Written by on Jul 31, 2013. Posted in On Location

Ryan Gosling films Bangkok for nightmarish drama Only God Forgives

Star Ryan Gosling filmed on location in Bangkok for Nicolas Winding Refn’s nightmarish crime feature Only God Forgives. The film follows Gosling’s boxing club owner as he seeks to avenge the murder of his brother in the criminal underworld of the Thai capital.

Winding Refn and his production team filmed on location in Bangkok for nine weeks, most of which involved night shooting. The film was serviced by Pak Chaisana at A Grand Elephant.

“Nicolas had visited Bangkok before on a different project and he was keen to tell another story in the city,” Chaisana explains: “There was a lot of sensitivity involved in location scouting for the production as we were looking at – and indeed filming in – real gentlemen’s clubs. Women aren’t allowed into some of these places, so we had to work around that.

“We made very few changes to the actual locations, aside from the lighting in order to sustain the tone of the film. The extensive night shoots and swift changes to occasional daytime filming became a challenge!”

Thailand is under pressure to offer location filming incentives to appeal more directly to big-budget Hollywood productions. The issue was stressed recently at the Thailand International Film Destination Festival in Bangkok.

Only God Forgives is out in the UK from 2 August 2013.

(Production photo: Wild Bunch)