Saving Face

Panarat Vipala treats her sweet and innocent daughter (Toy) to an unexpected 17th birthday present – a one-way bus trip from up-country Isaan to Pattaya, where she is put to work as a bar girl. A few years later, when Australian holiday-maker Andrew McKinnon meets Toy in a Pattaya bar, he ignores his instincts and falls in love with the bar girl. Soon after, Andrew and Toy team up and the couple travel north to Toy’s home province of Udon Thani, and what starts out as an idyllic romance quickly turns into a journey through a cultural minefield. McKinnon encounters age-old customs and traditions as he bids to be accepted into Toy’s family circle. Meanwhile, the lovers are forced to tread a wary line between non-interference and rescue when McKinnon’s best mate, Todd Walsh, falls for Bee, a beautiful Pattaya bank manager operating a cunning real estate scam. Against an emotional background of sex, greed, corruption and intrigue, a Bangkok psychic called Sukanya, and a natural disaster play roles in Andrew’s and Toy’s determination to hold onto true love and to save McKinnon’s Aussie mate from financial disaster.