Wisit Sasanatieng

While the color palette was considerably muted, compared to Tears of the Black Tiger and Citizen Dog, Wisit was still able to leave his nostalgic imprint on The Unseeable by making it an homage to films of the 1930s and the stars of that era, including Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

Thai pop culture influences came from illustrator Hem Vejakorn, who wrote a series of 10-satang graphic novel ghost stories in the 1930s and '40s.

The reference was so striking that the Barom Khru Foundation, which claims to supervise Hem's works, issued a statement warning Five Star Production to not violate the copyright of Hem's work.

The film was an homage to an earlier era of Thai film - the contemplative 1950s dramas of pioneering director Rattana Pestonji as well as the "bomb-the-mountains, burn-the-huts" action films of the 1960s that starred Mitr Chaibancha.

One of the leading men from the 1960s and 1970s Thai action-film era, Sombat Metanee, lent his talents to Tears of the Black Tiger, portraying the outlaw leader, Fai.

Wisit Sasanatieng (วิศิษฏ์ ศาสนเที่ยง; ; born June 28, 1963) is a Thai film director and screenwriter of Chinese descent.

Best known for his colourful debut feature film, Tears of the Black Tiger, he is among a "New Wave" of Thai directors that include Nonzee Nimibutr and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang.

Wisit studied at the Faculty of Decorative Arts at Silpakorn University, where he was a classmate of Nonzee Nimibutr and set designer Ek Lemchuen.

He started out as an art director at the Film Factory, where he worked with Pen-Ek Ratanaruang.

Among television commercials directed by Wisit was a colorful commercial for Wrangler Jeans that featured Black Tiger star Chartchai Ngamsuan.

Wisit continues to work at Film Factory, making commercials (particularly for the MK Restaurants hot pot chain in Thailand) in order to supplement his income in between making feature films.

He also is a cartoonist and illustrator.

Wisit entered the film industry as a screenwriter for two of Nonzee's films, 1997's Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters, set in 1950s Thailand, and the ghost thriller, Nang Nak in 1999.

Critically, and at the box office, the films were successes and marked the beginning of a "new wave" movement in the Thai film industry.

Wisit's feature-film debut was in 2000 with the colourfully audacious Tears of the Black Tiger, a genre-blending western.

With a romantic melodrama at its core, the story involves outlaws, gunfights, horseback riding, comedic bits and big explosions.

At the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2000, it won the Dragons & Tigers Award for best new director.

Tears of the Black Tiger was the first Thai film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was in 2001's Un Certain Regard program.

Other awards include best art direction at the Gijón International Film Festival in 2001 and a jury prize at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival.

Wisit's next project, 2004's Citizen Dog, was a contemporary romantic comedy set in Bangkok that proved to be even more colourful than Tears of the Black Tiger.

Based on a novel written by Koynuch (Siripan Techajindawong), Wisit's long-time collaborative partner and wife, and narrated by compatriot filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Citizen Dog tells the tale of two rural Thai people who come to Bangkok to find work and fall in love.

Critics have compared it to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie.

Distribution rights outside Asia were purchased by Luc Besson's EuropaCorp, and it played at several film festivals, including the Berlin Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

It was also screened at the 2006 Bangkok International Film Festival as part of a tribute to Sombat Metanee.

US distribution rights for the film were purchased by Miramax Films, which changed the ending and then shelved it indefinitely.

In 2006, Magnolia Pictures acquired the US rights to the original version of the film, and gave it a limited theatrical run in US theaters in 2007 before releasing it on DVD.

The film screened commercially in France in 2006.

In 2006, while he was working to develop some future projects, Wisit directed a low-budget Thai horror film for Five Star Production called The Unseeable (เปนชู้กับผี).

The Unseeable marked a change for Wisit, who was restrained by budgetary concerns from the stylizations of his first two films.

Additionally, The Unseeable was the first film that he directed but did not write, with the screenplay by Kongkiat Khomsiri, one of the "Ronin Team" credited with directing the hit Thai horror thriller, Art of the Devil 2.

However, Wisit said the film was not an adaptation of any of Hem's works but was generally inspired by Hem's style., which completed shooting in August 2006 and was released on November 2, 2006.

Also in 2006, Pen-Ek became the third recipient of the Silpathorn Award for Filmmaking, an honor given to contemporary Thai artists by the Ministry of Culture's Office of Contemporary Art and Culture.

In addition to a release in Thailand, The Unseeable also had wide theatrical releases in Malaysia and Singapore, and screened at several film festivals, including the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film, 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival (ASEAN competition) and the Cinemanila International Film Festival.

In 2007, Wisit participated in the Short Films Project in Commemoration of the Celebration on the Auspicious Occasion of His Majesty the King's 80th Birthday Anniversary, in which nine short films were made in honor of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Other directors participating the project included fellow Silpathorn Award winners Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul and veteran filmmaker Bhandit Rittakol.

Wisit contributed Norasinghavatar, which featured his trademark colorful and highly stylized imagery, with a blend of khon masked dance and Thai two-handed swordplay.

Though the film appears to be 3D animation, it is actually live action, but completely stylized with super-saturated colors in post-production.

Wisit was given a budget of 400,000 baht (about US$10,000), but his project's cost ballooned to 3 million, due to the special effects and post-production costs.

"It's a bad habit – I can't control the money," he said in an interview.

Also in 2007, at the American Film Market, it was announced that Wisit's next project for Five Star Production would be Red Eagle, a reboot of a 1960s Thai film series that starred Mitr Chaibancha as a masked superhero crimefighter.