An exact copy of the first Hangover in Bangkok with a displeasing undertone for Asians

Rating: 4/10 (24 May 2011)

The movie needs no introduction nor a plot outline literally; it's basically a carbon copy of the first one and so instead of everyone screaming "what's happening?", it's everyone screaming "it happened again" and then basically everyone going through exactly the same motions.
One thing this movie illustrates, albeit very unintentionally, is the pathetic state of the Asian-American influence on Hollywood and American entertainment industry. The subtext of the movie is the emasculation of the Asian male; the proud father whose daughter is taken almost against his will, a bright young man who is a brilliant musician and a aspiring surgeon has his finger chopped off and casually discarded, an Asian gangster whose penis is the size of a mushroom whose driving skills aren't that good to boot and worst of all Bangkok, whose most prominent resident is a transvestite. Poor Bangkok! Bangkok isn't the virile and threatening place that's been seen in many movies, it's just an "Asiantown" to be conquered and beaten - words echoed by the characters themselves.
Stu (Helms) is now marrying Lauren (Chung) however her father considers Stu to be boring as white rice. The father-in-law is half a dimensional character and rather sadly I can't think of a solid Asian actor who could give it more dimensionality. Lauren's brother Teddy is the apple of his father's eyes who is played an actor who is nothing short of a bobble-head who doesn't express a single emotion and goes through the movie with a contorted smile that he can't stifle. Ken Jeong gives a good performance playing a gangster who is unpredictable and out of control, but completely toothless, meek and nonthreatening; and ultimately discarded without a single thought. The movie tries to be about the empowering and masculinization of Stu and that there is a darkness inside him but it really is just thrown in there in the end and not a theme whatsoever. The three main actors Cooper, Galifianakis and Helms have since the last Hangover gone on to become big names and they do their thing.
It's a cliché but the Hangover Bangkok edition could have been so much more. But, what it is that it's a slumming through Bangkok with the ugly American point of view, and a testament to the pathetic state of Asian-American actors, cultural icons and general influence on the entertainment industry.