 Hiss
of Death
18
feet of spring-coiled, venom-spitting,
fanged death, enough poison to kill
20 people - The King Cobra...
In North East Thailand there's a village
where people keep King Cobras in wooden
boxes under their homes. A place where
men fight these spring-coiled killing
machines barehanded. Where women dance
with the snakes' fully fanged heads
in their mouths. Where people cheat
death to entertain and earn a living.
This
is the story of the Kok Sa Nga, King
Cobra village. Every year to coincide
with Thailand's Songkran New Year
Festival, the village stages its own
festival celebrating the King Cobra.
Snake handlers, snake dancers, and
snake fighters all do their thing
for three days of snake intensive
celebration
"Hiss
of Death" follows the village's
star fighter, Thongkam and his nephew,
7 year old apprentice fighter Tak,
as they prepare for the festival.
NEXT
ON 
4 May 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Indian
Witch-Hunt
A
darkness has descended on the tribal
belts of India. Desperate villagers
are heading out on witch-hunts, and
women suspected of witchcraft are
being beaten and murdered. Heads are
turning up at police stations. Nobody
knows for sure when this madness will
end or why it ever began. Descend
into the world of witchcraft to meet
sorcerers practicing their craft.
And follow journalist Sohaila Kapur
as she follows one case down to its
grisly end.
NEXT
ON
11 May 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Megastructures
- World's Busiest Port
If
you drive a Japanese car or drink
Brazilian coffee; if the shirt you're
wearing was stitched in Mexico or
the Philippines; chances are that
sometime in your life, something of
yours passed through this port.
Pick
any day to view the floating city
anchored in Singapore's port.
1000 ships loaded with cargo, headed
for 600 ports, 123 countries, 6 continents.
Straddling one of the world's
most crowded shipping lanes, this
is the busiest port on earth in terms
of shipping tonnage - a megastructure
through which passes nearly a quarter
of the world's cargo and half
the world's supply of oil -
moving at the pace of one ship every
two to three minutes
But
the world's busiest port sits
on sea lanes infested with pirates.
And what about the threat of terrorists
who could turn fuel carriers into
floating bombs?
NEXT
ON
18 May 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Samurai
Spiders
The
two fighters shape up. Sixteen eyes
stare each other down. They slowly
move towards each other. One spins.
In a split second the battle commences
in a whirl of flailing limbs and silk.
One fighter grabs the other's leg.
And then another. And then another.
And then another. And then another,
lashing them together with silk With
five legs bound and pinned she delivers
the coup de grace and bites her opponent
hard on the abdomen.
It's
all over. The referee stops the fight
before the loser's eaten alive.
Welcome
to Japan's Kumo Gassen, the fight
festival where all the wrestlers have
eight legs, eight eyes and are cannibals.
Japan has a tradition of spider fighting
which is centuries-old. It originated
as a precursor to combat in the 16th
century. Today the annual Kumo Gassen,
Spider Wrestling Festival, takes place
in the small town of Kajiki on the
Japanese island of Kyushu. Each June,
hundreds of enthusiastic participants
pit their "trained" spiders
against one another in fierce matches,
and the winners gradually progress
until only two are left to battle
it out in the moment-of-truth finale.
NEXT
ON
25 May 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
The
Tokyo Shock Boys' GUIDE TO JAPAN
It
is said that Japan's festivals
are the gateway to the country's
soul. Four Japanese performers take
us on a journey of their discovery
- and ours - as we uncover
the lengths people will go to in the
pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.
The Tokyo Shock Boys are a group of
four highly energetic and wacky performers
who are known to live up to their
name on stage...
In
The Tokyo Shock Boys' Guide
To Japan, we will journey -
through Gyuzo, Nanbu, Danna and Sangojugo's
eyes - to four unique festivals
in the course of a year. They are
the Hadaka Matsuri (or Naked Festival),
where they the Shock Boys will tussle
with 10,000 nearly naked men in loincloths
to touch one naked holy man; the Onbashira
(Giant Log) Festival, where they will
join the brave people who will ride
a ten ton log down a steep slope;
the Toyohashi Tezutsuhanabi (Handheld
Fireworks) Festival, a fireworks festival
where participants release the fireworks
with their bare hands; and the Kishiwada
Danjiri (Float) Festival, where teams
of kimono-clad men pull giant unwieldy
wooden floats through the medieval
town's narrow and winding streets
at breakneck pace.
NEXT
ON
1 June 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Trading
Faces
The
cosmetic surgery industry now rakes
in a staggering US$2.4 billion a year
in China. This documentary enters
the fascinating world of extreme plastic
surgery in China as Beijing prepares
to stage the country's first
man-made beauty contest.
Follow
individuals in their quest for perfection
and find out what can happen if it
all goes horribly wrong.
NEXT
ON
8 June 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Stuntmen
of Bollywood
In
the Indian film industry, stunt artists
still crash through glass with minimal
precautions, use wet jute bags instead
of fire suits and collapse into card
board boxes and fishing nets rather
than airbags for dangerous jumps.
In
a job where there are no awards or
official recognition and meagre monetary
benefits, it is bravado and a never
say die attitude that preserves their
spirit, often placing them at great
risk. The Indian film stuntman will
risk life and limb to save a buck.
Flush with dare devilry and short-changed
on resources they stretch the definition
of risk taking, to limits rarely seen
in developed countries.
NEXT
ON
22 June 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Faking
China
From
illegally copied Hollywood movies
and Nike t-shirts at street markets,
to antiques and curios sold in markets
and auction houses across the country,
China is a country of fakes. The antiques
trade is big business. The market
for legal reproductions - high
quality items copied from the originals
and sold to buyers who know it's
not an original - generates
plenty of revenue each year for those
who deal. And that's just the
legal part of the market.
Master
forgers make a career of passing their
fakes on to unsuspecting buyers. And
theses aren't just Sunday shoppers
and tourists looking for souvenirs
from China. They can fool museum curators
and auctioneers from the world's
biggest houses. So if these forgeries
can fool the world's experts,
how do you know when they're
faking it?
NEXT
ON
29 June 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Crime
Scene Bangkok
Pornthip
Rojanasunand is Thailand’s leading
forensic pathologist - autopsy and
fashion have become her trademark.
She is committed to her family but
she loves her work – trying
to find the truth behind unexplained
deaths by cutting and slicing her
way into corpses.
In
Thailand, the police gather the evidence,
make decisions about what it means
and then decide whether to bring charges.
In this system, suspects with the
resources can buy their way out of
trouble.
“Crime
Scene Bangkok” is a film about
a woman’s fight to bring more
transparent justice to the people
of Thailand as she tries to bring
an outdated forensic system into the
21st century.
NEXT
ON
6 July 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Gerbil
Plague
Unnoticed
by the outside world, a massive army
has been digging in the northwest
of China. They have already occupied
an area as large as Switzerland. It's
an invasion of giant gerbils. Motto:
"Gentle When Stroked, Fierce
When Provoked". The rodents have
at their disposal a massive underground
bunker system, extensive food supplies
and impressive survival skills. Their
communications system is excellent
- while some gerbils forage, others
stand guard, acting as air wardens,
using a complex vocabulary foot drumming
to coordinate their defence.
The
Chinese government is preparing to
stop this rodent onslaught by gathering
an air force of hundreds of golden
eagles to stop the gerbil's
advance. Motto: "Mors ab Alto"
(Latin for "Death from Above")
The eagles are some of the planet's
most awesome hunters, with astoundingly
keen eyesight, shrewd hunting tactics,
and incredible clenching power in
each of its talons.
The
stage is definitely set for a unique
battle between two formidable species.
What is uncertain is the outcome...
NEXT
ON
13 July 2005,
Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
For
more information, please contact:
National
Geographic Channel Asia
Listing
by Date
Hiss of Death
4 May 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs (SGP/
HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 11 May 2005, Wednesday @ 1500
hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Indian
Witch - Hunt
11 May 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 18 May 2005, Wednesday @ 1500
hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Megastructures
- World's Busiest Port
18 May 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 25 May 2005, Wednesday @ 1500
hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Samurai
Spiders
25 May 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 1 June 2005, Wednesday @ 1500
hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
The
Tokyo Shock Boys' GUIDE TO JAPAN
1 June 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 8 June 2005, Wednesday @ 1500
hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Trading
Faces
8 June 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 22 June 2005, Wednesday @
1500 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Stuntmen
of Bollywood
22 June 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 29 June 2005, Wednesday @
1500 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Faking
China
29 June 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 6 July 2005, Wednesday @ 1500
hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Pornthip:
Bangkok Coroner
6 July 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 13 July 2005, Wednesday @
1500 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Gerbil
Plague
13 July 2005, Wednesday @ 2200 hrs
(SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
Repeat: 20 July 2005, Wednesday @
1500 hrs (SGP/ HKG/ MAL)
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