eavy on the John Woo grainy shoot-’em-up thematics, "Bangkok Dangerous" adds its share of Thai seasoning to the Hollywood lone-assassin recipe, but the result is only lukewarm at best.

Original Bangkok Dangerous directors Danny and Oxide Pang, the Hong Kong-born action-horror hotshots responsible for the 2003 Chinese movie hit "The Eye," return to familiar terrain with a remake of their imaginative 1999 directorial debut, Bangkok Dangerous - this time for an American audience.

Working here with a script by Jason Richman ("Swing Vote"), the story - narrated in pithy anecdotes by Nicolas Cage, and accessorized by Asian extras who get their heads blown off - bears scant resemblance to the cheap and grimy 1999 original in which the hero was a deaf mute.

As in the original, the film follows the gloomy itinerary of solitary gun-for-hire Joe (Cage, who also co-produced), who, in the opening scene, takes out a high-profile target in Prague, then coldly eliminates his assistant via lethal injection.