Very best movie i ever watch

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Based on Jean Bruce 's "Lila De Calcutta" ,which ,as the title reads ,took place in India ,the action was transposed to Thailand whilst keeping the subject :plague bacillus injected by "the chosen ones " to eliminate the shameful human race who destroys the world with their atomic bomb.After exploiting the swashbucklers,in the wake of James Bond ,Hunebelle made his first (black and white) OSS 117 in 1963 ("OSS 117 Se Déchaine ",also starring Matthews as the lead).For his second effort in the field ,Prodis productions granted color , composer Michel Magne - less inspired than in the Angelique saga- and filming on location.In fact ,only 25% of the film was filmed in Thailand.Kerwin Matthews and Pier Angeli were able to combine business with pleasure ,but Robert Hossein and Dominique Wilms never left Paris where they did all their scenes in Boulogne-Billancourt studios.This is the kind of movie in which the scenery ,at a time when people would not travel much, is the real star.Robert Hossein (who would also play a doctor in Hunebelle ' s last attempt "Pas De Roses Pour OSS 117"(1968)) gives a restrained performance as the villain doctor Sinn (sic),the best thing to do when a clever actor has to work with ,say, very average material.Kerwin Matthews lacks Connery's charisma and humor and Pier Angeli is pretty but bland .Having said that,the best OSS 117 Hunebelle made was certainly his third one "Furia A Bahia Pour OSS 117",(1965)starring Frederick Stafford and Mylene Demongeot.

This movie was released in India as 'Panic in Bangkok' around the same time that Goldfinger became a raging hit. Panic in Bangkok was a big hit too and it launched a huge following for the OSS 117 franchise, which went on to star Fredrick Stafford. This movie was so popular that it was remade in Tamil as 'Vallavan Oruvan' which made actor Jaishankar a star. I loved this movie and although I was hooked to Sean Connery's Bond franchise, I found the OSS 117 series equally credible and most of them were good. Panic in Bangkok was the best and Kerwin Mathews was one of the popular stars of the time with his other movies like 'Viscount' also doing great business. I have been trying to get hold of DVD's of the OSS 117 films, which unfortunately are never played on TV in the US.

Top agent OSS 117 gets another mission, this time with an objective that remains topical even today: a plague virus is causing multiple deaths in Bangkok, and after an agent there is assassinated, OSS 117 is sent to replace him, find the man responsible for the creation of the virus, and stop him before he can spread it to other countries. This is a well-mounted production, complete with exotic locations and elaborate master-villain headquarters. Kerwin Mathews is OK as the title character, and so is Robert Hossein as the soft-spoken villain. The problem with the movie is that it's overlong (my version ran 114 minutes) and slow (if only they shortened all the driving scenes, they could have chopped off about half an hour from the running time). OSS 117 actually tracks down the villain to his headquarters by listening to a bug that he had planted inside his office near the beginning, so the entire middle section of the movie amounts to little. It's still fun for fans of the genre, but strictly average for anyone else. ** out of 4.

Very sympathetic piece of French "cinéma-bis" as well as French "popular cinema of quality". The color photography of Bangkok using FranScope - equivalent of the CinemaScope - is wonderful and one is always surprised to check how this city has changed since 1964 : amazing shots of Shilom, and of the first "car behind car" streets in the center. Hunnebelle shots all the aspects of Thailand with a sure sense of good filmaker : jungle, city, lost temple. As for the genre, it is a subtle mixing of spy movie, horror movie (Robert "LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF" Hossein is amazing in mad doctor), erotic movie (Pier Angeli & Dominique Wilms are beautiful). Kerwin Matthews is "honorable" though maybe a little less "à l'aise" than Frederick Stafford in the leading role. Recently released on French cable in beautiful new prints respecting the original size, this full serie of O.S.S. 117 "made in France" but "shot outdoors" between in the 60's is quite refreshing and keeps an unaltered charm so far... Whit not a DVD release in a collector coffret including all the movies of the serie, somme commentaries and some original poster and lobby cards reproductions ?