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Dodging Bullets in the 2-Disc DVD World of Bangkok Dangerous
by Reg Seeton
Straight up, as a fan of Asian action movies, I have to say that I didn't have high expectations for the Americanized version of Bangkok Dangerous. After falling in love with the Pang brothers' original film from 2000, which helped to put Thai cinema on the map, it was hard to wrap my brain around how a remake could retain the same gritty intensity of the original. But the one thing that did raise my eyebrows was the fact that sibling directors Danny and Oxide Pang were behind the camera to remake their own film. Given the fact that Asian moviegoers view films and characters in a different light than American audiences, I was curious to see how the Pang brothers could reboot their own movie for the North American market. After watching the wave of Asian remakes in recent years (action, martial arts, and horror), I walked away from Bangkok Dangerous with the same feeling I've had with a lot of other remakes - that it's foolish to think that just because a foreign movie works in the U.S. that it can be remade as an American movie and retain the same magic.
 Although the original Bangkok Dangerous centered on a deadly assassin who was a deaf mute, the stateside version sees Nicolas Cage step into the role of Joe, a burned out hit man with all of his senses who travels to Thailand to carry out one final hit and kill four people before he retires. Once in Thailand, Joe takes on a sidekick and goes on a killing spree but ends up becoming the hunted while getting whacked by the love bug when he meets a cute, deaf and mute young pharmacist. And this is the very tie-in to the differences of audience expectations and requirements. Obviously shifting the deaf, mute persona from the hit man character in the original to the female in the new version was a byproduct of the perception that the film would work better in the U.S. if the love interest was more sympathetic. It's a decision that ultimately turned the film into a house of cards.
Does it work as compared to the original film? Despite my curiosity, it doesn't, because it takes away from the intense subtlety of the assassin's silence as a deaf mute and the unique human layers of a killer who can't speak or hear his victims. To some degree it's similar to why the original Terminator worked so well as a character. In the remake of Bangkok Dangerous, more focus is placed on the toll the life of an assassin has taken on Cage's character and his newfound sense of love as he's one step away from a normal life. As a result, Joe's remote and reflective nature on a life of killing isn't as interesting under the traditional American hit man umbrella. As compared to the original film, this is where the 2008 Bangkok Dangerous lives and dies. The original assassin as a deaf mute should have been preserved. The lack of dialogue would not only have shown Nicolas Cage in a new light and surprised a lot of people, but it would have given Cage something new to work with as an actor.
But that's not to say Danny and Oxide Pang don't keep up their end of the bargain in terms of visual style and execution of the murderous action. Although the story flips the deaf mute identity, much of the original Bangkok Dangerous is intact. It's just Americanized in a way that you'd expect from a similar movie. When there's a hail of gunfire to be had beyond Joe the assassin roaming Bangkok, having dinner and reflecting on life, the Pangs deliver. Also, the brothers make good on the film's action sequences via a few traditional Asian motorbike chases, a floating market footrace, and a few more bloody and grisly scenes, which includes an unexpected severed body part. It's the style of the Pang brothers in the way they handle their own remake that's most interesting over the remastered substance.
 Now out on DVD as a 2-Disc Special Edition, with the second disc containing a digital copy for download, Bangkok Dangerous does give fans decent but brief insight into the decisions surrounding the remake, the unique qualities of filming in Bangkok, and the differences between two locations of Asian cinema via two featurettes - "Bangkok Dangerous: Executing the Film" and "From Hong Kong to Bangkok: A Look at Hong Kong Cinema" - and an interesting alternate ending that can now be stacked up against both the remake and the original. Although Bangkok Dangerous didn't become the hit in theaters that some people were hoping it would be, mainly due to the change in direction of the lead character, and doesn't quite pack a huge punch on DVD, the film works much better on the home entertainment market where fans can hunt it down on their own.
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