Bangkok Dangerous - Il codice dell'assassino

So what if I can predict what is going to happens, I can do it with most films nowadays - its not about that. Its about making a movie that entertains, and IMHO they have achieved that.

OK, some of the shooting sequences were a bit dodgy and the narration descended into the cliché on occasions but overall I rate this film better then most action films I have seen in recent months.

Cage is solid in his role and so is his side kick. The elephant did a good job too but his role was only in 2 scenes :) So all in all 7 is my vote and it could have been better if not for a few lines of monologue and a couple of silly shootouts across water canisters.

Watch it and make your own mind.

It wasn't bad. Nicholas Cage looked really fat and tired, not his usually fit and tired self, and he played the cold assassin part with ease. But when it went into the 'shy in love assassination teacher that cares about his student and doesn't kill the good guys' part, it kind of felt rushed. I am sure you can see the problem here.

Basically it is a film about a man that rediscovers his soul... then dies from it. Not a fresh thing in Asian movies, but something that the (re)makers of this film bet the Americans will find cool. I, myself, understood the idea, but saw no reason in remaking the Thai movie that had the same idea and add almost nothing to it other than production costs.

Bottom line: sad-good-assassin story, with no twist. If you like stuff like that, watch it. Better than Hell Rider, anyway.

Is it my imagination or has Nicholas Cage been involved in a lot of B-type films the past decade? I pretty much enjoyed this movie, don't get me wrong - but it's still not what you'd call a classy movie, not the kind of film he'd be involved with years ago. Now, he seems to prefer playing total wackos in stories that don't have a lot of credibility.

Here, he's a Joe The Hit-man in Thailand, who falls for Miss Wholesome, and then turns "Rambo" by killing 50 people while en route to saving his protégé. The only thing not a cliché was the ending; that was a bit of a shocker.

Shahkrit Yamnarm costars as "Kong," a man who becomes "Joe's" student. He's the one Joe saves. Charlie Yeung, a winsome Hong Kong actress who is almost 35 years of age but could pass for 21, plays Joe's love interest. Get this: she's a pharmacist, beautiful and wholesome as they come, and a deaf-mute! Yet, sleazy Joe sweeps her off her feet in no time!

Man, you have to really enjoy the stylish visuals and sound (which ARE very good), the pretty good.....and leave it at that, to enjoy this movie. It's better to just watch it with your brain on hold and enjoy it, because if you start thinking about it, the film gets dumb and dumber.

Bangkok Dangerous comes to viewers who approach it on DVD with a stigma. Matter of fact, it just kind of came and went when it played in theaters for a few weeks in September of 2008, around that time (i.e. Labor Day weekend) when few movies really do well with audiences or critics. It looks like it will be garbage just from the video cover: a half interested Nicolas Cage in damn-ridiculous hair (basically a Muppet called and wants its body back), and with a premise that sounds just like it is, a remake of an action movie from years back. But going into the movie my expectations were altered within some minutes. The initial thought was 'well, this will just be another hackneyed, predictable action movie in the Asian setting of Bangkok and stuck with what I call 'genericitis, which means a movie suffers from its perpetual sense of the usual... and in ways the movie is that.

It also surprised me with a few things, and it actually made me take the movie seriously as an actual piece of work as opposed to something to deride with teeth gnashed like Ghost Rider. Nicolas Cage is trying for something a little different here. At first, yes, it may look like he's bored, or wooden, or both in the character of "Joe" the hit-man who has his four rules and, naturally, breaks at least a few of them during the run time of the movie in Bangkok (i.e. be anonymous, don't make connections with people you don't know, and know when to quit), but this gives way to something else. He's trying for nuance and observation, of being subtle in a role that should call for it (albeit Joe isn't a terribly interesting person save for his detachment). While he's definitely no Alain Delon when it comes to playing cold killer who may have a couple of portions of humanity in him, I actually did find myself being drawn into the character just based on Cage's projection of this detachment as a means to hide himself away from people. And for good reason, since he's not a "people person" really.

That is until Joe meets 'Kong', who is a guy he hires for work but then takes on as his pupil (as the narration dutifully and unnecessarily tells us, because he sees something in Kong), and then also a romantic interest in a deaf-mute girl who works at a pharmacy. The latter scenes especially were touching because of it becoming a kind of silent movie, perhaps by default, when the two of them were together, and there's a rather sad, painful scene later on in the film between the two that is shockingly good and believable. I even liked the actors who played Kong and the girl, and how their characters unfolded in the story, limited as they might be... and yet, that old bastard cliché and convention kept coming back, more-so into the action scenes and set-pieces; whenever a chase happens in the film (save for one moment involving an arm dismemberment) you can zone out and not miss much. The editing is that kind of fast- kinetic style where you can barely take in a shot before it goes whizzing by. There's also some scenes that are ludicrous that are taken dead-serious, such as when Cage's Joe practically has gills and drowns a man underwater without any trouble.

It's really a matter of the plot just not giving anything much for the characters or actors to do. And yet there is a misconception that becomes apparent; this is much more about the characters than the plot, at least for a while, and when it sticks to that the Pang brothers sense of cinematic style, of the love of dirty Bangkok and elephants, works and is enjoyable. When the story comes back though, particularly in the last twenty minutes when Joe makes a fatal choice, it turns into something else - something frustratingly forgettable. For a short while there is hope, which is nice, until it reverts to what the expectation foretold. It's truly a mixed-bag, but far from the failure that was projected by the reviews and audience reaction... Oh, and of course, try not to look at Cage's hair. The bad jokes would never end. 5.5/10

"Bangkok Dangerous" isn't a bad film – or at least not as bad as most of the reviews around here claim – but it is an astonishingly ordinary film that features literally every cliché of "hired assassin" concept you can possibly think of. There's the lonely and super-skilled hit man who intents to pull of one last job before quitting the business for good, he teaches his errand boy to become his successor, finds love and happiness with a girl for the first time and – last but not least – refuses to make the final hit because his target is a noble individual. We know this is the prototypic pitch of every thriller in its type, yet we still pay the full price of a cinema ticket because the film stars Nicolas Cage and we'll probably see a lot of spectacular action and virulent gunfire. "Bangkok Dangerous" is a big-budgeted remake of a Thai thriller released in 1999, which was also directed by the Pang brothers. In the original, the hit man was a deaf-mute but since Nicolas Cage is far too expensive to have him shut up the whole time, they made his love interest a deaf-mute instead. Unfortunately, this takes away the one truly ingenious aspect about the original. What remains is a painfully predictable and bland thriller that can't even be saved by the handful of impressively staged action sequences. Still I wouldn't call "Bangkok Dangerous" a complete waste of time, though, as there are a couple of stylish and worthwhile – albeit less obvious – elements working in its favor. Nic Cage gives a good performance as the unworldly killer and particularly the Pang Bros' depiction of the city of Bangkok is deeply enchanting. Especially at night it looks like a melancholic and depressing place infested with prostitution, petty crimes and perverted tourists. The moody soundtrack emphasizes the atmosphere of melancholy even more. This is definitely not a film that'll increase the tourist business there. Otherwise there's very little to say about "Bangkok Dangerous". If you're a fan of Nicolas Cage and rough action, you won't regret giving this one a look. Just realize you'll have completely forgotten about it the next day.