Two nights in Bangkok

Back to the Pang brothers: before they were breaking off to do solo projects to avoid pigeonholing, they were doing solo projects by necessity. The twins teamed up officially for the first time in 1999 as co-directors/writers/editors on Bangkok Dangerous, a Thai thriller that became a moderate hit and gave them a good reputation in Thailand, where they'd continue to work often.

The Pangs are remaking their own flick; the new version is in the can and awaiting a February 17 release date. It shot under the titles Big Hit in Bangkok and Time to Kill before coming back around to Bangkok Dangerous.

The original stars Pawalit Mongkolpisit as a deaf-mute hitman. That's not going to fly with Nicolas Cage in the lead, so the Pangs were 'asked' to change things around in order to give Cage some lines, and in the new version, he's a plain old hitman with a deaf-mute girlfriend (Charlie Yeung of Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time and Fallen Angels). You might wonder if this sort of negates the whole point of the original movie. You certainly might wonder that.

Since the Pangs' budget is more than a hundred times the original ($40-45 million to the 1999 version's $400,000), and the unusual draw of the first film is being sacked, expect this to be more the next Next than a stylish little crime drama. You might or might not be inclined to call it their American debut – officially, that'd be the very poor 2007 Messengers, but since they were replaced with Eduardo Rodriguez for reshoots, it's not a fair approximation of their abilities. One would hope.