Kong is a deaf-mute hitman who lives with his partner and mentor Joe in Bangkok, assassinating people and minding their own business. He's also friends with his partner's former girlfriend Aom, a girl who works as a stripper at a local club and that is who he gets his assignments from. One day a local gangster develops and eye for Aom and rapes her, something that Joe can't just leave be and goes out to seek out the gangsters and avenge her. But when extracting his revenge it also gets him killed, and now Kong in his turn has to avenge his friend.
I've been wanting to write about this movie for a long time but haven't gotten around to do it until now. The reason why I wanted to write about Bangkok Dangerous is because, first off, it's one of my all-time fave Asian movies and secondly because I feel that it has not gotten the attention it so deserves. The story is quite simple and is really nothing that special, but the biggest reason why this movie gets the highest rating is because it really makes you feel something, and it's very hard not to get deeply involved when watching it.
The Pang Brother's has made some really great flicks like The Eye and Ab-normal Beauty, but personally I think Bangkok Dangerous is their best film to date. I know that most people would so not agree with me, and I don't really know exactly why I found this movie to be so extremely good as there are a lot of quite similar Hong Kong flicks out there, but none that makes you care as much about one character as here.
Funny thing is that this guy Kong is such a likable guy. He's a hitman who kills other people that have done him nothing wrong and he's responsible for their deaths. When looking at it like that, he would come out as a pretty bad individual but in the movie he doesn't, he's just extremely likable. To tell the truth, the fact that he's deaf-mute actually makes one feel a little sorry for him and that adds a lot to it as well, but it has more to it than that.
 
During the movie, we get flashbacks of Kong's past and we get to see his fascination with guns and how that later led him to become a hitman. And a true hitman he his, he shows no remorse or any feelings whatsoever when killing people. Been killing for such a long time, he has become immune to it and doesn't seem to think of his actions as something that is wrong, but instead just sees it like a normal routine job. Once again, looking at it like this of course makes Kong look cold and without feelings, something that makes him a bad person, so even though with all this in mind, it's actually quite cool that one still can find him so likable and to be able to see his actions as not so horrible after all.
Bangkok Dangerous is actually a quite standard action movie that is fairly predictable and that does not have any really clever twists. There are some strong scenes but the violence and the killings are not that graphical or the least hard to sit through. So it's not an original movie and if you're familar with John Woo and Wong Kar Wai you'll recognize a lot of the same elements used in flicks by them. I think a lot of John Woo movies are great, stylish, funny and most of all super entertaining. But Bangkok Dangerous separates itself from those kind of movies and has a bit more real feeling to it than just being brutally entertaining with nice action scenes. What makes Bangkok Dangerous interesting and makes it stand out more are the characters and especially Kong.
Pawalit Mongkolpisit (try to say that fast five times in a row) does an excellent job portraying the deaf-mute hitman and looking at him one way he's a cold fellow, but looking at him in another way he's a real guy with feelings who cares for the people he loves and that makes him human. These two sides of the character are really interesting and even though he has a bad side, in the end the good side makes up for it.
For instance, he meets this girl who works at a pharmacy and the movie suddenly takes a romantic and almost cute turn, but still stays interesting. Here we get to see a new side of him and how being a hitman makes him very different. Also since he's a deaf-mute, the dialogue between him and the girl is very different and adds a hell of a lot of feeling to the movie. This romantic part of the movie is fantastic and makes you feel even more sympathy for Kong. Things then take a different turn once again but I don't wanna spoil anything.
The directing is brilliant and the acting is top-notch. It's also great to see a movie like this come out of Thailand as they really need to start making better movies there, lately they have though so that's a good thing. The ending truly delivers and if it hadn't been for the extremely good but quite sad ending, the movie wouldn't have gotten the high rating it now got.
If you like Hong Kong action movies you'll probably like Bangkok Dangerous too. Although it might not be as fast-paced as your typical John Woo flick, it still features some really cool action scenes, but most of all it has a lot of real depth and is emotionally quite strong. It has a little of everything and combining relationships and romance with entertaining action and violence. Plus it has an ending that really makes it come out looking awesome in the end. A great Thai flick that should not be missed.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 1999
DIRECTOR: Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
WRITING CREDITS: Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
GENRE: Thriller, Crime, Action, Romance
CAST: Pawalit Mongkolpisit, Premsinee Ratanasopha, Patharawarin Timkul
COUNTRY: Thailand
RUNTIME: 105 min
RATING: 10/10
Bangkok Dangerous Website/IMDB Click here
Bangkok Dangerous Trailer Click here
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