We picked up a free copy of the new Rambo movie that is being widely distributed in Mae Sot, what a riot! "Rambo! Rambo! Rambo!" chant from the Karen I live with as he shot, stabbed, and exploded entire battalions of the military junta.A few interesting notes on the movie, from the Karen point of view. All of the soldiers pretending to be junta are none other than members of the All Burma Student Democratic Front (ABSDF), a militant opposition group. The battalion leader or whatever, the head bad guy, is a well known ABSDF general; what a treat, to play your archenemy in such a film (and I thought the acting was pretty good). In a few scenes John Rambo breaks out some Karen and Burmese with good pronunciation I was told. Not surprisingly, the movie has been outlawed inside Myanmar, but bootleg copies are floating around. Finally, unhappily I was told that the atrocities committed by the SPDC in the film are not exaggerations of reality, they truthfully represent villages being burnt and pillaged.
ABSDF flag