Movie & Reviews
Bangkok Dangerous: It's Cliched and Uneven, but Still Fun at Times
By Nick DeRatto
Sep 10, 2008 - 9:10:02 AM

*** out of five

Even those with the most basic film knowledge should know that no filmmakers ever remake a semi-popular Asian flick, infuse it with a laughable title, give the main character a Steven Seagal haircut, and expect it to become a blockbuster.

However, that’s not to say that it still can’t be fun.

Rolling out a remake of their 1999 film by the same name, twin brothers Oxide and Danny Pang deliver Bangkok Dangerous. Though uneven and cliché-ridden, Bangkok Dangerous offers a textbook example of how the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Returning to the action role, Nicolas Cage stars as Joe, an incredibly skilled hit man who travels to Bangkok for an assignment. Having hired a local con artist named Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) as his assistant, Joe starts training him as his successor, while also falling for a deaf-mute pharmacist named Fon (Charlie Yeung). In doing so, he realizes that he has broken his own rule of not getting involved with anyone and decides that this will be his last job. However, when Kong shows him that not all of the people he kills are bad, Joe has a crisis of conscience, putting his last job in jeopardy.

As a whole, Bangkok Dangerous is an entertaining, if uneven, ride. The action may not be believable – apparently, you can survive an explosion by hiding in a bathtub – but it’s fun, and with a movie like this, that’s really all that matters. I can forgive the fact that Nic Cage has unlimited bullets and never actually gets shot until it’s necessary to further the plot; it’s not Oscar-worthy material and never pretends to be.

What I can’t forgive is how off the pacing is. Right as the film sucks you in with the action, it abruptly switches gears, slowing down to tell a love story. I know that the love story is important and necessary for the development of Cage’s character, but it could have been done so much better. Nearly all of the scenes with his budding romance with Fon completely dissipated any of the building tension.

The only other real gripe comes with the way that the Pang brothers handled remaking the film. In the original, Cage’s character was a deaf gunman, having lost his hearing as a child. The taunting he endured while younger fostered anger, leading him to become a merciless hit man, unable to hear either the gunshots or anyone pleading with him to kill them. Yamnarm’s character is also developed more fully in the original, giving him a reason to train as a hit man, rather than to just be able to defend himself. It seems as if the Pang brothers dumbed down Bangkok Dangerous to make it appeal to American audiences.

Despite these flaws, there were plenty of good points here. As mentioned before, there are plenty of entertaining action sequences, more than enough to quench the thirst of any action fan and the ending was the perfect – and really only – way for Joe to finish his career. Though Cage is passable in his role, delivering an average performance, Yamnarm is the real star here, creating a character who is not only entertaining, but also one whom audiences can relate with and feel for. Yeung gives a solid performance as well, something that can’t be easy for any actor to do with a character who can’t talk or hear.

Although Bangkok Dangerous is far from a perfect, or even great, movie, it still has its high points. Go in looking for some senseless action and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Bangkok Dangerous has a runtime of 99 minutes and is rated R for violence, language, sexuality, and brief nudity. It was viewed at Carmike 10.

nderatto@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421

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