Adapted from Netflix’s first ever Thai TV series called “Bangkok Breaking”, the film adaptation is an action-packed, explosive-laden romp that will leave many viewers out of breath. Just a shame that the confusing story and every repeated attempt at drama and emotionality fail to keep up.
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The story follows Wanchai, a paramedic with a big heart working tirelessly to save lives in Bangkok. In this new adventure, Wanchai gets caught up in the kidnapping of a billionaire’s child and ends up deep within a hellish public housing estate. Saddled with a bumbling trainee nurse and a ruthless killer for hire, Wanchai must save the child and find a way out while escaping the myriad thugs hard on their heels.
As a feature film and action movie, “Bangkok Breaking” performs very well and is great technical work from director Kongkiat Komesiri (the “Khun Pan” trilogy) and his crew. Every shootout, every explosion, every chase is made spectacular by impeccable cinematography, camera work, stunts and digital effects – except perhaps for the fires (and there are many), which do not always look entirely convincing. “Heaven and Hell” looks so good it is a shame it is not meant to be released in actual movie theaters. Komesiri’s hard work should absolutely be enjoyed on as big a screen as possible.
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One car chase, for example, features an impressive sequence shot that follows a speeding van from the outside, catches up with it and then enters the vehicle through the open side door. Characters inside scramble and come under fire from the open door on the other side of the van as the car chasing them has caught up with the vehicle. One of the characters starts firing back and kills most of the villains. The camera follows every piece of the impressively choreographed action without cutting, then leaves the van again and gets in front of it before finally ending the shot. And the film is only getting started.
At the same time, once the characters enter the housing projects the atmosphere pervading “Bangkok Breaking” switches to a very dark, brooding one. The projects are visualized as a dystopian, almost post-apocalyptic, Max Max-friendly wasteland where might is right. The weak get trampled over and riddled with bullets with alarming regularity, while even the thugs themselves get frequently whacked by even more cunning and ruthless hitmen. In fact, we follow nearly as much the competition between the gangsters as their chase of the good guys.
This social Darwinian savagery is actually turned into the film’s main theme as it contrasts this pervading barbarity with Wanchai’s humanitarianism. An isolated saint in a fallen world (the title does refer to heaven and hell), Wanchai is here to prove that a social conscience can prevail and win the day against the evil capitalists. The housing projects are threatened with demolition by a cabal of real estate developers and rich foreigners, but Wanchai stands for the inhabitants seen demonstrating against their eviction.
In fact, our hero provides the film with a unique angle as he is not a martial arts professional or gun enthusiast. He never fights, instead running and evading his pursuers, while in the most intense action scenes he is busy rescuing lives. Given that “Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell” is so inspired by the likes of “The Raid”, this is a noticeable choice on the part of the filmmakers and gives the film its own identity – a gung-ho action film whose hero is essentially non-violent.
On the other hand, Wanchai is also a very bland, one-dimensional character, like most other individuals in the film. Sukollawat Kanaros clearly is a capable actor, but he has nothing to do except look kind and concerned throughout the movie. His sidekick and vague love interest, the clumsy nurse Meiji (Attitaya Tribudarak), is almost instantly tiresome as the screaming, brainless damsel in distress – a cliché the action genre should have left behind long ago. The villains are the only memorable characters of the piece, starting with the face-tattooed Darlie, played with savage panache by the scene-chewing Nay Myo Thant.
The confusing, messy story does not help investing in the characters, as trying to understand what exactly is going on increasingly becomes a taxing challenge. There are so many characters and storylines that one gets the impression this project started as “Bangkok Breaking” season 2 before being transformed into a feature film. Whatever the case, the plot is uselessly convoluted, and at 2 hours and 27 minutes, the movie feels largely bloated. It takes our characters almost 40 minutes to get into the housing projects, and much of this beginning was dispensable. Likewise, the film does not know when to end, and the last 20 minutes similarly feel like a long, sloppy afterthought.
In the end, the non-stop action does take away from the drama “Bangkok Breaking” is trying to create, as well as the social justice theme of the movie. There are nice shots of the grim slums while the gleaming skyscrapers of Bangkok glitter in the background, but that is far from enough to depict the social injustice and inequality besetting these people. On the contrary, we see and hear so little from the local inhabitants – except as anonymous demonstrators and cannon fodder – that you could argue the worst stereotypes about people living in such social housing are confirmed. This is a shame, as it goes against the very morale and spirit of the story.
These limitations should not take away from “Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell” as a strong entry in the action genre and an important milestone in the career of its filmmaker. Keep them coming.
