And in the Land of the Rising Sun, where cute meets kinky and weird to give birth to the downright bizarre....

A little overdue but now the Japan edition....

If you want a place where you can scratch your head, nauseate, then run for your lives - you won't go far wrong with Japan. Most of the time you probably won't want to know what's REALLY going on in those TVCs they do.

From the land of a thousand smiles, spots of a thousand laughs....

Thailand has one of the biggest and most established media and film industries in Southeast Asia. But when it comes to slapstick comedy, I have to say that Thailand is truly unique in this particular respect.

The Power of the Commercial - Top 3

One sure thing when you surf Youtube is that you will come across lots of TV commercials - from the latest to those that hark from even decades back.

I have been thinking of doing a collection of my favourite TVCs, but to be fair, you would likely have seen many of them if you have been doing the same thing as I have - which is to search Youtube for commercials or advertisements.

Nonetheless, I noticed that there are certain trends in TVCs from say, different countries, or different products. For example, Thailand has a penchant for coming up with the most comical commercials you'll see around; while Japan has some really weird offerings to boot.

But before I do a feature on any of those, here are my 3 favourite TVCs - rare gems that will not turn up so easily in a search these days - unless you have something more specific to look for.

In no particular order:

Mr. W
The sheer idea of this just blew me away. I am jealous.

Pantene 
Truly extraordinary commercial. The concept behind it, the metaphors used - are just brilliant. The only thing is the absurdity of it - Music is visible - apparently.

Reunion Dinner
One among a long series of Chinese New Year commercials commissioned by Petronas in Malaysia. Made by the late Yasmin Ahmad I believe.