BANGKOK DANGEROUS

A mute Thai hit man seeks redemption through a pretty shop assistant in Bangkok Dangerous, a super-slick guns 'n' roses actioner that tries for a fresh spin on genetic material. Though of Thai origin, both Oxide Pang and his twin brother, Danny, learned their technical smarts in Hong Kong, where they were born - the former as a digital colorist and the latter as an editor. Essentially a series of action sequences strung together by the subplot of a tentative romance between pro assassin Kong and pharmacy assistant Fon, Dangerous is most impressive on a tech level, with sharp cutting, textured photography and a score dominated by throbbing drums. When I was in Hong Kong, most of the "amazing" things in Thailand I'd heard of are only hit men, prostitutes and ghosts. Initially, I toyed with the ideas about a romantic drama of a deaf/dumb character, and about a story of a hit man. Then, when living in Thailand, I though about making three films about a hit man, a prostitute and a ghost. I wanted to make the film about the prostitute, but the film company didn't approve my project so I turned to the one about the hit man story. Indeed, the inspiration comes from the gunning down of Saengchai Sunthornwat, the then director of the Mass Communications Authority of Thailand. In the television coverage I saw an assassing crying before Saengchai's picture and begging forgiveness of the dead man's family. Despite a number of assassinations in the past, mass media coverage might have shocked him to see what he had done to Saengchai. Thus came the idea of an assassin who finally comes to understand what he is doing. Oxide Pang