| | | |The Hitman Has Become the Target.
Features: DVD, Special Edition, English, Subtitled, Spanish
As a hired assassin, Joe (Nicolas Cage) is the best in the business, but the years of stone-cold murder have taken their toll. Joe's plan to make this current assignment in Bangkok his last takes a wild turn when he violates one of the most important rules of the game. Now the hunter is the hunted in this hard-driving, action-packed thriller.
"...visually exciting." Betty Jo Tucker, ReelTalk
"The Pang brothers, besides being artisans of action and suspense, tell a good story." John Wirt, The Advocate
"...delivers for action fans." Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter
Editor's Note
The second film from Hong Kong-born twin directors Danny and Oxide Pang to earn a U.S. remake (after 2002's THE EYE), BANGKOK DANGEROUS differs in that, this time around, the brothers are doing the remaking themselves. Swapping Pawalit Mongkolpisit's mute Thai hitman from the original 1999 film for Nicolas Cage's brooding (but talking) American assassin, this version is less moody and stylized. Still, fans of Cage, and action aficionados who favor exotic locales, should find much to chew on in this unique thriller. Following an assignment in Prague, lonely hitman Joe (Cage) arrives in Bangkok under contract to a mobsters who have hired him to kill four people, including a trafficker of young girls and a politician. After seeing young street criminal Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) in action, Joe hires him to be his liaison to his employers. During a trip to a pharmacy to get disinfectant for a wound gotten during a motorcycle chase, Joe meets pretty mute pharmacist Fon (Charlie Young). The two begin to date, and though she is oblivious to his profession, she provides some sweetness in his dangerous, lonely life. Joe also becomes a mentor to young Kong, but these meaningful distractions in his life could prove dangerous to his job. BANGKOK DANGEROUS has an unglamorous slickness that makes it seem as if it could've been made in the late 1980s or early '90s. Cage is appropriately stoic as Joe, and sports a bizarre mane of jet-black hair. The Bangkok locations are effective and the crowded nighttime streets make for exciting chase sequences. The onscreen violence is not exceptionally graphic with the exception of a realistic arm severing, and one sequence of bullets puncturing a boat as seen from underwater is beautifully shot. Most surprising, though, is the film's final sequence, which is uncharacteristic of most American-made action yarns.
| Features | Alternate Ending | | Audio: English DD-EX 5.1 Surround Sound | | Featurettes: From Hong Kong To Bangkok - A Cinematic Movement, & Bangkok Dangerous - The Execution Of The Film | | Includes A Digital Copy Of The Film For Portable Media Players! | | Interactive Menus | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Lions Gate |
| Release Date: 4/28/2009 |
| Running Time: 100 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 24749 | | UPC: 00031398104476 | | Number of Discs: 2 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Reel.com 5 of 10
Oh brother, here we go again. A professional killer, years into his callous career, suddenly develops a conscience. He decides to take a shady street kid who has already proven to be naive and unreliable under his wing. Vowing to end his life of secret crime, he commits to one more series of deadly assassinations. With each murder, he finds himself more and more lost...Oh yeah, and for an added maudlin effect, there's a deaf girl love interest who makes the hitman pine even harder for that elusive, simple life...Why the Pang brothers (Danny and Oxide) wanted to remake their 1999 cult favorite Bangkok Dangerous into a mindless, droning Hollywood hack job has only one viable answer--the interest of former Oscar-winner/current paycheck-casher Nicolas Cage in playing the lead. In his role as Joe, we are treated to Method mediocrity, the kind of performance that finds our systematic slayer following strict protocols and certain succinct rules as a substitute for depth or actual personal dimension...If it didn't feel like such a work of Hollywood hubris and if the original elements that made the first film so intriguing (it was Joe, not the girl, who could not hear) weren't swept aside for more anti-climatic, antiheroic stance, maybe we could support what Bangkok Dangerous was striving to accomplish. But everything here feels like the proverbial sound and fury, filled with typical Asian action film gravitas yet signifying nothing--a whole lot of nothing. - Bill Gibron
The Onion A.V. Club 5 of 10
Nicolas Cage gave legitimately great performances in Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas, Bringing Out The Dead, Red Rock West, Matchstick Men, and Adaptation...Then there are Cage performances that are so giddily, gloriously over the top that they muddy the line separating great from awesomely bad, like Face/Off, Wild At Heart, and Vampire's Kiss. Alas, Cage gives a depressingly awful performance in Bangkok Dangerous, the Pang brothers' DOA remake of their 1999 Thai cult thriller. Burdened with a permanent scowl and dead eyes, Cage never seems to be having any fun. His joylessness proves infectious...Bangkok Dangerous is all about the trappings and iconography of cool. Cage races around Bangkok on motorcycles while decked out in leather and totes an arsenal of guns, but with his receding hairline, terrible dye job, puffy face, and embarrassing haircut, he exudes about as much menace and mystery as a vacationing dad rocking black wool socks with open-toed sandals. Cage emerges as little more than a glowering, humorless cipher. John Woo could transform this kind of blood-splattered pulp into operatic high art, but the Pang brothers confuse style for substance and end up delivering neither. Dimly lit, emotionally empty, and devoid of thrills, Bangkok Dangerous should disappoint Cage fans looking for Wicker Man-style camp thrills just as thoroughly as action buffs looking for a passable thriller. It's never close to good, and it can't even get bad right. - Nathan Rabin
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