A roaring success that continues to this day, the James Bond franchise has been making its cultural mark since the '60s, where the success of a number of early installments prompted a globe-spanning glut of rip-offs. While some of the most famous probably came from the Italians, the series' influence spread as far as India (JAMES BOND 777), the Philippines (FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY) and Turkey (GOLDEN BOY - ALTIN COCUK). Thailand, at the time a prolific pop cinema production center in its own right, similarly stepped into the game with OPERATION: REVENGE, a pulpy spy caper recently given new life by the Thai Film Archive.Mitr Chaibancha, one of Thai film's first genuine superstars, plays Reung, a spy trapped in a seductive game of cat-and-mouse with a comely professor's daughter. The plot is almost ludicrously complicated, beginning with the professor getting double-crossed by a mob associate after he tries to gain control of their illegal stash of drugs. Assigned at first to kill the double-crosser, one of the mob bosses instead steals the drugs himself and allows the professor to keep his life in exchange for going into hiding. Thinking her father dead, it's his daughter who sets out to get revenge on the criminal organization, with Reung caught somewhere in the middle.Fun and frothy for its first hour-and-a-half, REVENGE unfortunately overstays its welcome, stretching goodwill to - and well past - the breaking point at an absurdly over-inflated 140 minutes. The cast is game, and there's all sorts of great B- and C-level fighting and action hijinks, as well as a fantastic musical centerpiece in a nightclub that finds a band in spider outfits singing to a cadre of comely female "flies." Unfortunately, the plot and characterizations are just too thin to sustain this breezy atmosphere over the entire mammoth runtime. It probably played better back in the day, shown in an open-air cinema where viewers could wander off and grab a snack or take a bathroom break without missing too much of the action. Viewed in the stodgier and more formal repertory cinema context of today, however, it's an amusing throwback that unfortunately wears thin by its end. As a rare surviving example of Thai cinema's early commercial heyday, I'm glad we have it, but it probably won't call for too many repeat viewings, at least until someone releases a digest version.