Starring: Nicolas Cage, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Charlie Yeung, Panward Hemmanee

Directed by: The Pang Brothers

Lions Gate Entertainment

The Official Site of Bangkok Dangerous

Discuss Bangkok Dangerous on the boards!

I'm going to say off the bat that I'm a big Nicolas Cage fan. I love that he's made a balanced career of actor's dream roles and action-packed guy movies, all while staying relevant and interesting. I look at his career sometimes though and think, "Well, the guy is just playing the percentages. He does like three movies a year, one of them is bound to connect with audiences. But what of the leftovers?"

Those leftover projects that don't connect with anyone set a standard for Cage. With the good come the bad and we should expect that, anticipate it, prepare ourselves for the "in-between" Nicolas Cage projects. To be honest, I'm surprised he's escaped Direct-to-DVD status as long as he has. If his latest, Bangkok Dangerous, a Americanized remake about a Western assassin in an Eastern world, showed up on a shelf at Best Buy instead of movie theatres across America, I wouldn't have been surprised at all. Just from the trailers it reeked like an in between project, and I set my bar of expectation accordingly. (Here comes the big "but…")

However… (Ooo, it's a fancy "but" too) Bangkok Dangerous surprised me with a lot of style. It's a movie that moves well, is told with sophistication and will absolutely win you over with its atmosphere. That may be an odd quality to be "winning", but its short comings disappear behind remarkable camera work, composition, transition and lighting. While the film takes few risks with audiences expectations of the kind of storytelling and action one would normally associate with a movie like Bangkok Dangerous, they more than make up for it with a level of style you wouldn't normally associate with "just another Nic Cage action movie." The twin brother's behind the camera are the real deal. Watch out Hollywood.

Bangkok Dangerous is a How-To guide on becoming a killer for pay. Cage plays Joe (great name, but that's not important because he's) a solemn hitman who lives a life of solitude and dedication. The movie finds Joe taking on one last series of jobs to collect a big payday and get out of the line of work while the getting is good. Along the way he recites rules to us and narrates the dos and don'ts of his lifestyle. Do what your told, don't ask questions, don't get attached, know when to get out. Basically a series of self fulfilling profiles that you know will come back and bite him in the ass eventually. It would be a pretty lame movie though if they didn't.

In mistake number one Joe ends up befriending a local named Kong who Joe hired as an errand boy during his time in Bangkok. Kong learns too much about why Joe is really there but he shows interest so Joe takes him on as a student. This lends well towards the "How To" guide and more importantly has you questioning Joe's state of mind and Kong's true intentions. Is he really expendable street scum or an undercover cop digging up dirt on a the new himtan in town? The movie will have you asking the right questions but all the answers aren't as predictable as the movie's set-up.

Kong is played by a man named Shahkrit Yamnarm who is fantastic. A Thai hero just waiting to happen. Get this kid to Hollywood and make him a star.

For the most part, Dangerous moves along pretty well but is not without its distractions. For instance, did we really need the unexpected romance with the deaf Taiwanese clerk? Nothing says, "awkward first date" like a double language barrier and a 15 year age different. The romance was sudden but really rounds out the character well despite slowing things down here and there. It works in the grander scheme of things but distracts you from the real reason you bought the movie ticket to begin with, to watch Nic Cage shoot some random dudes!

The action is a little plain but it looks great. What really got to me though is that Joe is kind of a piss poor Hitman. In every encounter he's forced to improvise and ends up changing his plans in order to take out his target. It's a worthy skill to have, to be able to spin on your heel and complete such a dangerous task in an unexpected way, but it kind of goes against what a contract killer is all about. A hitman should be precise. They should get in, do the job and get out, having planned for every variable and error. It would make for a much less interesting movie but why should we respect a man that can't do his job properly. (I say that half jokingly.)

My one complaint of the hits is that they could have used a little more planning in the writing stage. They're eerie and sort of morbidly romantic if that makes any sense, but they're not complicated. To impress the savvy audiences these days you have to show them something they've never seen before, and the majority of the action in Bangkok Dangerous is point and click (or "point and shoot" in this case.) It's certainly forgivable, but Dangerous is already flirting with greatness, a hit that we don't see coming could have sealed the deal.

(In this thread on the boards I discuss some of the movies spoilers including a couple of excessively gory action moments. Did they take things to far? Did it not fit with the rest of the film? If you've seen the movie I'd love to hear your thoughts, but the rest of you should tread softly. There are MAJOR spoilers in that thread.)

In the case of Bangkok Dangerous style wins over substance. I'll forgive the solid but basic story for the world it's set in. A lot of reviews have mentioned the gritty blue tones that blanket the film, but if you can see beyond that there's a gorgeous film to be found. At the end of the day it is just another Nicolas Cage action movie. The real surprise was that it's one of the good ones.

Rating: 7 out of 10 - A nice surprise. This is a movie that looked to be nothing spectacular, but ended up impressing me in a very unexpected way.

I'll more than likely pick up Bangkok on DVD but to be honest it's the original version (also directed by the Pang Brothers) that I'm interested in checking out to see how it measures up. It used to be that remaking imported scripts from Asia was frowned upon. Specifically the Asian horror craze kicked off by the Americanization of The Ring and The Grudge, but after The Departed showed us that that corner of the world had a couple wicked crime thrillers up its sleeve, I say keep 'em coming. At the very least we've been introduced to a new batch of talent. The Pang Brothers should do well over here, and if I have to buy a DVD to help them get their next gig - so be it.

Okay, over the months since I first saw the trailer for this movie the title Bangkok Dangerous has had some time to grow on me, but on first impression - come on, admit it - It’s kind of silly. It’s like naming a movie New York Fantastic or Topeka Windy! As I said though I’ve gotten used to it as a title and when it came time to see the movie tonight, what they decided to call it was the last thing on my mind. I wish I could say the same thing for Nic Cage’s hair.

I’m not a big fan of “the hair discussion�, though it seems to be a more and more valid one as time goes on. If you really take a look back though, the guy has made a career on bad hair from Razing Arizona to Moonstruck to Peggy Sue got Married to Con Air where he actually made a dirty mullet look kind of cool. Over the last couple of years his hair has taken on an unnatural quality. It’s obviously not fake, but something just isn’t right. Yeo and I have narrowed it down to this - he shaves his sideburns past the natural level. That combined with his recent tendency to dye it all one color makes it look like one solid piece wrapped around his head and tucked behind the ears.

I can understand adapting certain looks for certain roles and I’m certainly not one to talk when it comes to bad hair in public, but I’m not exactly in the public eye either. I don’t ask people to pay to look at me for an hour and a half. It’s distracting. We shouldn’t have to spend 15 minutes getting used to the look while the movie takes off without us.

I’m a fan so I’ll pretty much go to any Cage movie no matter what his head looks like. Half an inch of sideburn would go a long way though. That’s all I’m saying.

This image of Cage’s hair being replaced by a bird is really well done and definitely got a laugh out of me when I first saw it a couple months back. I decided to do my own version of it for today’s vote incentive. Different animal, and it’s a quick sketch instead of a Photoshop project, but I hope it can still give you a chuckle.

Just a quick note. In yesterday's comic I drew a picture of myself as a thanksgiving hand turkey and encouraged others to do the same. Well a thread has been created with a hand octopus as the first post. If you're feeling creative don't be shy, lets see some hand-art!

That’s all for now, have a great weekend gang.