Bangkok Dangerous (2008) - The Pang brothers drop Cage in a rickety remake

♥♥

+ Worst Poster of the Year

If you look at this poster for the Pang brothers' Bangkok Dangerous and wonder; one of Nicholas Cage's seems to be holding a gun that is missing, and the other is bizarrely creeping into his jacket, apparently going for his opposite armpit, - you are not alone. The poster ranks as one the all-time strangest and worst cases of poster graphics foul-up

Our mostly silent hitman hero Joe has some disciplinary rules set for his work, but now as he finds himself in Bangkok, Thailand, he breaks these rules as he carries out jobs.

Bangkok Dangerous is a remake of Bangkok Dangerous (1999), written by Jason Richman (Swing Vote (2008)) and directed by brothers Danny and Oxide Chun Pang (Out of Inferno/Tao Chu Sheng Tian (2013), both), who are remaking their own first film.
The Pang brothers have an unmistakable knack for staging exciting action scenes, - in particular the boat scenes are good here, - but the film's plot does not match this quality. Nicolas Cage's (National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)) romantic scenes with Joe's deaf-mute love interest Fon (played by Charlie Yeung (Sleepwalker/Meng You (2011)) are actually touching and fine, - but they seem like they arrive from out of another film.
Bangkok Dangerous has real Thai flavors, - but it is also undeniably a plate of simplistic action romance nonsense. SPOILER It ends unusually, as Cage blows his own brains out!

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2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
The Eye 2/見鬼2/Gin3 Gwai2 2 (2004) or, Women: Screaming and Crying

Watch some interesting behind-the-scenes footage from the film's Bangkok shoot here

Cost: 45 mil. $
Box office: 42.4 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Bangkok Dangerous premiered 22 August (Spain) and runs 100 minutes. Cage's production company Saturn Films had purchased the remake rights to the original film. The original's mute hero was changed for "a marketing point of view", Oxide Pang has explained, and the deaf-mute love interest was created instead. Shooting took place in Thailand, including in Bangkok, and in Prague, the Czech Republic from August 2006 - ?, making the film's post production period suspiciously long. The film opened #1 to a 7.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, the lowest #1 first weekend gross there since David Spade-comedy Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003). It fell out of the top 5 in its second week and grossed a weak 15.2 mil. $ (35.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia and Spain, each with 3.6 mil. $ (8.5 %). The home video release earned in excess of 15 mil. $ in North America, which, if added into the theatrical gross, would only change the film's status to that of 'big flop'. The Pang brothers returned solo in their native Hong Kong; Danny Pang with Seven 2 One (2009), Oxide Chun Pang with Basic Love (2009). Cage returned in Knowing (2009). Bangkok Dangerous is rotten at 8 % with a 3.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Bangkok Dangerous?

The Hangover Part II (2011) - Phillips & Co. follow their sensational comedy hit with a disappointing sequel

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+ Most Undeserved Hit Movie of the Year

One of the persuasive posters that lured audiences by the thousands to Todd Phillips' The Hangover Part II

This time around, 'the wolf pack' are in Thailand, and at least I respect that the film does absolutely nothing to romanticize Bangkok.

Todd Phillips' (Starsky & Hutch (2004)) inevitable follow-up to his run-away comedy hit The Hangover (2009) is a schematic, thin rehash just barely worth the generous three stars it gets here.
Zach Galifianakis (Due Date (2010)) is the funniest character, and in good company the movie is just feasible, but ... there's many buts in the case of Hangover 2:
- Where was the much publicized Liam Neeson (Schindler's List (1993)) cameo? (The answer: On the cutting room floor, replaced by Nick Cassavetes (Face/Off (1997)) in a reshot version of the scene.)
- Why weren't there more funny comedians to lift the comedic level?
- Why did literally nothing new happen?
The action elements of Part II, which the first film didn't really have, only contribute in making the plot even more implausible. Add to this that Ken Jeong's (The DUFF (2015)) character Mr. Chow isn't fun anymore, and an offensive scene with violent monks, (other people will undoubtedly find other scenes from the film offensive.) - The Hangover Part II opened on Memorial Day, but that doesn't make it a memorable film by any standards.
It is co-written by Phillips, Craig Mazin (Scary Movie 3 (2003)) and Scot Armstrong (Semi-Pro (2008)), based on the characters created by Jon Lucas (21 & Over (2013)) and Scott Moore (Flypaper (2011)).
Phillips followed the film up with The Hangover Part III (2013), which finished the Hangover trilogy, and he is now working on a war-themed comedy titled Arms and the Dudes (2016).

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2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
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2011 in films - according to Film Excess
 

Ken Jeong looks funny here, but he isn't very funny in Todd Phillips' The Hangover Part II

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 80 mil. $
Box office: 586.8 mil. $
= Huge hit
[The movie, which started development two months before the first film was even released, opened to a whopping 86 mil. $ first weekend in North America and similarly red-hot reception globally. Audiences worldwide braved bad reviews and made the film the highest-grossing R-rated movie made to date: It made 254.4 mil. $ in North America (43 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of The Hangover Part II?
And the other two films in the trilogy?
And Phillips' other films?

Only God Forgives (2013) - Refn's violent vigilante beauty in Bangkok

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+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Danish Movie of the Year

Visually restrained yet fiercely energetic and powerful, this sun-drenched French poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives

Danish master filmmaker, writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive (2011)) returns to his old strange, twisted self with Only God Forgives, his 9th feature, which resembles his Mads Mikkelsen-starring mute viking psych-out Valhalla Rising (2009) and his John Turturro-starring crime mystery Fear X (2003) more than his preceding smash hit Drive. Perhaps therefore it disappointed a lot of critics and audiences at the time of its release, who, after the more conventional and very popular Drive, just didn't seem to get it.
- But pay no heed to that negative hype; Only God Forgives is an unmissable film. And how often does a phenomenal filmmaker invite us on a sword-and-martial-arts-mixing modern western myth with big stars in Bangkok? Frankly, I think that many critics and audiences were blinded by conventions and ungrateful, wrong expectations.

Only God Forgives is the story of two brothers. One is bad; he kills and rapes a young girl and gets murdered for it. The other tries to be good, but is damaged and put under new pressure by their ruthless, drug-running mother to avenge her lost son. Meanwhile, a fierce local cop exerts a kind of Old Testament justice in Bangkok's grimy netherworld of criminal filth.

In other words, it's a totally straightforward and perfectly understandable basic story. The pace is, - regardless of what others may write, - stable and continually moves ahead in an old-fashioned western/horror-kind of steady rhythm, - with gruesomely violent and sexually charged scenes coming one after the next, each serving a clear purpose for the story.
Ryan Gosling (Drive (2011)) is awesomely cool here once again as a very silent protagonist, - this time not as a winner type, however, - and British actress Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient (1996)), boldly gone along on this film which is nothing like what she usually does, is a superb matriarchal villain, whose deviousness and possible wrongdoings onto her sons in the past haunt her behavior - and theirs. Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm (The Hangover Part II (2011)) also does wonders as the mystical, local cop, who exerts a Dirty Harry (1971)/Death Wish (1974) type official vigilante justice, which feels fresh and unlike any before seen vengeance mission, both due to his performance and the execution, but also due to its implicit feeling of its being a mysterious, righteous justice from the East upon the traveling, incoming wretches of the West.
The title, like the rest of the film, is not designed to be a crowd-pleaser. Religious people will most likely dislike its implications, and surely we can all agree that it's not the nicest of thoughts that only God forgives. I think it is to be considered in terms of genre and as a hint as to the logic of the stern Thai avenger we meet in the film. Though Only God Forgives is an art film and a genre enjoyment, (SPOILER the gruesome eye-spearing shot is as taken right out of a Lucio Fulci horror film of the 1980s), its title is probably decided to resonance such films as Gianfranco Parolini's Lee Van Cleef-starring spaghetti western, God's Gun (1976). It also incarnates the villainous mother's crude perception of life.
DP Larry Smith (The Guard (2011)), composer Cliff Martinez (Contagion (2011)), costume designer Wasitchaya 'Nampeung' Mochanakul and art director's Witoon 'Boom' Suanyai and Russell Barnes (Howl (2010)) also deserve the highest compliments for an aesthetically amazing, pompously decadent and neon-drenched dream of a film, meticulously carved out, which looks and sounds amazing.

SPOILER Besides everything else, I love the film's strange, beautiful and darkly funny karaoke-sequences and the ending. Only God Forgives is a truly rare film that should be watched, and can be watched many times, each time registering something new.

It may also be Gosling's last starring vehicle in a good while, as he has said that he wants to retire from acting and is now directing his first, mysteriously sounding, How to Catch a Monster (2014), about a secret underwater town. (Ed. note: That film ended up being retitled Lost River (2014), a major flop which critics also axed, and Gosling is now back in front of the camera where he belongs.)

Refn is slated to do a 200 mil. $ remake of the 1976 sci-fi-classic, Logan's Run. Whether this will ever actually happen, and whether a good movie will come out of it, I have my anxieties and doubts. (Ed. note: This was scrapped, and Refn is instead focusing on a horror movie for 2016, titled The Neon Demon.) Together with Only God Forgives, his best film remains, in my opinion, Pusher II (2004), very worth seeing for anyone just slightly hooked by his films.

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Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.8 mil. $
Box office: 10.6 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.2 times the cost)
[Only God Forgives premiered 22 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in Bangkok. Thailand. The film opened #26 to a 313k $ first weekend in 78 theaters in North America, its peak there although it widened to 81 cinemas, grossing 779k $ (7.3 % of the total gross). North America was its 3rd biggest market. The biggest and 2nd biggest were France with France with 3.6 mil. $ (40 %) and the UK with 1.8 mil. $ (17%). The film won 3/7 nominations at the Robert awards (Denmark's Oscar), among other honors. Refn returned with a Hennessey X.O. commercial in 2016 and theatrically with The Neon Demon (2016). Gosling returned in The Big Short (2015); Thomas in Before the Winter Chill/Avant l'Hiver (2013); and Pansringarm in short film Gutted (2013) and theatrically in Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (2013). Only God Forgives is rotten at 40 % and a 5.3/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Only God Forgives?