Charlie Young really brought her A-game

“The eyes tell you everything.” —JOE

Having teamed up for more than a dozen movies to date, twin directors Oxide and Danny Pang have developed a unique approach of collaborating that would probably be impossible for filmmakers who do not share the same DNA.

“It’s like we just combine all of our two powers to become one,” says Oxide. “We work on the script together and then put together storyboards for the film.”
“When we finish this procedure, we can work separately because we both have the same idea of what should be happening,” adds Danny. “On any given day, maybe I’ll be shooting, tomorrow it might be Oxide. If it’s not a big scene, normally we will separate.”

Sherak marvels at the brothers seeming ability to read each others’ minds, even when they weren’t on set at the same time. “What amazed everyone on the team is the connection between Danny and Oxide. “You can talk to one of them on Monday and finish the conversation with the other one on Tuesday and they’re both in the exact same place. It’s very weird, but it makes it easier because they can work on alternate days and build on each other’s work seamlessly. Despite some differences in personality, they seem to think exactly alike when it comes to directing.”

Production designer James Newport concurs that working with two directors was very different from anything he had experienced before. “There seems to be a psychic connection between the two of them, they can almost finish each other’s sentences. If you can’t find Oxide, you go and ask Danny, and he seems to know what you’re talking about even if you never talked with him about it before. They seem to have taken each task and divided it right down the middle.”

One thing the Pangs agreed on was that they were thrilled to be working with Nicolas Cage, an actor who Danny calls “one of our idols in the movie world.”

“I’ve loved his work since Birdy, directed by Alan Parker. I don’t know if a lot of people are familiar with this movie, but I remember first seeing him in this.”

Oxide adds that Cage was a dream to work with. “We were making changes to the story as we went along, and Nic was always open to our ideas and our direction,” he says. “Our English is not too good, but he spent the time to try to understand what we were saying. We never felt like we were directing a ‘superstar.’ ”

“Nic Cage is Nic Cage,” says Sherak. “He’s amazing; he’s brought such life to this character. He has the ability to tell an entire story with expressions. He’s playing opposite a character who is deaf-mute, so it’s all about expressions and he really slammed that home.”

Cage says he was fascinated by his character’s many contradictions and complexities. “Joe is coming from a military background, but he’s a killer for hire, a mercenary. He has been beleaguered by family problems his entire life. I would say that he is evil, if I have to label him, and that he is trying to find a way out of that.

“He’s coming out of his of violence, his demons, because of the girl he meets, Fon, and her sensibility, her kindness, and also because of Thailand, because of Bangkok itself. He’s becoming more interested in peace and that’s where the character goes into conflict, because it’s not his nature, he really can’t be peaceful because of what happened to him as a boy.”

Cage has high praise for Charlie Young, the actress cast as his love interest, Fon. “The chemistry with Charlie was terrific, she’s a great lady, she’s kind, she’s charitable and she’s a really good actress,” Cage says. “I think it’s going to be unique. You don’t see a lot of movies where there’s a love story that joins different cultures.”

The producers were equally impressed with the Hong Kong star’s performance. “Charlie Young really brought her A-game,” says Sherak. “I think the scenes with the two of them are exceptional.”

Young learned sign language for her role with the help of Katitha Rattanasin from the National Association of the Deaf. Rattanasin says of the actress, “She’s a fast learner and was extremely committed. Charlie even taped the lessons we had together so she could study on her own later on and communicate with deaf people in real life situations.”

In addition to sign language, Young had to learn how to perform a well known traditional Thai dance. “It was very challenging,” she says. “I had only seven days to practice, and then I had to dance with a group of professionals. Thank goodness I had an excellent teacher and she worked very hard with me.

“When I came to the set that day, I was very nervous because I had had so little practice and I didn't want to disappoint anyone. My teacher told me in Thai, ‘I support you all the way. Try your best and you'll be okay.’ I almost cried at that moment. I knew I was going to do the best I possibly could.”

In terms of character, Young decided not to do a lot of additional preparation for her role, “I feel that sometimes you should not think too much when you read the script. The immediate feeling is more important. I wanted Fon to be as unaffected as possible. I wanted her to appear very natural.”

Conversely, Shahkrit Yamnarm, who plays Kong, immersed himself in the screenplay to develop the role of the hitman’s apprentice. “I did a lot of homework with the script, reading it over and over, memorizing it and getting into the character, getting to know Kong as well as I could, until I became him. I also trained in motorcycle riding and some of the martial arts moves, which was fun.”

Sherak was thrilled with Yamnarm’s performance. “Shahkrit is fantastic, he just really knocked his role out of the park,” says the producer. “He has the potential to be a very big star all over the world, and I hope it happens, because he’s such a great guy and he’s so talented.”

Yamnarm describes his character as a street kid, a hustler, selling cheap watches to tourists. “He’s good at what he does, but living in the big wide world, I don’t think that he’s that smart. He’s not actually a hitman, he’s more of a helper. He doesn’t shoot anyone, but he learns a lot from Joe. There are a lot of emotions, a lot of understanding between these two guys who are totally different, but both are quite isolated from the world. They are men who do what they have to do to survive, that’s what they have in common.”

The actor made the choice not to watch the original Bangkok Dangerous before shooting began. “I was afraid seeing it would influence me and I wanted to make this role my own. I’m going to go watch it after I finish this movie.”

As he carries out his secretive courier duties for Joe, Kong falls in love with Aom, a beautiful “coyote” dancer, who performs in a club in Bangkok’s red light district. Thai television star Panward Hemmanee makes her first film appearance as Aom, who also acts as go between for Joe and his employer. “I auditioned alongside many other actresses,” she recalls. “We had to do a dance scene, it was a bit embarrassing, but I did it.”

“The character I play is both gentle and strong inside,” she says. “When she is at work, she's super tough, but on the inside, she just wants to be loved like everybody else. It’s a very sexy role. During the dance scene I was afraid that all of the other coyote girls who were dancing beside me would be sexier than me. All the time I was thinking—what do I have to do to be even sexier?!”

Nirattisai Kaljareuk, a well-known Thai actor and director, plays the vicious gangster Surat who hires Joe, without ever meeting him, to slay his enemies. “I studied for the role by watching a lot of mafia movies. Surat is so completely opposite to who I am in real life—it was a great deal of fun to be that evil.”