Bangkok Dangerous is a 2008 crime/action movie directed by the Pang Brothers, who directed Bangkok Dangerous 1999, but this time starring Nicolas Cage as the hitman protagonist. Cage stars as Joe, a professional freelance contract killer who operates on a global scale and have his own strict codes of honor, but after an assignment in Bangkok, he starts developing feelings when he fell in love with Fon, a deaf-mute woman.
Bangkok Dangerous (2008) provides examples of:
- Abled in the Adaptation: Nicolas Cage’s Joe, the Expy to Kong from the original, isn’t a deaf-mute assassin.
- Actionized Adaptation: There are more shootouts, fight scenes, and action in this version than the 1999 original, including a boat chase, another extended assassination in a pool, and a longer climatic shootout with more faceless mooks Joe had to kill before confronting Surat.
- Adaptational Distillation: Instead of the protagonist, this time it’s Fon, the Love Interest, who is a deaf-mute.
- An Arm and a Leg: The boat chase assassination ends with Joe flipping his boat’s propeller around, removing his target’s arm in the process.
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: During the scene where Joe executes his target in the floating market, Joe puts four bullets through his target which penetrates the bottom of the motorboat, leaving behind red-tainted bullet streaks underwater.
- Call-Back: To the original.
- Fon works at a pharmacy store, and invites Joe to her house for dinner.
- The romantic date between Joe and Fon is interrupted by a pair of muggers, which Joe dispatches effortlessly like Kong in the earlier version.
- The final shootout of both movies takes place in a water-bottling plant.
- Joe kills the Big Bad, Surat, and himself together using the same method Kong used to execute the unnamed mob boss, by putting their heads together and firing a single shot for a One-Hit Polykill.
- Code of Honour: Joe abides to his own personal set of rules, which he spells out right at the start of the movie before his first onscreen hit:"One: Don't ask questions. There is no such thing as right and wrong. ""Two: Don't take an interest in people outside of work. There is no such thing as trust. ""Three: Erase every trace. Come anonymous and leave nothing behind. ""Four: Know when to get out. Just thinking about it means it's time. Before you lose your edge, before you become a target. "
- Darker and Edgier: And also Bloodier and Gorier.
- Death Montage: Same as the original movie, although Joe’s hits are more varied and involves him killing European and American mobsters as well, due to the character being changed to an international-based hitman.
- Demoted to Extra: Aom in the remake only have a bit part, compared to the original, and plays no part in setting up the finale.
- Four Is Death: Joe abides to four codes of honour. Take a wild guess to see if he outlives the credits.
- Guns Akimbo: Joe uses dual pistols in the final shootout, and takes out multiple mooks in short order.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: In the final shootout, an Elite Mook takes on Joe directly and managed to pin him down for a few seconds, until Joe shoves a grenade into his opponent’s belt and slams the mook into a wall. The explosion cuts said mook into half from the waist in a rather messy way.
- Human Traffickers: Surat, the Big Bad of the remake, specializes in trafficking young girls, a plot element absent from the original.
- Leave No Survivors: Joe, unlike Kong from the previous version who have a best friend for backup, instead prefers to hire local small-time pickpockets or criminals as local help. When the assassination is complete, Joe then offs his new helper before moving on to the next mission.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Joe executes his hired help in this manner. His second onscreen kill, which is his helper from an assassination mission in Prague, gets knocked out non-lethally before Joe pumps drugs into his veins to make his death look like an overdose.
- Mythology Gag: This time, Joe is The Hero and protagonist, while Kong is Joe’s sidekick and partner, a reverse of the original version.
- Precision F-Strike: Joe’s sidekick, Kong, drops an F-bomb, but in Thai.Kong: [in Thai] "Duck fucker!"
