“Operation Bangkok” Web Poster
Director: Du Xiubin
Cast: Ray Lui Leung Wai, Yuen Biao, Pavarit Mongkolpisit, Xu Dongdong, Liu Wei-Sen, Zhang Yonghua, Huang Guan, Chu Xu, Li Xing-Yu, Kinsman, Gao Lin
Running Time: 90 min.
By Paul Bramhall
China’s massive web movie market is known for its quick and cheap output, primarily driven by a seemingly endless line of monster movies and action flicks, all intended to be disposable and forgotten about a few minutes after the end credits roll. With that being said, for Hong Kong film fans it’s worth keeping at least one eye on, mainly because it’s become a source of income for many of HK cinemas familiar faces from its heyday to continue making a buck. Some of it even turns out quite decent. Fan Siu Wong, who at this point can be considered a veteran of the web movie scene, headlined the entertaining VR Fighter in 2021, and in the same year Man on the Edge would bring Sammo Hung, Simon Yam, Richie Ren, and Alex Fong together for a passable crime thriller. 2021 had one more ace up its sleeve when it came to web movies, and that arrived in the form of Operation Bangkok, which heralded the return of Yuen Biao to the screen.
It may not be the big screen (in fact for most it was more likely to be on a 6-inch screen), but it’s Yuen Biao, and on paper that’s a win in any Hong Kong cinema fans book, even more so for lovers of the territories legendary action genre. Unfortunately on paper is the only place that Operation Bangkok bears any semblance to being a promising action flick, as onscreen it’s a different story. Web movies are by their nature straight forward affairs, by necessity requiring no frills plots to keep the viewers attention, and if the runtime hits 90-minutes then it’s considered to be a gargantuan epic (which Operation Bangkok does). Considering this, the plot here is unfathomably bewildering, and I can confidently say has nothing to do with Bangkok.
Opening onscreen text reads “Mengguohe City. Criminal Police Officer Gao Tianming was imprisoned by poisonous scorpion on the 36th day. The reporter was captured on the island of Angra. Becomes an experiment of R hemocoagulant.” This isn’t a bad subtitle translation by the way, the text is part of the movie itself (although the subtitles certainly aren’t any better, with at one point a character aggressively questioning another by apparently yelling, “Who are you on earth!?”). This is pretty much all we have to go on as we’re thrown almost immediately into the life of a former soldier played by another 80’s and 90’s Hong Kong stalwart, Ray Liu (To Be Number One, Guns of Dragon), who for poorly defined reasons heads into the Thai jungle on a rescue mission.
Their goal is to free victims who have been kidnapped by an evil pharmaceutical company that’s created a new drug called “R hemagglutinin” (that must get mentioned at least 100 times, and is never once spelt like it was in the initial onscreen text), which requires the bone marrow of 5 people to create a single shot. The hidden compound is overseen by a vicious human trafficker played by Pavarit Mongkolpisit (Bangkok Dangerous, Operation Mekong), who’s already captured an undercover cop, which is the role Yuen Biao steps into. I can safely say that synopsis is far more succinct and comprehensible than the way it plays out onscreen, which feels like it starts 30 minutes in and we’ve missed all of the crucial stuff like establishing who the characters are, or even where we are (it’s not mentioned once that the story takes place in Thailand).
Directed and written by Du Xiubin, Operation Bangkok marks his debut in both, with his former experience limited to working as part of the action crew on productions like Skiptrace (in which he served as assistant action director) and Kungfu Cyborg: Metallic Attraction (in which he was a stuntman). Sadly whatever experience he gained on those productions hasn’t translated into being a competent director, as the narrative barrels along in listless fashion, with only Ray Lui holding things together with an energetic and spritely performance. Released when he was 65, Lui seems to have found the fountain of eternal youth and could easily pass for at least 15 years younger, a fact which is only made more alarming when he’s side by side with Biao who’s 7 months his junior (although I should point out that this isn’t really a criticism of Biao, he simply looks his age whereas Lui looks ridiculously youthful).
The crew that Lui brings along with him doesn’t fare quite so well in the charisma department, consisting of his wife (played by Xu Dongdong – Mission Milano), a doctor (played by Liu Wei-Sen – I Remember), and a former military buddy (Zhang Yonghua – Master Z: Ip Man Legacy). They end up being joined by some guy who’s looking for his missing journalist girlfriend (played by Huang Guan – for whom Operation Bangkok was his first and last film credit), and a bow and arrow wielding Lara Croft clone (played by Chu Xu – Resentment at the Hotel II). I admit Xu’s role offers up the most entertainment, purely because it’s never once explained who she is or why she’s running around with this massive bow (complete with a sheath of arrows which never seems to diminish) which is completely impractical, while everyone else is firing bullets at each other.
It’s almost as if Xiubin felt like he couldn’t live without a bow and arrow wielding character, but then realised any kind of explanation as to why they’re her choice of weapon would push the narrative past the 90-minute mark, so decided to just plough ahead with the zero-backstory approach. In fairness, it works, since any time Operation Bangkok attempts dialogue driven scenes it comes to a grinding halt, and in any case they’re frequently incoherent. It’s a shame then, as apart from deliver a handful of lines and fire off a few gunshots, Yuen Biao does precisely nothing. Considering this is his first role where he’s onscreen for at least 15 minutes since 2014’s Sifu vs. Vampire (I can’t count the blink and you’ll miss it cameo in 2016’s The Bodyguard), his turn here is arguably the most disappointing aspect of the entire 90 minutes.
It almost feels like the only reason he’s there is to show off a new way to fire a pistol – remember the mid-90’s to early 2000’s trend that saw characters firing handguns sideways? Well, here that’s what Biao does, only upside down from how we usually see it, so he’s firing the gun sideways with his palm facing upwards. It’s weird, but why Biao showed up in Thailand for such a meaningless role is infinitely weirder, and it sends a shiver down my spine to think that web movies are the way he’s chosen to close out his filmography. I mean his barely there cameo in The Bodyguard may have been just that, but it was still there, and would have allowed his final movie to be one directed by and starring his big brother Sammo Hung. As it is, in 2022 he’d go on to appear in Coffin Mountain Tomb, this time in a starring role, so it looks like Mainland web movies could be to Biao in the 2020’s what Filipino action cheapies were to him in the 1990’s.
Action director Liu Jun-Jie stages a number of frequent if unremarkable gun fights, which to their credit do actually utilize practical explosions (even if they’re just the sending a few loose leaves skyward type) and blood squibs. As mentioned previously Lui also gets a handful of brief but welcome fight scenes, culminating in a face off against Pavarit Mongkolpisit, of which the conclusion should really have resulted in the end credits. Sadly Xiubin tags on a prolonged epilogue involving shady pharma bigwigs Kathy Chow (another familiar HK face from the likes of The Holy Virgin Versus the Evil Dead) and Li Xing-Yu (Thief Female Hero) turning up to place Lui and his family in danger. Not only does their appearance add unnecessary padding to the runtime, but criminally it also gives more screentime to Lui’s incredibly annoying onscreen daughter, played by newcomer Reina Kinsman.
A lacklustre affair from start to finish, there’s not too many positives to extract from Operation Bangkok, other than perhaps by nature of it being a web movie, they’re guaranteed to never outstay their welcome. With that being said, with the way it wasted the presence of Yuen Biao and the scattershot plotting, even with the punchy runtime there were moments where I felt my patience being tested. Needless to say, if you’re craving for some Ray Lui in the jungles of Thailand action, stick to 1991’s Thunder Run from exactly 30 years prior, and you’ll find it delivers everything Operation Bangkok fails so miserably at.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 3/10
Gross. I hoped you wouldn’t waste your time with this one after everyone else confirmed it was terrible. Yuen Biao may not have had an actual gun to his head when he agreed to this film, but being desperate for money can certainly feel like it!
Indeed, and he’d be back at it in 2022 with ‘Coffin Mountain Tomb’ (thanks to COF reader Alejandro Torres for bringing it to our attention!) – here’s the trailer.