One Night in Bangkok
Director: Wych Kaosayananda
Year: 2020
Rating: 4.5
I am currently living in Bangkok and I just want to say a few words to any
future assassins who come to this city for business. Bangkok is a great place
to visit for work or pleasure; it is a lot of fun especially at night with
all the bars, clubs, entertainment establishments, massages with or without
happy endings and first class restaurants. Thai people are party people -
sanuk (fun) is their motto in life. So don't make the mistake of watching
this film and thinking - what am I going to do before and after killing someone
- it looks so dull. It really isn't. Please come.
A few other misconceptions in the film that I need to correct - for reasons
I don't quite get the director has the protagonist go into various public
bathrooms to wash his hands and he sees nothing to dry them. I have been
to hundreds (don't get the wrong idea) of public bathrooms here and there
is always something to dry your hands whether paper towels, tissue paper
or dryers. Especially at the international airport that makes any airport
in America look third class. I didn't get that. And at the hospital where
he goes to kill a few people there are zero staff to be seen with one guy
already in a bed wounded. I just spent a few days in the hospital - it is
like hot and cold running nurses, mainly hot admittedly. I was never left
alone for more than a few minutes - they drove me crazy taking my blood pressure
and temperature every fifteen minutes. So please, go to Thailand (if it ever
opens again) and have a good time and don't worry about washing your hands
or ending up in a hospital.
Kai (Mark Dacascos) arrives in Bangkok with no luggage but has a bag waiting
for him. He then hires a Uber like cab and tells the female driver Fha (Vanida
Golten) that he has five stops to make that night and here is $5,000 if I
can keep your services for the journey. Knowing that there isn't a cab driver
in Bangkok that would not do that for $100, this strikes her as little odd
but she needs the money. Kai is a soft-spoken gentleman, kind considerate
in nearly every way - but he has a time table to meet and off they go. At
each stop he goes in for a few minutes, tells her to wait and kills someone.
For a reason. A personal one.
This moves at the pace of a car in Bangkok traffic - a very slow crawl -
and the conversations between him and the driver are a nightmare of mine
when I get a talkative driver. A lot more talking goes on here than killing.
Which for a hitman film feels like an odd choice. Dacascos isn't exactly
know for his acting. He is an action sort of star. The first 4 kills are
easy - too easy - he finds them - he pulls out a gun and shoots them in cold
blood. I could do that. In theory. The fifth one is a lot tougher since his
target is Kane Kosugi. One more good action set piece such as in the nightclub/gentleman's
club would have been welcome. A fairly dull outing. In Bangkok of all
places. I feel insulted. When Nicholas Cage came here in Bangkok Dangerous
the city looked to be a lot more fun. Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives -
much more fun - The Hangover Part 2 - exactly like Thailand. Sanuk.
I looked at the director's films - Wych Kaosayananda from Thailand - and
everything in IMDB gets a rating his mother would be ashamed of - a few of
them taking place in Thailand so I need to watch them anyways - but how does
he keep getting films to direct. There has been a very notorious criminal
case going on here for years now in which the son of the owner of Red Bull
ran down a cop and killed him and then skipped the country. Tons of evidence
against him. Just last week it and the witnesses mysteriously disappeared
or got amnesia and the case was closed. TIT. This is Thailand. The film is
clearly inspired by that incident. But doesn't end so happily for the guilty.
One more good action set piece such as in the nightclub/gentleman's club
would have been welcome.
