Remaking Asian films (especially horror films) has become an alarming trend.  Over the last few years one crappy film after the next pops up being remade from its original form.  Some of the original Asian films weren’t exactly classics, but at least they were stylish and entertaining.  If only the same thing could be said of their American counterparts.  The trend started when the remake of the Asian smash horror film called Ringu opened in the United States as The Ring.  The Ring was a slickly made and entertaining film but it started a disastrous trend that is with us to this day.  The original Bangkok Dangerous was violent and directed with great style by The Pang Brothers.  The Pang Brothers have also directed this US remake, which makes the whole dismal affair even more hard to swallow. 

A comatose (and miscast Nicolas Cage) stars as a hitman who travels to Bangkok for one final big hit, his ticket out of the assassin’s game.  While there he develops an attachment to a deaf/mute girl and a streetwise and interesting character named Kong.  Breaking his own rule he becomes attached to both of them and becomes Kong’s teacher (shades of much better films like The Professional and La Femme Nikita) and the girl’s love interest.  After refusing a big hit on a political figure, the people who hired Cage come after him and his loved ones.  The original film had the hitman as the deaf/mute character and tons of vivid violence to keep it chugging along.  This version starts out well enough but just gets worse and worse along the way.  The looks at the city of Bangkok as a modern day metropolis of gleaming glass and steel is far more interesting than any of the characters in the film.  The Pang Brothers seem incapable of staging even a stylish gunfight any longer.  The final gun fight is staged in a cheap warehouse and is so dark, the viewer can barely see who is shooting at whom.  Something was clearly lost in translation. 

The 2 disc set has a sharp widescreen transfer and sounds good.  The extras are probably the saving grace of the DVD.  The alternate ending is much better than the ending used in the film, nice job there guys.  The featurette examining Hong Kong cinema is very good, but at only 15 minutes far too short.  The other behind the scenes featurette with the Pang Brothers is good but also far too short.  The second DVD is just a digital copy of the film, an annoying trend that movie studios use to charge more for what rightfully is just a one disc set. 

Bangkok Dangerous is an unnecessary waste of time.  The original film was far better and Oxide and Danny Pang (what cool names) have made far better films in the past.  Just rent their original version of The Eye (another film America ruined) or the original Bangkok Dangerous, it’s far more interesting than this weak remake.

DVD Grade: D+

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