A Fierce Fight Flick
Summary
Bangkok Dog is an easy watch at around 87 minutes long with regular beatdowns and a likeable lead in D.Y. Sao. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it’s still worth a watch.
Plot: After intercepting a shipment of drugs from Thailand and discovering five dead bodies amidst the illicit cargo, special agent Andrew Kang (D.Y. Sao) arrests the international drug cartel’s Los Angeles-based operative (Brian Le) and impersonates him to go deep undercover in the Bangkok criminal underworld. But as he works to gain the trust of higher-ups in the gang’s inner circle, the line between cop and criminal becomes increasingly blurred, leaving him—and his agency—to wonder whether he’s gotten in too deep to ever make it out alive.
Review: I literally watched this movie on my phone on the plane home from vacation yesterday as I’d been really looking forward to finally checking it out. Bangkok Dog stars D.Y. Sao as special agent Andrew Kang who impersonates a cartel operative and goes undercover to take down a crimelord called Dominic Mesias (Sahajak Boontanakij).
Along the way he begins to get a little too into this new world and has to come back from the brink. It’s a familiar tale and doesn’t offer anything new, but what makes this a fun watch are the regular fight scenes and D.Y. Sao is the new badass on the block. The fight scenes are reminiscent of classic Tony Jaa and Sao makes for a likeable lead.
Mesias is satanically evil taking joy in setting people on fire and you hate him every second he is on screen. I particularly liked Andrew’s partner Kaity Liu (Jenny Philomena Van Der Sluijs) who also has some moves up her sleeve and Brian Le makes for a standout villain in Benz Wu.
It’s nice to see the great Ron Smoorenburg have a decent role too where he gets to show his impressive martial arts prowess too.
At times some of the acting is hardly Oscar worthy and there isn’t much quotable dialogue, but we’re not here for that; all that matters are the beatdowns and they are frequent and the pacing rarely slows down. At around 87 minutes long Bangkok Dog is an easy watch and something I’ll happily sit through again.
Overall, Bangkok Dog is a ferocious fight flick that isn’t as brutal as The Shadow Strays, but it’s an entertaining and well-paced picture with an awesome lead in D.Y. Sao and an impressive supporting cast. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before but it’s worth watching for the fights alone.