Out of the morass that is Thailand’s film industry comes the 2001 street crime love story One Take Only, directed by Oxide Pang (one half of the Pang brothers), released in an attempt to cash in on the renown the pair have built up since 2002’s The Eye.
Meet Bank, a small time dope peddler and his girlfriend Som, a streetwise prostitute with a heart of gold. Together they team up to profit off huge drug deals and buy shoes for needy children (Believe me, I couldn’t make this up if I tried).
One Take Only is about the consequences of greed. But let’s be clear; the only greed here is the Western release of this film. The street crime comes across as laughably inauthentic. There are scenes involving people getting beaten in which it’s painfully obvious the actors involved are trying not to come within five inches of touching each other. The sex scenes are as clumsily staged as the everything else here and when the lead actress has to show some breast, you actually end up feeling that it’s gratuitous within the context of the quality of this film. I can’t even begin to tell you what they were thinking in terms of the soundtrack. Most of the score is made up of either inappropriately bad pop, or the kind of bargain techno that films were using at least 15 years back. I could argue the film’s overall execution is on the level of a student film, but I’ll leave that aspect to individual tastes. The point is that when you add up everything that’s wrong, it completely steers you away from whatever positive qualities the film might have. And on that note, I’ll mention the film’s one bright spot – actress Wanatchada Siwapornchai who’s actually quite attractive (think Jessica Alba) and exudes a naturally engaging screen personality.
The special features consist of the theatrical trailer for One Take Only and an 11 minute ‘Making Of’ featurette for another of Oxide Pang’s films, Ab-Normal Beauty. That’s right – in a completely nonsensical move, the featurette is for a completely different film. Does this mean the ‘Making Of’ for One Take Only can be found on the DVD for Ab-Normal Beauty? As if to add insult to injury, the featurette cuts out at the 11 minute mark while the director is seemingly in mid-sentence. The back of the DVD also lists something called ‘Justin Bowyer Film Notes’ as a special feature which is nowhere to be found.
If you’re a Pang brothers completist who insists on watching everything they’ve ever done, separately or as a team no matter how painful, then One Take Only will have some value for you. If it upsets you to waste your time watching mediocrity, skip it. And if you buy DVD’s for the extras, you can write this one off altogether.