After the past couple weeks, I've almost finally gotten through the huge stack of movies I accumulated during the closing of a Blockbuster Video store. Actually I only have one movie left in the stack, that being Thirst (the Park Chan-Wook vampire flick). Of course, I still have the Ringu anthology that I bought BEFORE I got all those movies, not to mention my copy of Rambo that doesn't work (along with my buddy's copy that I might burn instead). Oddly enough, I had decided to put off watching both versions of Bangkok Dangerous until this past week for whatever reason, despite getting both movies early on in my period of plundering the Blockbuster shelves. And yes, for those who are just starting to read this blog and/or had no prior idea, Bangkok Dangerous starring Nicolas Cage is in fact a remake of a Thai movie made almost a decade earlier. Honestly, I think I had only a vague recollection of this and it completely slipped my mind until I went to Blockbuster and found just one copy of the original sitting on the shelf (compared to the 20+ copies of the Hollywood version that they were practically handing out at $3.99). Immediately upon seeing them both, I got the idea to watch them both back-to-back and figure out what, if any, differences there were.
Even though I haven't heard too many good things about the Hollywood version, I decided to start off with that version first, not to start right off the bat with a negative slant to the review but because of the familiarity factor. You see, even though I've seen my fair share of Asian and other foreign cinema and have grown quite accustomed to reading subtitles in a movie, there's still quite a bit of a "learning curve", if you will, regarding watching these movies. Usually it feels like I don't have a grasp on the characters and who's playing who until about the 20-30 minute mark, which usually makes me feel like quite the moron when I go into a movie and can't immediately figure out who the lead actor is supposed to be. At least with the Hollywood version, I can just go "Ok, that's Nicolas Cage. Got it." and move on. But I will admit right away that between my disdain for useless remakes and my interest in Nicolas Cage being solely based on novelty value, the Hollywood version wasn't going to be starting out on the right foot.
So the American version starts off with Nic Cage playing the part of Joe, a professional hitman that has decided to finish up a series of 4 hits in Thailand then "get out of the game"...and already you can probably see where this movie is going. Upon arrival, he recruits some help in the form of Kong, a streetwise punk, who basically acts as gopher, picking up the packets detailing the hits and bringing them back to Joe. After Kong gets beat up by a couple of guys he owes money to and almost blows a pick-up, Joe decides to take Kong under his wing and train him to become an assassin himself...even though Joe almost always works alone and usually kills his errand boys when the jobs are done. Already, you can tell this is getting a bit formulaic. Kong falls in love with Aom, a dancer at a night club who acts as the liaison between Joe and Kong and the organization ordering these jobs, which of course ends up jeopardizing the whole operation. To make things worse, Joe ends up falling in love with a deaf girl working at a pharmacy (which I'll get into later) so of course Joe's mind isn't fully on the job and he gets sloppy, which is only made worse by Kong wanting to get some poontang. And really, that's about it. I could go on but I would pretty much be describing the same assassin archetype that's been done a couple thousand times already, and better might I add. That's not to say that Bangkok Dangerous is entirely bad. Sure, it's not really "good" but I didn't want to strangle my DVD player in anger. It's just there. You know everything that's going to happen as you watch it so why bother? It gets so formulaic that after Joe goes through with his third hit (which he almost screws up and has to do it out in the open instead of covertly as usual, even though no one calls him out on it and he's seemingly in no danger of being caught for some reason), Joe and Kong are watching a news speech from some high-ranking official and Kong tells Joe "He's a good guy, takes care of the bad guys, like you" so OF COURSE HE'S TOTALLY NOT GOING TO BE THE FOURTH TARGET AT ALL! But he is (shock of shockers) and Joe backs out at the last second and instead goes after the guy ordering the hits (who of course has already kidnapped Kong and Aom by now) leading up to the final showdown. Hell if I could tell you everything that happened though as I decided to watch the last half while writing up my last blog entry. In the end, you may not have seen Bangkok Dangerous itself, but you have seen this movie a couple times already because it just does the exact same thing every other movie dealing with assassins has.
Like I said, Bangkok Dangerous isn't "bad"...at least not during the action scenes or anything having to do with being a hitman. But the movie completely falls apart when the subplot of Nicolas Cage falling in love with the deaf pharmacist starts up. It's so goddamn funny because throughout the entire movie, Joe acts with the precision of a cold-blooded killer who knows his job inside and out and knows better than to let anyone get close or else jeopardize the job and his own life. But when Joe meets this girl, he literally turns retarded due to Nicolas Cage's trademark acting style of doing the most nonsensical things at the most inopportune times. Seriously, I'd imagine if Nic Cage taught acting, it'd go something like this: Lesson #1 - Fuck subtlety! Lesson #2 - Go broke from buying castles and dinosaur skulls. I mean, it starts out innocently enough. After a hit where Joe gets cut while getting away on his motorcycle, he goes to the drug store and gets something for it, where he falls for this stunningly cute pharmacist, who just so happens to be deaf. Even Joe trying to work around this barrier is pretty sweet. But when he goes up to the counter to pay for his medicine, he spends the entire scene standing still and ogling at her with the most dead-eyed stare possible. I'm half-tempted to go back and see if he was literally drooling. No one can act as awkward as Nicolas Cage can because I'm convinced that no one is literally as awkward as Nicolas Cage, not even me. And later on, he goes back to the drug store to ask her out but is nervous so he chills out by a nearby food stand only to freak out and practically run inside when he finds out they're crushing scorpions into the food. I get that Joe is supposed to have been a hitman all of his life and thus might not know how to fully interact with people when he spends more time killing them. But how the hell am I supposed to believe that a man who guns down people in cold blood for cold hard cash is mildly freaked out by scorpions and deathly afraid of asking a girl out? I mean, I have major problems asking girls out but I'd imagine my self-confidence would've multiplied by about 1000x after the first time I shot someone and didn't get arrested for it. Hell, I'd probably work it into my pickup line! And it's not like Joe gets more comfortable the more time he spends with the girl. If anything, he gets more awkward, though I guess some of that is attributed to him wanting to hide what he really does from her but I think it's more due to the fact that Nicolas Cage would probably lick his feet on-screen if it meant a hefty paycheck at the end.
Anyway, enough about that. Let's move on to the original Bangkok Dangerous, made in 1999. Now, I hope you paid attention because there's quite a bit of difference between the two movies, namely between the characters. In the original, Kong is actually the focus of the movie instead of Joe. Joe is still around as he had actually taught Kong but is a bit washed-up due to having been shot in the hand during a job. And get this, Kong is the deaf person! I'd imagine being a hitman would kinda be a hard job for a deaf-mute to do but OK, let's roll with it. And Kong isn't in love with Aom but instead Aom and Joe had actually been an item before and she wants to get back together but Joe is too steeped in self-pity to give a crap. Aom actually plays a bigger part in the original instead of a piece of eye candy in the American version as she repeatedly turns down the advances of either the son or the right-hand man (I didn't catch which but he's important nonetheless) of the main boss of the assassins organization or whatever you want to call it. Due to being a meathead fighter only thinking with his little head, the guy proceeds to rape Aom, which causes Joe to go berserk and kill him which then results in things going bad for everyone involved. So in this case, its more "crimes of passion" instead of "making stupid decisions" that gets them all into trouble.
Even though all of that stuff is different from the Hollywood version, there is quite a bit that carried over. Kong does fall for a girl working at a pharmacy and it pretty much plays out in the same way, only with the roles reversed and A LOT more sincere considering Nicolas Cage is nowhere to be seen and the fact that it feels more like a deep friendship than a relationship. And after Joe gets killed by the main boss and Kong goes for revenge, the ending is pretty much the same too...only A LOT better (which I'll spoil later on). Remember the point I made about the Hollywood version being so obvious, especially about the part where the high-ranking official that the people love is made out to be the fourth target? That's in the original too but done a lot better. Instead of knowing about it, seeing the love the people had for this guy then backing out at the last second, Kong went into it not knowing anything until AFTER he had killed the guy. So instead of the assassin thinking "This is a good man. Why do I have to kill him?", its the people thinking "That was a good man. Why was he killed?", which I think is a lot more powerful.
Right now, it might seem like I'm praising the original Thai version well over the "evil" Hollywood version but I will say its not perfect. First of all, with it being a fairly low-budget film coming from Thailand (a region not necessarily known for quality films that don't involve people getting knee'd in the face) in 1999, the quality isn't the greatest (especially since my particular DVD copy is full-screen). The grittiness works for the story and all but there are times where it tries to be flashy and doesn't quite pull it off due to budgetary constraints. Also, it doesn't really start off strong either. The first 15-20 minutes are mostly devoted to flashbacks involving Kong and Joe and a good portion of the next half-hour is devoted to Kong's relationship with the pharmacist with some other scenes of the fighter guy trying to get into Aom's pants (in which my "learning curve" kicked in and I failed to see why this guy was so important pretty much until he started raping Aom). So you have to be really invested in this movie as it really doesn't kick into top gear until the second half.
So, in the end, which version of Bangkok Dangerous did I prefer? It goes without saying that I preferred the Thai version, due to the story and the general quality of the whole movie but I can't really recommend it to anyone unless they're already into Asian cinema due it having a pretty slow start. Of course, I don't really recommend the Hollywood version to anyone unless they want a decent time-waster. It bears repeating: Bangkok Dangerous (starring Nicolas Cage!) isn't a bad movie, it's just boring. It's not doing anything that hasn't been done before. Put in just about any movie involving a hitman and you'll get the same effect. And I can't really recommend it as a blockbuster action movie because even the action scenes are kinda "meh". If you really want to see Nicolas Cage act like a goon and don't want to subject yourself to the horrors of The Wicker Man, then I guess Bangkok Dangerous is for you. I just don't know why it was remade, to be honest. Yeah, they made it flashier and more acceptable to an American audience but did it really need to be? They pretty much took the characters, switched them around and diluted the story to it's most base archetype. But the most confusing part about the remake has to be the fact that The Pang Brothers directed BOTH movies! If they really wanted to remake the movie, couldn't they have basically kept it the same? I probably would've liked seeing an old washed-up Nicolas Cage (with a much better hairdo) training a deaf-mute to become an assassin and getting revenge for his raped girlfriend a lot more than what we ended up getting. In the end, Bangkok Dangerous is just another confusing reference to the eternal question: Why bother with remakes, anyway?
***SPOILER - I'M GOING TO SPOIL THE ENDINGS TO BOTH MOVIES SO IF YOU CARE, STOP READING NOW!***
In the American version, Joe says goodbye to his deaf girlfriend and heads off to take down the guy giving him the assassination jobs. He gets to the hideout and guns his way through, saving the kidnapped Kong and Aom, as the head honcho tries to get away. Despite being surrounded by cops, Joe somehow gets into the getaway car with the bad guy, puts their heads together and blows both their brains out with one bullet. End of movie. That's it. No real explanation but you get the feeling that Joe knows his career and life are pretty much over so that's why he did it.
In the Thai version, Kong gives his girlfriend a letter and heads off to take down the head honcho, who is responsible for killing his two best friends, Joe and Aom. He gets to the hideout and guns his way through, despite being deaf as he uses his skills surprisingly well. The bad guy tries to get away but had been shot in the leg so has no one to help him escape. When Kong gets to him, he drags him outside only to find the place surrounded by cops, all the while Kong's girlfriend made it to the scene via a cab. As a narrator reads the contents of Kong's letter, apologizing for all the wrong he's done and all the people he's killed and how he was glad to have met her, Kong puts his head together with the bad guys and blows both their brains out with one bullet. The endings were pretty much the same but the Thai version's is MUCH more powerful.
***SPOILER OUT!***
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