The movie is based in Khao Lak, Thailand where a young couple, Ian and Susie Carter from the United Kingdom with their 6 year old daughter, Martha Carter went to Khao Lak for holiday and unfortunately met with the tsunami that made them lost their daughter. The tsunami though significantly far from Thailand as compared to Indonesia, Sri-Lanka and Malaysia is still deadly that cause hundreds and thousands of death. Part of it due to the aftermath of diseases and poor accessibility to proper healthcare. The tsunami was caused by tectonic earthquakes below the ocean. Although the speed of the tsunami slowed down over the distance travelled to the coast, but it build up in height as a result near the shallow coasts that allowed it to engulf buildings along the coastal areas, thus destroying it. The strong backwash also pulled many people out into the sea.
Than, the Thai waiter in the movie was shown to be selfless and was trying hard by his own to help the villagers and grief over those who have deceased. He was grieving over the death of his sister and his grandmother, but quickly got back to his feet when he heard faint cries of help of villagers trapped under the debris. He promised to get help asap but was unfortunately mistaken for stealing foreigners' valuables and was caught by the police officers. By the time he returned, the people he promised to help had already passed away and he was very remorseful for not being able to live up to his promise and decided to dig out their corpse and did a simple funeral for the deceased villagers to pass on. I think it is very bravely of him to face all these by himself, which to me would be a very traumatizing event that I wouldn't know what to do. But he did not leave any time for grievience and quickly got back on his feet to do what he can to survive and help others in need.
Kathy, a Thai-speaking social worker was also trying her utmost best to help those in need and also acting as a translator for those westerners to communicate with the locals in finding their lost ones.
Nick, on the contrary is depicted as a "asshole" as I feel. He was only concerned about getting the latest news for the headlines back in UK. He wasn't symphathetic towards those who have died nor did he showed any respect to the deceased; taking photos of them moments before they were cremated and wanting to send the photos over to the press for headline news. He didn't care that this would result in uproar from people from other countries for burning those unidentified corpses and would most probably cause Thailand to fall back to it third world state. Rationally speaking, I think there is a need to cremate those bodies for Thailand is a humid and warm country which causes the corpses to disintegrate at a faster rate and this may cause an outburst in disease that eventually cause those who survived from the tsunami to die due to this aftermath. But what the monks could do is to maybe take photos of those that are to be burnt so that the family members and relatives can at least identify them and bring their ashes back to their home country where they belong. Though the surving members may be furious about the cremation but this is a preventive measure from the outspread of any disease and this decision must take into consideration of the whole surviving populations and not only those who are mourning over their dead family members.
Chai, Nick's Thai reporter partner is more symphathetic towards those deceased as he himself is a Thai and as most Thai are, he might be a Buddhist. Hence, knowing the basics of respecting the dead and prayed for forgiveness for Nick's ignorance.
It was showed that Martha was never found and Susie couldn't get over the fact that their daughter is missing, blaming everything on Ian for letting go of Martha's hands. They found a young girl that looked like Martha and Susie decided to keep her to substitute for the lost of her own daughter that she could never get over with. I feel strongly for Susie for losing her one and only child, but feel that it is wrong to keep the girl. The girl's parents might be looking for her and if she takes her away, she'll never get to reconcile with her biological parents. The girl seem too traumatised to speak up which all the more isn't right to keep for she couldn't speak to say anything like yes or no to follow Susie.
The movie also showed the relief efforts from international aid were slow in saving people, but restructuring plans were quick to rebuild new resorts over the disaster scene. It showed the different types of people during a disaster. Some like Than and Kathy would help those in need while people like Ellen and Nick are only concerned about their own interets and benefits. As well as those looters who would go to these disaster-struck places to steal people's valuables.
2004 Boxing Day tsunami, happened 2 or 3 days after I came back from a cruise trip on Starcruise Virgo to Phuket Thailand, therefore I felt deeply for the people there, Thinking about all of them while we tried to bargain for goods along the street-stalls near the coast and those that we took photos with were not most or all wiped away by the tsunami. I guess I'm really lucky to be alive for if I have stayed there a few more days, I wouldn't be writing my reflections now.
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