Review: As a fairly early effort from writer and director Oxide Pang (also known as one half of the Pang Brothers), ONE TAKE ONLY seems less like a serious attempt to create an engaging drama than to produce a Hollywood calling card. Taking a straightforward boy-meets-girl premise, the film never veers away from a familiar world of drugs and whores and cinematically it often goes for easy choices to the extent that from very early on you feel like you know where the film is headed to. Unlike Oxide Pang’s earlier film BANGKOK DANGEROUS (made with his brother Danny), ONE TAKE ONLY fails to elevate well-trodden material to anything above average status.

What gives ONE TAKE ONLY it’s most interesting moments also serves to take away from its attempts at any real depth – namely Oxide Pang’s flashy visual and editorial flourishes which detract from the story by constantly reminding us that we are watching a film. This technique may work in other films in which it is the intention of the director to highlight the medium we are watching, Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS springs to mind in this respects, but ONE TAKE ONLY is not at all similar to that film in either it’s depiction of violence or relationships, nor does it seem to have any narrative interest in the medium of film itself - with the possible exception of a scene played out through the framing of a security camera. The way the film jumps between styles such as fast-cutting, scenes with colour washes as well as jumping between dream sequences and ‘looped’ moments that repeat as quickly as the films techno soundtrack, the film highlights it’s own technical processes more than the lives of the characters it follows. Maybe Oxide Pang’s intention was to highlight the difference between the mundanity of real-life compared to its fictitious big-screen companion, but even this seems unlikely as the basic plot and characters of the film fall into stereotype fairly quickly.

Performance-wise the film is quite strong, the two leads played by Wanatchada Siwapornchai (as Som) and Pavarit Mongkolpisit (Bank) are immediately likeable and manage to humanise their paper-thin characters. The supporting cast is also fine, although there’s a typically teary-eyed ‘new’ prostitute who is slightly annoying in her obvious inclusion for a cheap emotional response – but then the fault here is more likely the writing than the performance.

Although it fails to convince as a cohesive whole, ONE TAKE ONLY is actually quite a fun watch. It’s straightforward and likeable and Oxide Pang’s reliance on showy visuals means that there’s a lot happening on screen that should easily sustain your interest for its ninety-minute running time. If you don’t expect any clever plot twists and character building then it’s a lot more enjoyable – it’s just a shame that it’s a totally surface experience.