The story goes that during the Burmese-Siamese War of 1765-1767, which ended in the sacking of Ayutthaya by the Burmese army, thus bringing down a Kingdom of Siam that had existed for slightly more than 400 years, a small village northwest of the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya managed to withhold the advancing Burmese army for up to five months through sheer determination, patriotism, and heroism. The idyllic images of the Siamese villagers fighting and dying for their land, which were brilliantly portrayed in Bang Rajan movies (1966 and 2000), have by now been so much ingrained in popular Thai culture that ordinary Thai people and uninformed foreigners take the story for granted and attribute it to actual, sound, historical facts.
While the purpose of this article is not to debate the role of fact and fiction in Thai historical cinematography, viewers and readers should be critical about what they see on the screen and what they read in condensed history books (both in Thai and English). As a matter of fact, historical revisionism was a point of concern that was raised many decades ago, when Damrong Rachanubhab, who is considered the father of Thai history, had brought up the issue of debating the historical accuracy of the Bang Rachan story details, as they are accepted today in popular culture.