Sorry, this movie sucks

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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.

It's pretty obvious the Pang brothers has been reading way too many Asian comic books, because the style of this movie is like some lame and mainly boring comic book with flashes of somewhat good. It's basically a low budget film that is mediocre at best that tries to be cool like some Asian comic book. Just about everything about this movie is pretty generic, except the hit-man in this is deaf. With it's plot of seeking redemption while living amongst death and violence. Everything is this if your a movie vet, you probably seen already except much better although I give the film props for capturing everything it had to it's advantage. It's basically a generic film that is getting more hype than it really deserve, if the film took place in the US instead of Bangkok people would not be so generous to it, although Bangkok is much more dangerous in some areas compared to the US. And if your looking for a HK style shoot em up or a engaging action movie you will be disappointed, this film is uneven at times as well.6.2/10

Besides the action and fun gun fights and the awesome training montage there's another subplot. Love! It sound dorky, but I totally felt for Kong (the main guy) who falls for this pharmacy girl and they start dating awkwardly since he can't hear or talk. She guesses his job is a gas-station man, but he mistakes her "words" for hit-man and he nods. Later when they get jumped by thugs and he saves her by shooting them she freaks out and leaves him. He just saved you! Stupid chick! So he gets depressed and goes back into the hit-man world... Overall a fun slow-action movie that is great for passing time and has a little bit for everyone. Some blood from the fighting, but it's nothing dreadful.

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.