Mar 16 2009
B+ Movie Review: Bangkok Dangerous (1999)
American film makers crib a lot of notes off of the works of other cultures. Reservoir Dogs, which starts with a bunch of criminals in a warehouse after a jewel heist gone wrong has a lot in common with the Chinese film City on Fire, which towards the end has bunch of criminals in a warehouse after a jewel heist gone wrong. Even the film giant that is Star Wars bears a remarkable semblance to the Japanese film The Hidden Fortress. And as you might not have heard of the Asian films I just mentioned, it goes without saying that the Asian inspiration for films in the states doesn’t always get the mention it deserves.So imagine when I found out that when I thought I was recording Nic Cage’s 2008 movie Bangkok Dangerous I was in fact recording a Thai film called Bangkok Dangerous.
A little internet research and found out that Cage’s film was a remake of the Thai movie I’d found on cable. I was happy either way, as the 2008 movie got mediocre reviews but this one I had no warnings about to influence my opinon. So what did I find?
Bangkok Dangerous features a deaf and mute hitman named Kong. He lives a simple life, drinking beer and eating food from street vendors and supporting his best friend Joe, a semi-retired hitman who has to let jobs pass because he took a bullet through the hand. Joe’s ex-girlfriend Aom is their go between, meeting Kong and Joe at a seedy strip club to hand them their assignments.
The movie takes a lot of efforts to explain to us who these people are, what their life is like and how a deaf kid got into the business of killing people for money. The blood spatters and moral grays are juxtaposed against a believable innocence in Kong’s personality, most apparent as we see him fall in love with someone completely outside his usual world. This part of the movie moves a bit slow, but does a good job of making us care about the characters without letting us forget that they are criminals and thugs.
But this is the sort of story that doesn’t move along until something goes wrong.
Aom gets a lot of unwelcome attention from a brutal member of the gang. Joe kills the wrong person. And eventually, Kong has to turn his guns on those who employed him.
I’ve seen more dialogue in some restaurant menus than in this film, but that didn’t hurt it. The director told the story through images and subtleties, taking the full advantage of the visuals to tell us a visual story. Facial expressions and lighting take the place of plot exposition, helping us identify with a main character that lives without sound.
The images we’re shown help accentuate the fact that this is in no way a happy film, sometimes generating disgust and horror with a glimpse in ways other movies do with broad panoramas. One character is the victim of a rape, which we’re shown at first in flashes, a technique that communicates the chaos of the moment so that when later we see it plainly it almost seems redundant.
More morality tale than popcorn flick, Bangkok Dangerous is not an easy movie to watch, but once you commit to it, it brings you into the streets of Bangkok fully and surrounds you with the world the director wants to show you. Sometimes a little slow, sometimes going too far with interesting camera angles, it’s not a perfect film but something that a fan of Asian, Noir or even just gritty cinema can enjoy. For its flaws, it rises only to a B rating in my scale, but a B I give without reservation to a movie I never expected.
