BANGKOK REVENGE excels at utilizing a flashy title, supplemented with some outstanding martial arts mastery; however that’s where the accolades are struck with a mortal death touch. The story is a schizophrenic mess compared to the fluid and often original Thai fighting sequences. In fact, the only time this film had even a slight instance of composure or fluidity is when someone was getting their ass kicked.
Manit (Jon Foo, TEKKEN) witnessed his parents being murdered in front of him as a young boy. And even though the assassins tried to finish the job with a bullet to Manit’s temple, he amazingly survived and was hidden by a kind nurse to be raised by a Thai fighting master. As Manit matured, it was evident to his master that the attempt on his life left him severely emotionally handicapped, devoid of the ability to emit any human emotions. With no other direction in his life, Manit submerged himself in the disciplines of the martial arts so he could one day take revenge on those who killed his parents.
There has never been a shortage of martial arts films to go around. Great fight sequences are the most frugal way to make an action film on a tight budget. Though it seems in the last few years, all of the original thought and focus that has lifted fight scenes to unprecedented heights has only been equaled by plots that have sunk to parallel new lows.
In BANGKOK REVENGE, the writers are not even making an attempt to have a coherent narrative, asking the audience to get behind a protagonist who has zero emotions due to being shot in the head as a child, while his parents were “Bruce Wayned” in front of him. Now crossing Spock with Batman is not such a terrible idea for an action hero, but when the guy who supposedly has no emotions does nothing other than hunt down and kill anyone that had anything to do with his parents death for 82 minutes, well that seems to undermine the entire concept of the character. The last time I watched any action film with a leg kick that crossed even Peter Dinklage’s summit point; revenge was probably a pretty big part of the story. Not to mention that very emotion happens to be 50 percent of the big bold title printed on the box. Like I said, the writers were not even trying here. Instead, this film is just a virtual porno of great fight scenes interlaced with “fluff” material that could be fast-forwarded through with the same confidence of not missing out on any intricate “story” elements.
Jon Foo actually exhibits a pretty decent display of a man with no emotions, even if he is beating everyone up, but the dialogue and the rest of the performances are so pathetic that there’s no way to differentiate between the character’s signature trait and just plain bad acting.
Unlike films such as THE RAID: REDEMPTION or NINJA ASSASSIN, BANGKOK REVENGE is not even worth owning just to throw on the screen in the background at a house party. Sure there are some stand-out moments of unique fighting maneuvers, but they are far too seldom to warrant the attention needed to suffer through scenes that may end up leaving the audience just as emotionless as its main character.
BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: 1.85:1 Widescreen, 1080p/AVC MPEG-4: Even with low-budget productions in the HD era, the cameras are so advanced that it’s hard to produce a bad image if modern day technology is in use. This film is very sharp and the colors are nicely saturated.
Audio: Thai: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1: Surprisingly the sound mix on this film was very good as well, special effects were nicely rendered and the punch/kick connections added greatly to the overall fight scenes.
Trailer (2 min): The theatrical trailer is the only “bonus feature” on this disc, sparing you from keeping it in your player a minute more than it has to be.
