In memorial of Mitr Chaibancha, the forever movie hero of all Thais

 In our previous two issues of Discover Pattaya, we have mentioned about his profile, and the event of the 50thanniversary of his death took place at the Thai Film Archive (Public Organization). This part shall be the final episode of Mits Chaibancha’s story. We would like to present his other aspects and habit that is so interesting. 

As we have known him as the forever Thai movie hero, we wish to talk about the other sides of his life. Mits is a man who always is grateful and also kind and helpful to his colleagues. He had also extended his kindness to all independent film producers he dealt with. When he had become famous and popular, he also had sound financial status arising from his hard-working on many different films shooting each day that made him restless. 

So, he had helped many independent film producers who had less working funds to give them a chance to grow up in the Thai film industry. That’s why he established a movie company and had co-investment together with those independent film producers. He also let many of them be the company’s directors on a rotation basis. Many times he had starred in their movies with free of charge. Finally, he planned to build his own cinema hall to help the small-scale and independent film producers to have their own showing outlet.

 At that time, there were much more numbers of films than the cinema outlets, as a result, the movie owner had to wait in a long queue for a showing schedule in competent to big film companies and foreign movies as well. But his intention had failed after he had passed away. Mitr was so much serious at his work, all companions must follow him and do everything by his order and had the job finished on time and well done. He had high discipline and punctuality. 

Maybe he used to be a soldier. About his love life, it seemed to be unsmooth because of his emotion and jealousy as written in the book named “Love Life Diary of Mitr Chaibancha” by his second wife, Gingdao Daranee whom he loved most, published in 2000. Later on, he wished to become a politician by being a candidate for the general election in Bangkok but lose only by 500 points behind his competitor. Maybe some people were afraid he could not devote his time to movies.

 At the late of his life, he had starred in 2 Chinese martial art movies in Hong Kong. He had been up to the peak of his popularity by starring in a musical movie called “Mon Rak Look Toong” ( Country Love Songs) in which he had sung 2 songs in that film and had a long time showing as long as 6 months with 16 M.Baht revenue in 1970. Most of his films were produced in 16 mm. With life dubbing while his only 16 films were shot in 35 mm. Mirs had said to be the logo of a 16 mm movie. After his death, the 16 mm era was ended. However, with his unique good looking and personality. He had been the hero in the mind of all Thais forever…..