Korkiate Limpapat, Patharawarin Timkul, Pavarit Mongkolpisit

Kong, a professional killer, has been mute since childhood. Ultimately, the chance for his transformation (and redemption) arrives in the form of shop assistant Fon. Suddenly stricken with remorse and...( read more  read more... ) guilt for his past actions, he fights back against those who would force him to remain a killing machine.

Flixster Users

67% liked it

2,508 ratings

Critics

54% liked it

35 critics

R, 105 min.

Directed by: Danny Pang, Oxide Pang Chun

Release Date: November 1, 1999

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DVD Release Date: March 5, 2002

Stats: 196 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (196)


  • May 10, 2009
    much faster paced than the pang brothers eye. it's simple, original and enjoyable
  • March 6, 2009
    "I know... you know... what I am. But I'm so glad I got to meet you, to know that someone cared about me. I think maybe we shared love. Today, I'm very sad. My friends are all dead now. I feel for the families of those I killed. I'm very sorry for what I did... but I've got no...( read more) more chances to make it right. I have my own way now."

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    Hong Kong action meets MTV. The Pang brothers' feature debut as colleagues (Oxide's second time directing) is an extremely stylish, fast and fascinating blend of HK cinema and Thai sensibilities. A love of Quentin Tarantino and martial arts flicks exudes from their tale of living and dying by the sword, or the gun, as it were. The incongruous sensory overload of never-ending silence is potently captured by clamorous, unrelenting editing and a brilliant lead performance. Bangkok Dangerous, the brothers' most unpolished film (made for $800,000), remains a gritty but heartfelt action flick and stands nicely on its feet ten years after its conception.

    An intense, pulsating, ironically noise-fuelled redemption fable about a young, deaf-mute hitman, the film has a colourful, rave-mix energy that sweeps the audience into Bangkok's neon-emblazoned underworld. There Kong (Pawalit Mongkolpisit) gets assassination assignments from an embittered stripper, the former lover of his mentor Jo (Pisek Intrakanchit) - a veteran killer in his 20s like Kong, whose livelihood was ruined by taking a bullet in his gun-firing hand during a botched hit.

    Kong never questions his assignments - in fact, in the film's frantic opening scenes we see him take out a business executive right in front of a little girl after only a moment's panicked hesitation. Passively sociopathic and melancholic, Kong never communicates much of anything to anyone until the day he meets Fon (Premsinee Ratanasopha), a pretty pharmacy counter girl. Her interest is piqued by his disability, so on a date they go to a Charlie Chaplin film festival and flirt by writing to each other with a felt pen on Kong's arms. But when street thugs jump them on their way home, Kong empties his guns into the muggers, frightening the girl off and making him suddenly and acutely aware of morality, possibly for the first time.

    Without a single word of dialogue, Mongkolpisit vividly projects the intensity of Kong's constant internal struggle, which is only exacerbated by his flood of new feelings. Love, protectiveness, guilt, shame, anger, self-loathing - his dark eyes are just streams of raw emotion and confusion. But he's always intently focused when there's an execution at hand.

    At the same time, Danny and Oxide manage to envelop the audience in Kong's world with forceful flashes of deafening chaos, startling silence and memory. Well-executed flashbacks fill in how Jo discovered Kong sweeping up at an indoor firing range. Noticing he didn't wear ear protection, Jo gave him a gun to shoot out of curiosity. Kong hit the bull's eye over and over. In a rapid-fire montage, we then see Jo take Kong under his wing, get shot in his palm, and take to resentful depression as Kong picks up where he left off.

    Back in the present and desperate to win the girl back, Kong soon finds himself in a quandary, becoming an angry avenger after the stripper is raped and Jo is killed by a dark crime syndicate that's coming after him next. Everyone associated with a big political assassination is being eliminated - and still Kong has his mind on Fon.

    The Pangs' powerful visual style manifests itself best in two scenes that jack up the film's potency tenfold as Kong leaves Fon an apology note and goes on a rampage, symbolically flanked by Jo's ghostly spirit. An incredible shoot-out ensues in the halls of the syndicate's headquarters, but the mob boss makes a getaway, leading to a foot chase down a maze of narrow alleyways with guns a-blazin' so indiscriminately that you can smell something catastrophic on the wind. An absolute stunning sensory experience, even if not always quite as successful as an actual film.
  • June 3, 2006
    The Pang brothers manage to use fancy editing, bright neon lights, and a memorable soundtrack without once coming off as pretentious. Kong is a wonderful protagonist, and conveys heart felt emotions despite the inability to speak. His final attempt at reading out what he wrote in...( read more) a letter to his beloved Fon is incredibly moving and very sad. Great action and hard hitting drama.
  • March 31, 2009
    Gritty depiction of a handful of amorals make me wonder "What's the point of this film??" Calling the story threadbare is an insult to fishnet stockings. Let's see how many words it takes to describe: Deaf/mute assassin meets girl, then avenges mentor and a friend. Seriously,...( read more) that's the entire 100 minutes in an eleven word nutshell. The scenes of killing (and there are many, but often brief) would appeal only to people who watch those wretched "World's Wildest Drivers" TV shows. The only point of interest is that the director does have an interesting style and offers some original impressionistic images. Unfortunately, given the non-story, he feels the need to shoot the entire film in an arty, crazy-angled manner to distract from the gaping absence of plot. My advice: skip it. There's a good chance the American version represents an improvement.
  • September 3, 2008
    Brilliant and visually stunning thriller about a deaf and mute hitman called Wong who usually takes out victims in a quick, cold blooded manner but this starts to change when he meets,and falls for,a local pharmacy worker.But things are difficult due to his line of work and the f...( read more)act that there's problems in the local underworld that Wong, and his brother, get caught up in. This has some great action, violence and has plenty of drama and tension to. The Pang brothers do a brilliant directing job but i'd say the only downside would be to many different styles of picture during flashbacks etc, they over-do it a bit there but other than that, good script and story and some decent acting make this a stylish, entertaing and compelling film.
    I can't begin to imagine how Nicolas Cage and friends can even come close to matching the quality of this film.I highly doubt they will and it'll be some made for chavs thriller which will be about as deep as a puddle so watch this and see how it was really done!
  • May 3, 2009
    Only a fraction as good as the 2008 re-make. I was glad I took a chance and watched the re-make as I saw this one years before and did not care for it.
  • April 10, 2009
    I Love Nick Cage movies
  • April 3, 2009
    I saw the Nick Cage version.
  • March 29, 2009
    want to see at some stage
  • February 11, 2009
    I had some difficulty following this one at times. It required more than one viewing for me to make it all the way through. Maybe it was because I tend to get bored and lose focus during action sequences or maybe there was more to it than that. I'm not really sure. I liked th...( read more)e character of Kong though, and I think I kind of liked this flick despite my confusion. However, I do have a predisposition to like most things Asian, so that might be clouding my judgment here.

Critic Reviews


August 27, 2008
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

Doesn't make much of a lasting impression except as a case study in the dreariness of style-over-substance filmmaking when said style is the height of derivativeness. full review

View more Bangkok Dangerous reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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Bangkok Dangerous Trivia


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