Bangkok Dangerous (2000)

Wonderful character development!

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

As a dead man's blood seeps across bathroom tiles, the opening titles to BANGKOK DANGEROUS appear in it. From its first scene, this movie is art.Writers-directors-brothers Danny and Oxide Pang launch BANGKOK DANGEROUS at us with the intensity of an adjective incorrectly following a noun, in the story of a hit-man who finds redemption.But there's an inventive hook to this old story. Hit-man Kong (Pawalit Mongkolpisit) is a Thai teen who lives in squalor with roommate Joe (Pisek Intrakanchit), a young ex-hit-man whose gun hand was injured when both he and Kong were in a street shootout. Kong has no other friends and his only education was the snarling underbelly of Thailand: brutal mobs, dirty dance clubs, seedy streets, bashings, blood and bullets. And he is deaf and mute. And you thought YOUR teen years were screwed up.Kong's whacking expertise is shown in the opening scenes, where a poignant dynamic is unveiled, that is, even in his supposedly ruthless hits, Kong does not seem "heartless" or "merciless" - but not because he has a "heart of gold" - it is because he has been so desensitized from a young age to regard whacking as just another job. We discover through flashbacks that Joe and his stripper girlfriend, Aom (Patharawarin Timkul), befriended the young Kong at the shooting range where he worked sweeping bullets, and took him under their wing to become a REAL bullet sweeper.Kong is a sociopath through nurture not nature.An excellent scene punctuates this point: Kong takes aim from a rooftop at a mark below. A little girl on another rooftop sees Kong and looks down to see what he is aiming at. Instead of alerting a nearby grownup, she also aims with her little hand. She pulls her imaginary trigger as Kong squeezes his real one. When the mark goes down... she jumps up and down in joy.This kind of scene is verboten in American movies. But the Hong Kong-born Pang Brothers illustrate that unless anyone tells you something is "bad," how would you know? The violence is portrayed like real violence: quick ,efficient, sudden; no camera playing lovingly over splattered faces. It's indie, it's scarring and raw with forceful sound design and evocative music. It's movie "making" - Kong enters a room with his gun drawn on six guys, who all look up, frozen. Jump cut. Six guys lie strewn around the room, dead, bloodied, without seeing a shot fired. And Kong looks like he has not moved.When Kong falls for a teen pharmacist, Fon (Premsinee Ratanasopha), his infatuated reaction is believable because of his age and circumstances. He has never attended any special schools for his disabilities, and he is basically a shutaway who only ventures out to kill, so we imagine his seclusion has left him a lonely virgin.Even though we know Kong's "redemption" must be coming, it does NOT come via the doe eyes of Fon. One idyllic night, as they get close to that moment when anyone who has watched a romantic movie knows they are going to exchange girl germs, they get mugged. And Fon, who has spent the night trying to guess the quiet, shy Kong's job, gets to see first hand his greatest abilities. And she is repulsed.As John Cusack showed us in the magnificent GROSSE POINTE BLANK, a hit-man can find redemption even whilst in the process of doing that which he is being redeemed from. BANGKOK's powerful redemption scene comes as surprisingly as the rest of its scarring adventures in misanthropy.The other most affecting thing about BANGKOK is its original soundtrack, which is credited to Orange Music. We have grown so inured to Western Civilization's glossy neo-classical John Williamses and Hans Zimmers and Danny Elfmans that it is a welcome jarring evocative earful when exposed to people who have not been exposed to them.A rape, a revenge, a setup, a hit gone wrong. An eye for an eye.When Fon realizes she digs the bad guy, it is too late. The Pangs have packed up, moved to America and scored funding to remake their own movie with a bad mullet...--Review by Poffy The Cucumber.

After the mess of the remake I figured I owed it to the Pang brothers to at least see what they had done originally before messing it up – or perhaps seeing that they never had anything in the first place and that maybe the remake just reflected that. The first thing that will hit you watching the original after the remake will be the change in the three central characters, as here we have the roles and interaction changed around a bit and working better in this orientation than with Nicholas Cage's version. Now, I am conscious that there is an in-built pressure on me to like this film more than the remake simply because it is the "original" and is a foreign language film, but the fact of the matter is that the 1999 film is superior to the remake.However, and those having seen the 2008 film will back me up on this, that is not saying a great deal and it does not read then that this film is brilliant. It is not brilliant but it does do what the remake didn't manage to do, which was to have a certain amount of story that I cared about and to wrap it up in a style that covers the weaknesses. This is helped by the character dynamics, which work much better with the three or four characters inhabiting the roles they do (ie the "deaf/mute" thing is much better with the assassin than with the girl). It isn't perfect though but it works and I was reasonably engaged by the characters even if the plot was straightforward enough. Those looking for Woo-style action will be disappointed; there is gun-play of course but it is not really designed to thrill or excite. What the brothers do do well though is visual style, which is mostly quite engaging and energising, even if they overdo the sentimentality really badly at the end.The cast are better here as well, mainly because they fit their characters and make their interactions work. Mongkolpisit's Kong is an effective presence on the screen, which he needed to be in order for his condition to work. Intrakanchit is good but given a lot less to do than I expected. What really helps the film is that the two female roles are quite good. Ratanasopha's sweetness and natural warmth comes through and thus convinces you of her falling in love with Kong – something that the corresponding roles in the remake never did. Timkul's Aom is strong and sexy even if she is more of a plot device than a character in the film.Overall this is not a brilliant film that deserves to be shouted about but it is still an engaging and effective film thanks to a solid story, good performances and good delivery from the Pang Brothers. It has its faults but the strengths cover these up pretty well to make for a film that only really blows it by how heavy handed it is in the final few minutes. Oh, for those moaning that they accidentally hired this instead of the remake – trust me, you've much, much better off.

okay, this was my first thai movie. the nick cage flick is out now and evidently fading fast. i wanted to see the original. i picked this up at suncoast. funny, they had it prominently displayed for those dumb folks who would snatch it up thinking it was the remake. i really hate how movie companies try to take advantage of the people. but i digress. the movie was not all i would have hoped. it was okay, just. i have seen enough movies by now to know mediocre. old boy now, there is a movie for ya! if you are reading this and like Asian cinema, run out and buy/rent/borrow/steal old boy. bangkok dangerous, well, it barely held my interest. it was awfully amateurish, i thought. a deaf mute hit-man was a nice idea. i wanted to slap that guy though to get him to communicate better with people. he just stood there. no "i am a deaf mute" cards or anything. he wasn't stupid, he could read and write. i liked the girlfriend of the deaf guy's buddy. she was hot. the guy, joe, had an interesting look too. anyway, not what i thought it was gonna be. it didn't stink but not the ass kickery i had hoped for.

I rented this movie not really expecting much jus a shoot em up crappy Asian flick. But as soon as the movie started i was amazed by the way the camera moved and colors used.The film also introduced some great acting. The actor known in the movie as "JO" was a great supporting actor.The only flaw I saw in this film was the way they tried to mix to many elements together at once. For example, the 20 minute cut of Kong and Fon going out to have a good time. That segment could have been condensed.OK my rating for this film... 6 1/2 out of 10 suggestion...good Friday rental =D