First Details on Thanapon Maliwan's THE SANCTUARY

Well, well ... look who's back! Thanapon Maliwan first came to our attention as the director of Mission Hunter Two, a Thai action picture that features a young, pre-Ong Bak Tony Jaa in a key role, and we've been keeping tabs on him more recently thanks to his martial arts efforts Dead End - which stalled out when financing fell apart at the last minute - and Brave - which has just been completed - both of which star key Ong Bak stunt man Mike B. Well, Maliwan is hard at work with another one, this one titled The Sanctuary and it again stars Mike B in the lead. Here's the synopsis:

A young Muay Thai warrior is accused of stealing a holy emerald that his master appointed him to protect. Now on the run from the police, he must retrieve the emerald from the mafia in order to prove his innocence and return the emerald to its holy place.

An interesting little side note on this is found in the producer's credits where Maliwan is joined by Chokchai Pechpanna. Unless I'm badly mistaken Pechpanna is Maliwan's father and is also the founder of Thailand's Pechpanna Productions, the low budget action film house that produced scores of shoestring actioners through the seventies and eighties, many of which starred and / or were directed and choreographed by Panna Rittikrai who is now famous for being mentor to both Tony Jaa and Dan Chupong. Jaa himself appears in several Pechpanna films.

While the film is currently in pre-production word is that there is an early teaser available out there and we're trying to lay hands on it ...