Bangkok Dangerous: not so dangerous after all?

Bangkok Dangerous, a film set in the Thai capital staring Nicholas Cage, allows Chris Coplans to reflect on how the city has changed – for the better.
When the Pang brothers were shooting the remake of their 1999 cult hit Bangkok Dangerous, in September 2006, production was held up by a military coup that deposed the Thai prime minister (and Manchester City owner) Thaksin Shinawatra.
Filming was only held up for six hours, as Thai coups seldom disrupt daily life for long. However, Nicholas Cage, the star of the movie, demanded to have a Learjet on stand-by at the airport for the rest of the shoot. Obviously, Cage took the title of the movie way too seriously. Thai coups just aren’t that dangerous.
In a bizarre echo of those events, just before the remake went out on general release last month, middle-class Thais staged their own “soft” coup by occupying a couple of government buildings and a television station. Their protest ultimately resulted in another prime ministerial scalp, this time that of Samak Sundaravej, found guilty by the Constitutional Court of that most heinous of crimes — accepting payment for hosting a television cookery programme.
The original Bangkok Dangerous was a gritty, grainy, Asian-noir movie about a deaf-mute Thai contract killer wreaking havoc in the underbelly of the city. Nearly a decade later, in the Pang brothers remake, Asian-noir makes way for Asian-chic as the brothers go hi-tech, showcasing a radically different, more glamorous Bangkok.
Cage’s character is no longer a deaf mute. You can’t pay a Hollywood A-lister millions of dollars and expect him to stay silent – his Thai girlfriend gets that dubious honour.
Back in November 1999, when the original movie opened, Bangkok was as gritty as the film portraying it. Polluted and impossible to navigate, the city was continually at a standstill. Traffic police had to double up as midwives and one legendary Friday night traffic jam was not unsnarled until the following Monday morning. Most tourists had to endure gridlock and carbon monoxide poisoning as they struggled to tick off the must-see sights.
Motorbike taxis were about the only way to beat the vehicular anarchy. Diminutive Thais, looking like villains from a cut-price Kung-Fu movie, would launch their terrified farang (Western) passengers through the traffic at cannonball speeds. Although I am a committed atheist, I found myself making absurd promises to the Almighty after a few minutes on one of these widow-makers.
A month after the Bangkok Dangerous premiere, the space-age BTS SkyTrain opened and Bangkok became a more user-friendly city. Initially, Thais didn’t take to the SkyTrain but visitors embraced it enthusiastically. The trains glided above the city’s traffic-clogged main arteries, cutting between futuristic skyscrapers and whisking passengers to their destination in a few air-conditioned minutes for less than 30p.
The addition of the underground MTR Metro in 2004 opened up yet more of Bangkok and, buoyed by an Asian economic recovery, the city built more hotels, while a wave of trendy night-clubs and bars opened. In their remake, the Pangs capitalise on a mixture of the dazzling new Bangkok, combined with some of the more traditional sights like the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, the Chao Phraya River and numerous five-star hotels.
Bangkok does five-star, and particularly affordable, chic five-star, very well. My current favourite, tucked down a tiny side street – or soi – off Sukhumvit, is the Eugenia Hotel. Housed in a late-19th century colonial building, it has just 12 suites. Stuffed with antiques, four-poster beds, original fittings and polished teak floors, it is the kind of place that one of Somerset Maugham or Graham Greene’s characters might have chosen for a clandestine, steamy tropical affair.
For all the surface glitz and glamour, though, Bangkok is still Bangkok. Step out of your air-conditioned hotel on to Sukhumvit or Silom, and Asia will chilli-slap your pampered farang face. The roads are fought over by cars, taxis, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, foul-smelling buses and the occasional elephant.
The pavements are jam-packed with visitors from all over the world manoeuvring between stalls that sell every imaginable piece of junk: football shirts, fake designer-wear and watches compete with dodgy DVDs and useless electronic gadgets from China.
The still, hot night air is full of the seductive aromas from competing food stalls. One sells delicious-looking roasted corn on the cob and on the next you can sample fried grasshopper (crispy but bland) or what look like cremated cockroaches. Alongside the Thai restaurants there are establishments offering Japanese, Chinese, Afghan, Korean and Indian delicacies. And the morning after you can enjoy a full English breakfast.
Food is the lifeblood of the Thais. All but the rich and the most cautious tourists eat on the street at tiny stalls and hole-in-the-wall eateries. The best Pad Thai — stir-fried noodles – in the world is served by a little old man at a tiny stall on Soi 38, just a few yards from Sukhumvit.
Round the corner from the elegant Grand Sheraton Sukhumvit hotel, whose Basil restaurant is one of Bangkok’s best, is the plain Jane-looking Suda restaurant on Soi 14, where you can dine richly for less than £1.50.
Bangkok had long traded on its nightlife – the go-go, boom-boom, bars. Then, a funny thing happened: the city suddenly discovered piety, and its entertainment industry outlets were forced to close at 1am.
The Thais, always resourceful, have simply taken to the streets. As the go-go girls, boys and in-betweenies, their western admirers and night owls stream out of air-conditioned clubs, bars and “entertainment” plazas into the sultry night air, the street comes to life. On Sukhumvit, the fake-anything stalls are replaced by food-stalls, complete with tables and chairs, and mobile bars selling imported beer and Mekong whiskey. And everyone joins in.
Backpackers swap stories over ice-cold Changs, middle-aged men who should know better attempt to impress Thai girls half their age, and bemused couples think “what the hell, we’re on holiday, let’s have one for the road”.
Not really so dangerous after all.

Source: BatandSold