Big Bad Film Fest 2024 Review: In BANGKOK DOG, Chaya Supannarat’s Debut Bites Just Enough To Match Its Bark
8 min. read
I have been eyeing the progression of actor and martial artist D.Y. Sao – almost for as long as I’ve been on this platform. His credits extend a little further back including a small role in R.L. Scott’s 2010 sequel endeavor, Champion Road: Arena, and some several years later he’d be the subject of several indie web and film crowdfunding ventures as a member of Usurp Productions at the time.
In recent memory, the Cambodian-born Long Beach townsman found himself in a more momentous space with the likes of martial arts filmmaking troupe, Martial Club. The actor also did two feature films with late director Pearry Reginald Teo: 2021 revenge thriller Fast Vengeance, and indie action dark fantasy, Shadow Master the following year, both which also saw the involvement of Chaya Supannarat in a producing capacity to add to her extensive miscellaneous film set credits.
The latter title also saw famed Thai director Prachya Pinkaew (Ong Bak, Tom Yum Goong) on board the latter as an exec producer. Whatever your take is here, the prospects have only grown for the group in which Sao now gets to center his latest screen efforts as a leading man in Bangkok Dog, an independently-made martial arts thriller with Pinkaew serving as an exec producer, and Supannarat wearing her director hat for the first time. The film’s framework also includes the machinations of Martial Club whose Brian Le, an increasing screen presence since the team’s birth on YouTube, gets to reunite with Sao since Teo’s Shadow Master.
Both Sao and Le have an incredible creative history that extends across the YouTube and feature cinema tapestries. Both partook in the Daniels’ hit fantasy action adventure, Everything Everywhere All At Once where Le, and older brother Andy Le (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) got to tango with the venerable Michelle Yeoh. In constitutional fashion, the younger Le has been a remarkable rising star in a number of character roles. He showed just as much gumption along with his brother as a pair of wily henchmen in Andy Long Nguyen’s Luc Van Tien: Kung Fu Hustle, as well as Bao Tran’s winning martial arts family dramedy, The Paper Tigers.
I make it a point to lay all of this out as the Sao/Le synergy is one of the first things Supannarat brings to the forefront in her freshman feature outing, just a few minutes in as characters are introduced and the action almost immediately sets in. The same goes for Thai-Dutch model and actress Jenny Philomena van der Sluijs, who also gets to throw some hands in a supporting capacity, lining a cast that lists Byron Bishop, and actor Sahajak Boonthanakit as Supannarat’s villain of choice.
Penned by Lawrence Walsh, Bangkok Dog (in a word) kicks off as two agents, Andrew Kang (Sao) and Singaporean import Kaitlyn Liu (van der Sluijs) infiltrate a Long Beach dock where a gang of criminals led by the pugilistic Benz Wu (Le) are readying to unload some incriminating cargo. The raid leads to a violent stand off followed by a grisly discovery that further complicates the case Kang and Liu are trying to build, a point wherein Kang finds a crucial opportunity to go under deep cover as a Thailand heavy in order to root out an elusive organized crime ring.
Once in, Kang, under an assumed identity revealed only then to underworld enforcer Charn Chai Yoodee (Bishop), begins playing his part to climb the ranks of the organization led by the ruthless Mesias (Boonthanakit). As the work ensues, so do darker revelations about the extent of Mesias’s cruelty and lenience, as well as his surreptitious efforts to bond with Yoodee whose own fortune finds him further up in Mesias’s criminal hierarchy. Nonetheless, the pressure is on Kang and his agency as sabotage suddenly sets in, forcing Kang to risk his cover in a desperate solo move to take down Mesias and his crime ring once and for all.
Frankly, Bangkok Dog feels like the kind of film where Sao gets to shine a little more than in earlier roles. The Bruce Lee and Donnie Yen affectations are clear and present for Sao’s portrayal of an agent whose undercover galavanting as underworld muscle is more focused on showcasing Sao at any given moment where there are incorrigible Thai goons to beat up when he’s not partying hard at the club with Yoodie. This goes on for multiple moments midway in the film as its centerpiece entree, encapsulated in a brisk medley of requisite fight action, money counting and clubbing.
The only issue here is that it overshadows a good deal of what Bangkok Dog sets out to do in some of its characterization. Sao’s role as a deep-cover operative should mirror the kind of quagmire similar characters face in other films, like Iko Uwais’s Rama in The Raid 2 or Colin Farrell’s Crockett in Michael Mann’s rendition of Miami Vice, or even Keanu Reeves’s Johnny Utah in Point Break. Instead, the approach is much more simplified in the film’s execution, leaving the onus to convey the more thorny aspects of this tale, in part, on the brotherly paradigm between Kang and Yoodie. Supannarat does well to construct this element of the film tight enough for the viewer to hold onto until things inevitably escalate and the plot thickens.
The remainder of this task eventually lands on the relationship between Kang and van der Sluijs’s role of Liu, which bodes as something a bit more truncated in how the movie lays out the conditions of their partnership. It definitely doesn’t undercut the sympathy the movie inspires, and particularly for a film with its own fair deal of hit-or-miss acting. More definitely could have been done to fully flesh out the more tonally dramatic strands of the film instead of resorting to a fleeting formula obliges the film to cut to the action faster. Nonetheless, I get the feeling that Supannarat knew what kind of film she was making, and calibrated accordingly to meet action fans’ needs.
To that end, with Bangkok Dog and its biggest show of force being the action, you can expect nothing short of a fun time watching Sao ham it up in action star fashion. If you enjoyed the thrill of seeing him go head to head with the affectionately social media nicknamed “Demon Wolf” in Shadow Master, the reunion they culminate in Bangkok Dog is nothing short of top tier. To add, both Sao and Le both head up the fight choreography and action direction on Bangkok Dog, crafting for themselves an introductory, and a climatic fight scene in which Sao and Le totally cut it up on screen, leaving no crumbs in the process.
Additionally, the rate at which Le peacocks on camera with raw ferocity, launching himself into the fight action with full-throttle conviction makes him the absolute showstopper he’s routinely demonstrated himself to be in his screen resumé, as a recurrent character actor, and a talented martial arts action standout. The action also extends to the lesser screenfighting-experienced van der Sluijs whose scenes come crafted handily and executed enough to make her look convincing when it counts. Boonthanakit who gets a 1v1 moment with Sao in the final act, as does action exponent Ron Smoorenburg who gets a few seconds to tout some of his Recharge-style performance caliber.
Sao has come a long way and remains on the up-and-up in 2024. He has a modicum of acting talent and potential in a market where films like Bangkok Dog tend to run the gamut alongside dozens of titles in the same genre made by directors with innumerate understanding of how to direct a film or work with those who specialize in action. For this, it counts that all the plusses in Supannarat’s inaugural chapter in filmmaking be recognized in conjuction with its areas of needed improvement.
For this, Supannarat’s debut is definitely not a return to the Sahamongkol formula for the kind of scale life-or-death Thai action that rung in the new millenium with Pinkaew’s Ong Bak or the late Panna Rittikrai’s Born To Fight remake. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that Pinkaew’s own niece is here to help provide an avenue for today’s burgeoning action and stunt talent in Thailand long since the likes of Tony Jaa, Dan Chupong and Jeeja Yanin headlined the marquees. The big kicks and stunts are there. The contact and impact are there. The ambition is still there. And, as hard as these kinds of movies are to make, it certainly helps that at best, they deliver the goods. For today’s martial arts action fandom, Bangkok Dog is that movie.
Bangkok Dog was reviewed for the second edition of Big Bad Film Fest which ran from August 23 through 25. The film is currently slated for U.S. release in the Fall from Well Go USA Entertainment. Bleiberg Entertainment is the sales representative on the pic.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
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