Cambodians Flock to Films With Happy Endings : Asia: Production crews can hardly meet public’s insatiable demand. Censors take an active hand in editing; kissing and violence are taboo.

Last year, Cambodians had a choice of more than 100 new films--every one of them an emotion-charged, slush-filled romance with a happy ending.

Film has been the most popular form of entertainment in Cambodia since Prince Norodom Sihanouk launched the domestic film industry, producing, directing and starring in movies in the 1950s after he became king.

Cambodian television celebrated the ex-monarch’s return from 13 years in exile in November by showing some of his early creations--simple plots in which the prince-hero comes to the rescue of the princess-heroine, played by his real-life wife, Princess Monique.

Modern Cambodian filmmakers are heirs to the Sihanouk tradition, churning out epic love stories distinguished chiefly by their saccharine repetitiousness.

Cambodians can’t get enough of them.

Crowds pile into cinemas for the first of the day’s four showings at 8 a.m.

The production industry can hardly keep pace. To satisfy the insatiable audience demand, movie producers now make videos rather than films.

“Film is more difficult and needs more money,” said director Lim Mareth, 38, who had finished eight productions by June this year and has four in production.

“Everyone makes videos rather than films because they are cheaper and because of the government restrictions,” he said. “You can lose a lot more money if the government cuts bits out of films than out of videos.”

In the garden of a large private house Lim Mareth has hired in the Phnom Penh suburbs, he guides his actors into position for the camera before an audience of ragged neighborhood children and stray cows grazing on the edge of the lawn.

“We add the sound later,” he said over a cacophony of car horns and giggling children.

It takes him about six weeks to complete one video-film at a cost of 5 million riel ($5,000). He usually makes a profit of 1.5 million riel ($1,500)--and has earned twice that--in a country where most people live at subsistence level.

“We only make love stories,” said a Vietnam-trained director. “And there are no sad endings. The audience only wants happy endings.”

The plot is usually a variation on the theme of beautiful, loyal girl falls in love with spoiled, misguided boy who realizes the error of his ways after much tribulation for the long-suffering heroine. They fall into each other’s arms to soaring finale music.

Even such seemingly vacuous story lines must be submitted to the socialist government’s censors in the Ministry of Information.

The film’s hero is usually a student or the son of a “bourgeois,” explained Lim Mareth. Never a policeman--not popular with audiences--or the son of a Communist Party official--not acceptable among the ruling party cadre.

A theme currently popular is the protagonist from a wealthy, but amoral, family learning the traditional values of the poor--but typically Cambodian--hero.

“The government doesn’t want this,” said Lim Mareth. “But we still use this kind of plot because the masses like it.”

The government has strong views on what it likes and dislikes in the movies.

Kissing and nudity are definitely out. So is crime--violence, rape, murder and robbery are all taboo.

Foreign words--many French words have been adopted into the Khmer language--are banned.

“The government thinks these look bad for socialism,” said the Vietnam-trained director. “Such things are not supposed to happen in Cambodia.

“As a director I want more diversity,” he said. “I want to make detective movies and films with fighting and shooting, otherwise movies become too repetitive.”

“It’s difficult to follow the regulations,” Lim Mareth said. “If we do then we lose money because this is not what people want to see. If we don’t then the government could ban the movie.”