Bangkok Dangerous remake release delayed until summer

Bangkok Dangerous, earlier tipped for release around March, has been rescheduled for a summer release. In Bangkok, the trailer was screened ahead of the press screening of Chocolate.

The Pang Brothers' remake of their own 1999 debut, the new Bangkok Dangerous stars Nicolas Cage as a loner hitman who comes to Bangkok to do some jobs. Against his sworn ethos, he gets into a relationship with a young, deaf Thai woman (Charlie Yeung), and also forms a bond with his "errand boy" (Chakrit Yamnam, who's starring as a transvestite in the upcoming body-switching comedy, Valentine).

News of the move from the lacklustre "dump month" period of February-March to the higher-profile summer months comes in a flurry of reports by the industry press from the European Film Market at the Berlin International Film Festival, which announce that Lionsgate has acquired the North American rights to the film from Initial Entertainment.

A follower of this development is "Bangkok noir" proponent Chris Coles, who e-mailed me to express disappointment at not getting to see the film as soon as he'd hoped, but also said it's "good news in the sense that the film must have tested well as the June release date is much more advantageous than February and there will be a lot more marketing."

More exposure for the film could bode well for the Thai film industry, Coles says, because it will boost the profile of Bangkok as a film location and bring more production companies to the capital to shoot movies.

(Via Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Screen Daily/Kung Fu Cult Cinema forums)