshow Cinemas and founding chair of the Taiwan Film Critics Society — said the photo surprised the organizers too; they first saw it that morning.

For Srinuan, the episode proved how far the studio goes for realism, and that realism is what makes its universe flexible. Because every character feels like a real resident of the same village, any of them can lead a film, ghost story or romance alike.

How does an online following become a THB700 million hit?

Srinuan was the sole panelist at the TCCF forum on how user-generated content becomes a route to theatrical features. Much of his talk was about money. Before "The Undertaker" grossed more than THB700 million ($20.8 million) in Thailand, the Taibaan universe was bankrolled largely by revenue from online music videos.

The 2023 film, the sixth feature in the universe, became the highest-grossing Thai film in nine years. The franchise is rooted in the language and culture of the northeastern Isan region. Its sequel arrived this year.

Srinuan entered the business as an extra and supporting player in Taibaan's films. The crew was a small rural group with little formal training, so he volunteered to write scripts and assist on directing, working on five films that played almost entirely to Isan audiences. A music video he made went viral nationwide, convincing him a regional film could cross over. When no one else would take his script, he directed it himself.

Budgets stayed lean. The first Taibaan film raised THB2 million ($59,000) — THB4 million ($119,000) with marketing — and grossed THB35 million ($1 million), in a market where a typical Thai feature costs THB30 million ($891,000) or more. "The Undertaker" was budgeted at THB10 million ($297,000); Srinuan said only THB8 million ($238,000) was spent. The other THB2 million existed to make it a round number.

Raising follow-up money proved harder. "If we were still nobodies with no name, they couldn't invest in us," he said. "Believe it or not, after the first film, the second, third and fourth films were funded by what we built online. We earned money from music videos. The views kept running and running until we could take that money and make films."

His videos have now passed 4 billion views combined. Rather than flat fees, he asked clients for a share of view revenue — a flopped video earned him nothing, which pushed him to learn marketing. He carries the same terms into features, taking payment from ticket sales instead of fixed fees.

What does short-form viewing do to a feature film?

Music videos shaped how he writes: he builds features from four-to-five-minute segments laid end to end until they reach two hours. "The downside is people comment that the film swings and the emotions don't connect. You're laughing, then you're made to cry, then you're laughing again," he said. "But to me, life is like that. You laugh sometimes, you cry sometimes. So I like it this way."

Comments matter more to the studio than likes or shares. A trailer is expected to reach roughly 20,000 shares and 2 million views with no paid advertising, and when viewers fixate on an unexpected character, marketing shifts toward that character. After the first film, he borrowed Marvel's habit of announcing a slate before scripts existed, to push himself to keep working.

The title "The Undertaker" came first: Srinuan picked the profession because no one sees more ghosts. Early drafts were all ghosts and little to do with the job. He then drew on his childhood, when he was paid to be ordained as a novice monk for funerals and watched undertakers at close range. The film turned from horror into drama, though Thailand still marketed it as a ghost film because that genre sells.

The first film did not catch on when it played in Taiwan two to three years ago. "I'd like to ask the market now: does Taiwan still want blood-splattered Thai films?" Srinuan said, suggesting Taiwanese viewers expected gore while his ghosts are played for laughs. The moderator, calling the film closer to comedy, cited "Shutter" as the title that first won Taiwan over to Thai horror.

Isan is Thailand's most populous region, but its local beliefs did not travel to the other three. For "The Undertaker," Srinuan studied Charlie Chaplin and leaned on visual storytelling over dialogue; overseas, the comedy landed while the local culture often did not. After finishing the first film, he took marketing classes. It opened only in Isan, and word of mouth pulled it into cinemas nationwide — a strategy he likened to "the forest surrounding the city."

The moderator cited "Backrooms" and "Milk & Serial," both from YouTube-raised directors, as signs of the shift. Srinuan saw parallels with his own path and argued ideas count for more than budgets: "If you don't create work, miracles won't happen."

He warned, though, that the success has drawn a wave of Thai YouTubers into features on false assumptions. "They think, 'I have 1 million followers on YouTube. I make a film, so all 1 million people who follow me have to watch it, right?'" he said. "In reality, the first person goes in and says they didn't like it, and the other 999,999 start deciding whether to watch or not. Then the second person goes in and says it's not OK, and 900,000 people are gone."