(Chatrichalerm's grandfather, Prince Yugala Dighambara, had helped King Kong makers Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack with the filming of Chang in 1927.)

Released in the months leading up to the bloody pro-democracy student uprisings of 1973, Dr. Karn dared to address corruption in Thai society.

Even Chatrichalerm's status as a prince didn't rate when the authoritarian government's censor wanted to cut the film.

His films resist depicting any glamor, focusing on the poor, downtrodden working classes, such as Freedom of Taxi Driver (1984) or Song for Chao Phya and often with gritty action, such as Gunman (1983), Salween (1993), and The Colonel (1974).

An even-more-condensed version was released in the United States in 2003, edited and "presented by" Francis Ford Coppola, a former classmate of Chatrichalerm's from UCLA.

Under the title King of Fire, the second part of the series was submitted by Thailand for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.