There is a certain premise that has become the bread and butter of the modern action canon: the violently disposed man who makes an attempt to put his bloody history behind him, only to fail at it in the end. Hollywood has made such a habit of this that one could say they have pumped the well dry, churning out an endless run of glossy genre pieces with no friction and where neither the body count nor the emotional content carries much weight.
Give that same formula to a regional cinema with some cultural heft and you will find it has a different kind of kineticism. Such is the case with The Debt Collector, the new Thai crime thriller from director Surapong Ploensang now available on Netflix worldwide. With Nadech Kugimiya in the lead delivering a world-weary performance of note, the film goes about its business of turning standard tropes into something more of an atmospheric exercise in guilt and mortality. What one gets in return is as uneven as it is striking.
A Hard-Boiled Setup
Ploensang puts the film’s intentions on the table early in what is a masterclass in telling a story without fuss. We meet Num (Kugimiya) at a local gym; the enforcer is cold and methodical, a fitting prelude to the ten years in prison he is to serve for a death he caused by way of collateral damage.
When he comes out, the cards are stacked against him. A diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor means Num has perhaps a month to put in before he dies. He sees no point in medical intervention and instead takes up the quiet life of a deliveryman in an effort to atone and put some distance between himself and his sins. But the underworld has other plans. Predatory loan sharks make an example of an indigent grandmother and her granddaughter, and when the young, ruthless Po (Daou Pittaya Saechua) is involved, Num is drawn back in. It is a chain reaction of uncompromising violence for which he is in no physical shape to endure.
Performances Elevate the Material
Kugimiya brings a heavy stillness to the part. There is none of the usual star glamour here; he uses a hollowed-out look and the economy of his movements to show a man whose soul has been ground down by his own making. You sense the toll of a dwindling calendar in every blow he gives or receives. He is no invincible hero.
Then there is Saechua as the villainous Po, who brings a volatile quality to the screen. Eschewing the clichés of the mobster type, he plays Po with a reckless menace that is a product of pure ambition and economic want, and the tension is palpable whenever he is on view.
Visceral Action and Staging
The action in The Debt Collector is unvarnished. Ploensang has no time for wire-fu theatrics; his set pieces are close-quarter brawls that are as exhausting to watch as they must be to participate in.
One is left with a lasting impression of the sequence in the wall-of-death motordrome at the carnival. The circular wooden arena provides a disorienting backdrop for a high-stakes affair, and cinematographer Phisan Phuengchainuwat makes sure the neon shadows and urban decay of Bangkok feel like a noir-soaked oppression.
The Structural Pitfall
It is in the middle of the film that things get a bit unwieldy. At 133 minutes, the narrative can lose its way by trying to be too much of a procedural drama when a tighter morality tale would do. About a third in, we are made to know Kong (Chaiwat Thongsaeng), a by-the-book cop and old friend from the orphanage. The idea is to widen the scope with parallel tales of systemic poverty, but the monochrome flashbacks and detours put the brakes on just when the story should be gathering speed. One could argue the pacing is buckling under the weight of subplots that are passed off as depth.
In the end, The Debt Collector is a mixed bag of sorts, but one that is worth the patience. It avoids the sterile, bloodless quality of a Hollywood clone for an underworld that feels genuinely dangerous. Allow for the overlong runtime and the occasional meandering in the second act, and you will find in Kugimiya’s presence and the film’s brutality a solid enough reason to put it on for a weekend.