Vithaya Pansringarm

In Only God Forgives (2013), Vithaya Pansringarm's Lieutenant Chang stands still with the assurance of someone who expects to be obeyed. His small movements make the violence feel deliberate, and his composure gives Nicolas Winding Refn's stylised thriller a convincing figure of authority. Decades of kendo practice help explain the physical control, but the useful acting choice is how little he insists upon it. We rate that restraint, even when the film around him gives us too little reason to care.

We were frustrated by Only God Forgives: its slow, punishing stretches kept offering precise images when we wanted a reason to care about the people inside them. Pansringarm's detachment fits Refn's approach, but it also contributes to that difficulty. Chang can seem so completely settled in his authority that there is little for us to discover. Kristin Scott Thomas's comic spite supplies a welcome change in tone. Pansringarm's control is worth noticing, but we cannot recommend the film on that basis.

The useful comparison is with Tom Waller, who gave him an early lead as Father Ananda in Mindfulness and Murder (2011), which Pansringarm also co-wrote. Waller cast him again as Chavoret Jaruboon in The Last Executioner (2014), a biopic of Thailand's last gun executioner. That part allows his subtle expressions and physical stillness to carry inner conflict. Waller seems more interested in what holding such authority does to the person who has it.

The international breakthrough of Refn's film was followed by further institutional roles: Officer Preecha in Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's A Prayer Before Dawn (2017), General Anuphond in Ron Howard's Thirteen Lives (2022). These parts draw on his credibility as a man accustomed to giving orders. The reservation is how readily that quality can become a casting shortcut, especially when the part is brief. We would like to see more directors give him time to be uncertain.