You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, not that it stops brothers Oxide and Danny Pang trying.

Nine years after they dazzled audiences with the stylish yet predictable thriller Bangkok Dangerous, the Hong Kong filmmakers take the bold step of directing an English language remake.

The screenplay is no longer theirs.

Instead, Jason Richman, who penned the disagreeable Anthony Hopkins-Chris Rock buddy movie Bad Company, brings a westerner’s eye to this testosterone-fuelled tale of a hit man’s final hurrah on the crime-riddled streets of the Thai capital.

The deaf mute anti-hero of the original film is replaced by a morose, straggly-haired Nicolas Cage, whose opening voiceover monologue reveals, ‘The work’s steady but it’s not for everyone.’ Nor is the Pang brothers’ film, which plods in the numerous action sequences and relies on directorial brio to compensate for paltry character development and linear plotting – the same flaws which afflicted the 1999 version.

The impeccable credentials of marksman Joe London (Cage) are established in a nervy prologue set in night time Prague.

From here, Joe flies to ‘corrupt, dirty and dense’ Bangkok at the behest of crime boss Surat (Nirattisai Kaljareuk) to eliminate four gangland and political enemies, including the Minister of the Interior.

The American assassin hires pickpocket Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) as an errand boy, intending to kill the punk once the contract is complete.

However, the usually cold and aloof Joe forges an emotional bond with Kong – ‘I know this sounds strange but when I looked into his eyes, I saw myself’ – and reluctantly embraces the role of mentor.

Just as Joe begins to let his emotional guard down, even falling in love with deaf mute pharmacist Fon (Charlie Young), the hit man discovers Surat intends to double-cross him.

Like the original, the new Bangkok Dangerous draws heavily on the Pang brothers’ visual flourishes, underpinned by sterling work from cinematographer Decha Simantra.

A centrepiece chase on long-tailed wooden boats then a motorcycle, through the spectacular Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, feels curiously sluggish, but does end with a neat underwater shot of the assassination, bullets scything through the bottom of the boat and into the riverbed.

Cage plays his part with utmost seriousness, aside from one brief flash of droll humour when he asks the pickpocket his name and double takes, ‘Kong?’ Yamnarm exudes roguish charm in his underwritten role while the romance with the luminous Young teeters on the verge of laughable, with Cage making puppy dog eyes at the object of his affection in a way that would be creepy if it weren’t so pathetic.

Once again, the Pangs rescue the moment with bravura direction, focusing on Fon as she wanders dreamily through a garden ahead of her paramour, oblivious to Joe’s struggle with two gun-toting muggers in the background.

Love is blind, and deaf, and dumb.

• Release Date: Friday 5 September 2008
• Certificate: 18
• Runtime: 98mins