Tittle:Iron Ladies
Genre: Comedy,Musical
Year:2000
Plot: If you like seeing straight ass get kicked, then stand up and cheer for the real-life, campy tale of Thailand's Iron Ladies. An almost entirely gay/transgender-comprised volleyball team, the Iron Ladies took the 1996 national male volleyball championships, winning the public's hearts and creaming some ignorant hetero butt in the process. Youngyooth Thongkonthun's colorful, zippy and rousing dramatization of their story made box-office records in its home country as well. While the some of the acting seems overdone and the script is quite campy, this is the way films are made in Thailand.
Talented player Mon is considered an outcast because of his being gay. Mincing best friend Jung has experienced the same ostracism. So when a lesbian, Coach Bee, is selected by the local government to assemble a winning team, the two try out and are accepted. As all but one heterosexual refuse to play alongside such nelly outcasts, Bee asks Mon if he can find a few friends to fill the team – which he does. This includes Pia, a glamorous transsexual cabaret star; Nong, a gay army sergeant; and Wit, a closeted-to-his-family Chinese/Thai boy. Of course, most teams dismiss Bee's team, but soon they're heading towards the championships. Unfortunately, some more conservative officials don't know if that should happen, and place some roadblocks in the way. Can our pink players overcome these obstacles in addition to increasingly formidable challengers?
In what seems a peculiar move, the director purposely opted to cast only heterosexual actors as the leads (with the exception of real-life transsexual Benjathikoon as Pia) so that audiences in Thailand wouldn't be "focusing on the gayness of my cast." Yet they seem pretty gay anyway, having taken lessons directly from the real-life Iron Ladies, who are seen during the closing credits-- be sure to stick around. (Thai with English subtitles)
