Pop Aye
2017 film directed by Kirsten Tan
Pop Aye is a 2017 Singaporean-Thai drama film directed by Kirsten Tan. A debut feature by Tan, the road film tells the story of a man as he tries to take his long-lost elephant back to their rural hometown. The first Singaporean film selected to screen at the Sundance, it competed and won a Special Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It was selected as the Singaporean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Tan's success at pursuing her dreams and interests in filmmaking was mentioned in Parliament in April 2017 by Ong Ye Kung, the Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills), as he highlighted the need for parents in allowing their children to pursue their interests.
Plot
Thana, a middle-aged architect, is disillusioned at work as well as at home with his wife B. One day, as he wanders the Bangkok city, he chances upon an elephant which turns out to be his childhood companion, Pop Aye. He then decides to take the elephant back to the rural village where they both grew up and into his uncle Peak's care. They embark on their homecoming journey through the rural Thailand to their hometown in Loei Province, Isan together.
Cast
Thaneth Warakulnukroh as Thana
Bong as Pop Aye
Penpak Sirikul as Bo
Chaiwat Khumdee as Dee
Yukontorn Sukkijja as Jenni
Narong Pongpab as Peak
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 29 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 6.7/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
“Pop Aye” enters the record as 2017 film directed by Kirsten Tan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what film, directed and Kirsten can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Pop Aye” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, film, directed and Kirsten provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28532725. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pop Aye” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.