Beautiful Boxer

Beautiful Boxer, a film based on famed transsexual kickboxer Nong Toom, has been a huge success in its native Thailand and is now set to be released in the UK. Beautiful Boxer tells a story so odd it has to be true. Parinya Charoenphol (also Kiatbusaba) was born a poor nomad who spent much of his early life in a monastery. Realizing he had a flair for kickboxing, he became a master at Muay Thai, the most traditional and revered form of the ancient martial art. Feared by his opponents for his swooping kicks and devastating elbow blows, he became one of Thailand's best-known boxers - and its most controversial. For Charoenphol, or Nong Toom as he became known, was a transsexual who wore make-up in the ring and dreamed of saving enough money for a sex change operation. "For me, Nong Toom is like a walking paradox," says Ekachai Uekrongtham, the Thai-born director of Beautiful Boxer. "He set out to master something that is totally masculine in order to become totally feminine." Nong Toom would eventually realise his dream, having gender reassignment surgery in 1999 at the age of 17. Forbidden to return to the ring - Thai women are not allowed to kickbox professionally - she now lives as an actress and model in Bangkok.

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