I recently had a pretty intense Facebook back-and-forth with a well-known Thai poster collector from the UK about the artwork of “Kham,” so it seems appropriate to highlight some of his work in these next few posts.
The above poster for SNAKE IN THE EAGLE’S SHADOW may seem lackluster following the series of high-powered Tongdee works. In some ways it is. But it’s also a good place to start exploring Kham’s work.
I have very little biographical data on Kham. I don’t even know his full name, or if he’s still alive. What I know is what I can glean from his prolific poster art, most of which was created for Chinese language films. From the late 70′s through the first half of the 80′s, Kham was the go-to artist for Kung Fu movie posters (though apparently not for Shaw Brothers films, for whatever reason).
Kham’s work often has a rough edge to it; usually not as smooth as the likes of Tongdee and the other heavy hitters. But that to me is part of the beauty of his work. It often feels less commercial, more impressionistic than a lot of the other guys. He also, in my opinion, had a real knack for letting the artwork breathe. Most Thai movie poster art is characterized by a flurry of action, a blitz of visual information designed to coax the Baht out of the viewer’s pocket and send him into the movie theater, paid in full. Kham was capable of all that too, but in general his work is more relaxed. He was a genius at incorporating empty space into otherwise busy works of art.
Take a look at the poster above as an example.
SNAKE IN THE EAGLE’S SHADOW, by the way, was the breakout film for Jackie Chan. The rest, as you know, is history.
My shitty translation of the Thai title = The Kid with A Thousand Hands
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