Bangkok Dangerous (1999): C+

While Bangkok Dangerous proves that Danny and Oxide Pang know how to deliver kinetic, visually arresting action, it also establishes their too-intimate familiarity with the work of John Woo and Wong Kar-Wai, two Hong Kong auteurs whose style and tropes are aped mercilessly throughout this hitman-with-a-soul saga. Deaf-mute Kong (Pawalit Mongkolpisit) takes out inner fury over childhood bullying by working as an assassin alongside mentor/friend Joe (Pisek Intrakanchit). When his girlfriend Aom (Patharawarin Timkul), a stripper, is raped, Joe goes looking for revenge, a decision that leads to double-crosses and murder that eventually engulf Kong in blood, all while the handicapped gunman grapples with his conscience after meeting, and falling for, a lovely pharmacist. The Pangs go overboard with fluorescent lighting, fractured edits, and expressively cockeyed cinematography, jazzing up their bullet-peppered violence with buzzing techno and drenching their swoony romance in electric primary colors. It’s a flashy brew full of gorgeous slow-motion and grimy textures, but one that 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.