TVB Drama The Righteous Fists, Which Is Set In Thailand, Earns Flak After Referring To The Police As “Mata”

TVB drama The Righteous Fists finally aired its first episode on Jan 10 after a three-year delay.

The blockbuster, which stars Ruco Chan, 45, Joel Chan, 45, Elaine Yiu, 41, and Natalie Tong, 40, is an action-filled production and is set in 1960s Bangkok.

The drama focuses on the lives of local Chinese residents, who are all skilled in different forms of martial arts.

Elaine Yiu and Joel Chan in The Righteous Fists

However, Thai fans of the drama are not too pleased with the production team, taking to the internet to air their dissatisfaction.

According to these fans, the team appear to have little knowledge of Thailand, resulting in an erroneous portrayal of the country.

For one, the police were repeatedly referred to as “mata" in the show.

'Mata', as we all know, is not a Thai word. 'Mata' means 'eyes' in Malay and the phrase 'mata-mata' is what the police are colloquially as known in Singapore and Malaysia.

Instead of 'mata', policemen are referred to as 'taam ruat' in Thailand.

“I’m Thai, but I would never refer to the police as ‘mata’ ‘cos they won’t understand it,” one netizen pointed out.



Mata or taam ruat?

However, another netizen spoke up to defend the production team, revealing that those who live in southern Thailand actually refer to the police as 'mata'.

This is due to southern Thailand’s proximity to Kedah, Malaysia, where the word 'mata' is used to refer to the police.

The netizen added that those who speak Hokkien there refer to the police as 'mata' too.

Apart from the use of the word 'mata', netizens also discovered a behind-the-scenes clip that showed Ruco learning Thai from a translation app, instead of an actual translator.



Learning Thai from... Google Translate?

While it may be that Ruco was merely brushing up on his command of the language on-the-fly, some netizens could not help but see this as another sign that the production team did not provide adequate attention to how Thailand and the Thai language is portrayed in the drama.

Photos: China Press, Youku/Weibo, Joel Chan/Weibo