Chang And Eng

The story of Siamese twins has been fairly topical lately, with the sad fate of the Bijani twins from Iran. David Cheung, in his 11 minute short, briefly outlines the lives of the famous 19th century twins from Thailand.

Chang and Eng Bunker were born in 1811 and connected by a small band of flesh across the chest. When they became teenagers, they travelled the world as "Monsters" in freak shows, until the medical world threw in a scientific enquiry, questioning their authenticity.

From start to finish, the pair were eye candy for all concerned. The documentary plays this up, but goes no further. Eleven minutes ain't a lot of time and there's only minimal mention of the women they married, who were sisters, incidently, and the 22 children they produced between them.

The performances are a bit hammy and the two actors, Ricky and Ewan Ho, look decidedly unjoined. It's not the easiest thing to do, but when they look as if they've tucked their arms into each other's jumpers, maybe the doctors' enquiries 100-odd years ago were justified, after all.

Still, there are some nice touches. The whole thing is slickly constructed, documenting in black-and-white their travels, their rendezvous with a world mesmerised and their private moments. But in the end not enough is made of what most people want to know. How did they go to the toilet together, how did they function sexually and were there times they wanted to punch each other's lights out from close range?

Probably, but we'll never know.