Bangkok Dangerous

Toronto International Film Festival Program Book
2000

Bangkok Dangerous
Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
THAILAND, 2000
105 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Film Bangkok
Executive Producer: Pracha Maleenot, Brian L. Marcar, Adirek Wattaleela
Producer: Nonzee Nimibutr
Screenplay: Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Cinematographer: Decha Srimantra
Editor: Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Production Designer: Wut Chaoslip
Principal Cast: Pawalit Mongkolpisit, Premsinee Ratanasopha, Patharawarin Timkul, Pisek Intrakanchit
Production: Film Bangkok

The impressive arrival of Thai cinema on the international scene gets a major exclamation mark in this richly textured, achingly beautiful gangster film. Directed by twin brothers Oxide and Danny Pang, who began their careers as film technicians in Hong Kong, Bangkok Dangerous will most certainly be compared to early Wong Kar-wai. While this description is not unfair—the film is packed full of visual experimentation and displays an effortless cool throughout—it is also misleading. The Pang Brothers are both immersed in and in love with the specific rhythms of Bangkok, not Hong Kong. The upfront sleaze and hidden mysteries of this oft-visited yet rarely understood place provide the context to this gorgeous and accomplished film.

Kong, a professional killer, has been mute since childhood. He works the city’s toughest streets, silence his only response to the killings he performs. He is numb, acting with a sociopathic coldness as he brings down his steady, impersonal revenge on the world. Ultimately, the chance for his transformation (and redemption) arrives in the form of a girl. She is able to provide the only tenderness and warmth he’s ever known. Suddenly stricken with remorse and guilt for his past actions, he fights back against those who would force him to remain a killing machine.

Because the film’s main character cannot speak, the Pang Brothers have chosen to keep the film mostly silent. Long stretches pass without a word being uttered. The effect is magical, investing the poetic images with even more depth and despair. In the ever more sophisticated process of transforming genre in Asian cinema, Bangkok Dangerous stands as a serious leap forward.
—Noah Cowan