Retired Myanmar rebel takes on Rambo

Sylvester Stallone arrives at the Australian premiere of his latest movie ''Rocky Balboa'' in Sydney February 17, 2007. A retired rebel soldier from the jungles of eastern Myanmar has been plucked from obscurity to play a brutal Burmese officer opposite Hollywood star Stallone in his latest ''Rambo'' movie.

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) - A retired rebel soldier from the jungles of eastern Myanmar has been plucked from obscurity to play a brutal Burmese officer opposite Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone in his latest "Rambo" movie.

Sai Mawng, 40, an ex-guerrilla from the Shan State Army, which has been fighting for independence in the former Burma since 1948, was picked from nearly 300 applicants for the part, the Shan Herald Agency for News reported.

"He speaks Burmese fluently and looks nasty enough," one of Sai Mawn's close friends was quoted as saying. "He'll be shot in the head toward the end of the movie."

According to agency, the directors of "Rambo IV: In the Serpent's Eye," as the film was initially titled, had been looking for a "Burmese male, 32-40, military-looking man, character face, unlikeable."

Other Shan refugees and migrants in northern Thailand are being paid 300 baht ($8.50) a day plus meals to play Burmese soldiers in the movie, which is being filmed in a village near the city of Chiang Mai, local newspapers said.

In the movie, renegade Vietnam War veteran John Rambo comes out of retirement as a boat repairman in Bangkok to track down missionary aid workers who have disappeared in the jungles of impoverished Myanmar.

The former British colony has been under military rule since 1962 and is regarded as an international pariah.

It has also been riven by decades of ethnic civil war, much of financed by the Golden Triangle opium trade. The junta and rebels are frequently accused of using child soldiers.

($1=35.56 Baht)

Reuters/Nielsen