I really enjoyed the first Bangkok Dangerous but am not exactly sure how much of a remake this film will be, mainly since Cage doesn't
seem to be playing a deaf-mute in the trailer!
That might make it easier to see this new film as not being so entangled with the original, just sharing the title - unless it turns out to be terrible (see Wicker Man! Or rather don't!)
That twist on the idea of the silent killer actually was a nice element of the 1999 film that I could not remember being used before but seemed a very good idea - I especially liked the flashback moment where Kong was in the shooting range and found his deafness was an advantage in not blinking from the sound of the gunshot, with the suggestion that this was something that made him a much more focused shot!
The more international dimension to the cast and story of the remake unfortunately seems to be moving towards something like The Tesseract though. I still think Garland's book could make a good multiple points of view style thriller film but unfortunately the Pang Brothers film wasn't a total success - it needed more subtlety to match the internal nature of the book and the bittersweet sense of people who would be well matched in personality missing each other through miscommunication or ending up in opposition through cultural and language barriers. Unfortunately I don't think I've seen a subtle Pang Brothers film (sometimes the lack of subtlety works very well such as in the first Bangkok Dangerous and One Take Only, which is a wonderful modern take on a love story between two damaged people trapped in petty crimes and grabbing moments of happiness where they are able until their story ends in the only way it can) and to show multiple stories of miscommunication intersection a director really needs to be in full control of every element of their various plots. Unfortunately I don't think the Pang Brothers were able to properly integrate their English language elements into the rest of The Tesseract - the book probably wasn't the best thing to pick for a first international coproduction. It seems that the Bangkok Dangerous 'remake' might be more successful in that sense by being a smaller, more focused story.
It seems from that trailer that there is going to be a repeat of the big early set piece of the first film - the long range assassination, though this time seemingly with JFK-ish allusions. I wonder if they'll keep the element that made the scene in the first film stand out - the little girl witnessing the assassination from a neighbouring building and playing along as if it were a game or whether that might be where the "bonding with a local errand boy" (from the imdb synopsis) comes in?
