Mark Patterson
English 1102
Professor Manuel Perez Tejada
April 21, 2009
The Pang Brothers and “Bangkok Dangerous”: Lost in Translation?

The Pang brothers, Danny Pang Fat and Oxide Pang Chun, are twin brother film writer-directors from Hong Kong. Born in 1965, the pair entered the movie industry separately at first. Oxide began his film career as a color grader, working on films in Thailand as Danny began as an editor in Hong Kong. Soon thereafter, Oxide directed his first major film, “Who is Running,” in 1997 in Thailand. At the Academy Awards in 1998, “Who is Running” was Thailand’s entry for the category of “Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film.” The two first came together as a directorial team for 1999’s “Bangkok Dangerous,” which was Danny’s first crack at directing on a large scale. The two did not disappoint, as “Bangkok Dangerous” was a hit and was nominated for “Best Film” and “Best Editing” at the 2000 Thailand National Film Association Awards, along with winning the International Film Critics’ award at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. Soon thereafter, the rights to a remake were purchased by Saturn Films, a production company owned by Nicolas Cage, and the remake was produced to a wide release on September 5, 2008.

The original “Bangkok Dangerous” was released in Thailand on November 1, 1999 and was initially shown in the United States on March 31, 2001. It is the story of a gunman known only as “Kong” who is an assassin-for-hire who happens to be deaf and mute. While this would seem to be an obstacle for a hit man, it actually partially serves in Kong’s favor as he neither speaks to his victims nor hears their cries for mercy before he ends their lives. His disability also allows him to avoid reacting to the sounds of gunshots around him, as he cannot hear them. Kong is friends with a girl named Aom, who is a stripper for the mob boss that Kong works for as a hit man. Aom’s ex-boyfriend, Joe, is Kong’s best friend, and also the hit man who initially trained Kong in the art of shooting in the first place. Kong meets and eventually falls in love with a girl named Fon, who works as a pharmacist in a drugstore and is inherently extremely innocent. Kong begins to question his lifestyle upon his initial romantic thoughts about Fon as they bring about emotions inside him that he didn’t know even existed. Joe is eventually murdered, and Kong takes out his full wrath on the mob that once employed him.
The American remake of “Bangkok Dangerous” is highly similar to the original on the surface. There is a main character who is a deaf mute, there are acquaintances who are named Kong and Joe, and the basic plotline is intact. This is where the similarities end. In the remake, Nicolas Cage plays the lead as an assassin named Joe, who is white and is assumed to be American. He recruits a young street thug in Bangkok by the name of Kong to be his errand-boy while he is in the city carrying out four assassinations as a hired gun of a gang lord named Surat. Kong’s relationship with Joe only exists due to Joe’s reluctance to meet with the mob himself, as he does not want his face to be seen by Surat or any of his henchmen. Joe carries out the initial three assassinations with relatively few problems, and in the meantime begins to train Kong to be an assassin himself.
Meanwhile, Kong begins to take become attracted to Surat’s messenger to Joe, Aom, who is a stripper at a club that Surat owns. Also, Joe begins to have a romantic interest in a deaf mute pharmacist named Fon. Joe then gets ready to execute his last assassination in the country, which happens to be the Prime Minister of Thailand. Joe has second thoughts and does not kill him. Surat responds by kidnapping Aom and Kong, and Joe eventually raids Surat’s compound, killing all of his henchmen and eventually killing Surat and himself with a single bullet, committing suicide and rescuing Kong and Aom.

Hollywood’s influence on the remake is obvious. The lead character being able to speak in the remake takes away a lot of the character from the first movie. Most of the plot was built around his disability and this lacking inherently retracts from the movie, rather than adding to it. Changes like these take much of the local character away from the movie, as the directors were obviously forced to change a lot of their script from the original, and therefore are simply catering to the Hollywood executives rather than attempting to create the film that they originally intended. While Hollywood’s increased budgets may increase the quality of the filmmaking, the storytelling from local films is inherently unmatched due to the writers having the ability to fine-tune the narrative to be whatever their creative vision wants it to be.
The increased budget of the film also allows for much better sets than the original. As stated in The Times Online, “The Pang brothers take full advantage of their Hollywood budget to paint Bangkok skyscrapers in shimmering midnight blues” (Christopher 1). The original “Bangkok Dangerous,” while having decent sets and colors, simply cannot hold a candle to the remake in this area of focus. Where the remake has vibrant colors to represent the streetlights of the Bangkok nightlife and very deep hues to represent the dark nature of the protagonist’s profession, the original has very dull coloring and is not nearly as beautiful. This is almost certainly due to the massively increased budget of the Hollywood version.
However, the cinematographic feel and mise-en-scene, as opposed to the quality of the actual colors themselves, takes a stark move in the opposite direction. Where in the original “Bangkok Dangerous” the movements of the cameras and actors seemed like they were purposeful and suspenseful, the remake seems methodical and easily predictable. As stated in The New Yorker, “It would be heartening to report that the Pangs inject new blood into the action movie, a noble genre now verging on the anemic. But Hollywood and the television industry have long since sucked what they require from the tropes and rhythms of Asian films, and parts of “Bangkok Dangerous,” far from seeming unfamiliar or freshly stylized, offer nothing that you couldn’t catch in an episode of “CSI” (Lane 1). Simply put, the Pang brothers seemingly did not put as much effort into the remake as they put into the original. Their choices in lighting in the remake were extremely dark and at points so dim that they were almost non-existent, and the feel of the original is far superior due to the increased effort to make every shot appear as best as it possibly could. In reference to the original, one critic states, “The Pangs have the eye of born filmmakers: Bangkok Dangerous is stylishly shot” (Johanson 1). This concerted effort to be stylish and cutting-edge caused the original to flow better as a movie, rather than seeming choppy and forceful as the remake tends to do. Also hindering the newer version was the presence of Nicolas Cage. Inserted among a plethora of Asian actors of a lesser pedigree, Cage’s performance nonetheless seemed to hinder the performances of his co-stars throughout the film. As stated in The New York Times, “Little [acting] is asked of Mr. Cage in “Bangkok Dangerous,” which finds him furrowing his brow, speaking in low, dispirited tones and watching his stunt double zip around killing people on a motorcycle” (Lee 1).

The Pang Brothers’ initial thoughts when offered the opportunity to remake this movie could not possibly have drifted in the direction of what the newer version actually became. While Danny and Oxide certainly wanted to be able to update their first feature film together with all of the tools and toys that Hollywood dollars can offer, they ended up completely butchering their prized film in the process. Michael Ordona of The Los Angeles Times states, “The two movies share a title, directors, character names – and little else” (Ordona 1). While all of the aforementioned Hollywood amenities could easily have turned “Bangkok Dangerous” into something extremely special, the fact that Nicolas Cage was inserted into the lead role, which caused the character to not be deaf or mute, completely killed any semblance of similarity that the remake had to the original. This one change, simply used in order to try and attract more viewers around the globe, caused the “remake” to take a total swan dive and turn into something different altogether.
Overall, the original “Bangkok Dangerous” came off as an extremely well-made crime thriller which, despite its faults, still came across the way it was intended and was very thought-provoking and entertaining to watch. The Hollywood remake was, simply put, a lackadaisical attempt to improve upon something that simply didn’t need any sort of improvement, as it was fine the way it was. Also, there is so much in the new version of “Bangkok Dangerous” that was changed from the original that it is almost egregious to fathom. In The Times Online, writer James Christopher says, “It’s a completely different film” (Christopher 1). It truly is. From the changing of the disability from the main character to his love interest to the switch of the lead role’s name from Kong to Joe, along with everything under the sun in between, the two movies are as distinguishable as a cat and a dog. To be blunt, movies created in local cinemas are lost in the shuffle when they are adapted to fit in Hollywood. The big explosions, famous actors, and all-too-predictable plotlines completely cripple the original film and take away from the intention of the original writers. It’s as clear-cut as that.
Works Cited
Christopher, James. “Bangkok Dangerous.” The Times Online. 4 September 2008. 13 April 2009. <http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/film_reviews/article4668495.ece>
Johanson, MaryAnn. “Bangkok Dangerous.” FlickFilosopher. 26 November 2001. 13 April 2009. < http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2001/11/bangkok_dangerous_review.html>
Lane, Anthony. “View to a Kill.” The New Yorker. 8 September 2008. 13 April 2009. < http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/09/08/080908crci_cinema_lane>
Lee, Nathan. “Bangkok Dangerous.” The New York Times Online. 6 September 2008. 13 April 2009. <http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/movies/06dang.html>
Ordona, Michael. “Bangkok Dangerous: Nicolas Cage Hasn’t Left Las Vegas.” The LA Times. 8 September 2008. 13 April 2009. < http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/08/entertainment/et-bangkok8>