BANGKOK REVENGE (Jean-Marc Minéo). 80 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (September 14). See listings. Rating: N
Fans of bad movies might want to check this out for the slapdash plotting, dialogue and acting that occasionally reach Ed Wood levels of daffiness. For the rest, Bangkok Revenge is a mediocre actioner with lots of seen-it-before kung fu enlivened only by good views of Bangkok street life.
Crooked cops kill his parents but leave our hero (Jon Foo) alive with a bullet in his brain that keeps him from feeling any emotion. He grows up learning an unnamed martial art that looks like muay thai or maybe silat, then heads out for revenge. Along the way, he finds a girl to rescue (Caroline Ducey).
The action is staged about as competently as in the average old-school Shaw Brothers flick, with nothing more spectacular than wire-assisted flips. Rapid-fire cutting keeps us from getting much of a look at Foo’s moves, but the bone-crunching sound effects assure us he’s tough. I swear they use the same one for every blow.
Looniness kicks in about midway through with senseless and contradictory dialogue, then peaks with a girl gang in fetish wear and a fire-engine-red convertible. They have something to do with a heroin ring run by an opera singer, a subplot that just vanishes. Some – not much – of this is funny. I wouldn’t recommend cracking your wallet.
Our hero’s emotionlessness saves Foo from having to act. Ducey isn’t so lucky. At best, she sounds a little like Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau.
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