The anticipation is soon to be over with the next big streaming service, Disney+ Hotstar, set to go live in Thailand on June 30. Apart from a massive catalog of Disney+ Originals, Marvel Studios, National Geographic, the platform is ready to unveil the first original Thai content, Eng and Chan.
Eng and Chan is a 13-episode series based on the true story of renowned Siamese twins Eng and Chan Bunker whose life during the 1800s was a global phenomenon in the fields of medical and biological sciences.
The series is a project between Disney+ Hotstar and partner Kantana Motion Pictures, starred by twins Warut and Warawut Brown as Eng and Chan together with Thailand’s Miss Universe 2017 and political activist Maria Lynn Ehren.
Jason Young, Byron Bishop, Osa Wang, Atila-Arthur Apichart Kanyox and many others will join the ‘Siamese Twins’ legend series also.
The series promises a biographical narrative of these world-famous conjoined twins from their birth in Siam (ancient Thailand) until their ultimate years in the United States.
“A series that will take you on a journey to find the meaning of life. Through the problems within the hearts of two legendary men In-Chan through the image of the era during the AD. 1840 a story of love and commitment lifelong struggles in the United States.”
Chang and Eng
Chāng (Chang) and Ēn (Eng) Bunker were conjoined twins in the nineteenth century in the United States, the first pair of conjoined twins whose condition was well documented in medical records. Conjoined twins are a rare condition in which two infants are born physically connected to each other. In their youth, the brothers earned money by putting themselves on display as curiosities and giving lectures and demonstrations about their condition. The Bunker brothers toured around the world, including the United States, Europe, Canada, and France, and allowed physicians to examine them. Due to the popularity of their exhibition and their origin from Siam (later called Thailand), they became known as the Siamese twins, a term that was used to describe conjoined twins in general until the twentieth century. During their travels and, later, with the autopsy they received, the Bunker brothers provided insight about the development of twins and conjoined twins.
Physicians inspected them as they became known to American and European audiences in “freak shows”. Newspapers and the public were initially sympathetic to them, and within three years they left the control of their managers, who they thought were cheating them, and toured on their own. In early exhibitions, they appeared exotic and displayed their athleticism; they later held conversations in English in a more dignified parlor setting.
In 1839, after a decade of financial success, the twins quit touring and settled near Mount Airy, North Carolina.
They became American citizens, bought slaves, married local sisters, and fathered 21 children, several of whom accompanied them when they resumed touring.
Extraordinary Siamese Story: Eng and Chang will have 13 episodes and will air on June 30th on Disney+ Hotstar.
