Braddock: Mission in Action III (1988)

Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988)

 

Starring: Chuck Norris, Aki Aleong, Roland Harrah III, Miki Kim, Yehuda Efroni, Ron Barker, Floyd Levine, Jack Rader
Director: Aaron Norris
Action Director: Rick Prieto, Gil Arceo, Renato Morado

 

Having finished up the arc of James Braddock within the span of two movies, there is the question of what to do with him in order to keep making money. After all, there was still some money to be made from the one-man army approach to action filmmaking. Rambo and Platoon rip offs were still a thing as Hollywood entered the final years of the Reagan administration. And then there was Predator, which proved that Arnold Schwarzenegger could do the make bathe the film reels in pure testosterone and still put butts in seats.

Making a third Missing in Action film was not originally on the books. It came about after Chuck and Aaron Norris had a read an article about the plight of Amerasian children in Vietnam. The idea of American serviceman fathering children with the local Asian women has been around since the Spanish-American War, when the Philippines became one of the first American “colonies.” It has happened in Japan, South Korean, and Taiwan. During the Vietnam War, American soldiers sewed their wild oats all over Southeast Asian, especially Vietnam and Thailand. Although the official numbers were once declared to be about 1000, the numbers fell between 20,000 and 30,000 children between American soldiers and Vietnamese women.

The problem with fathering children with the locals—and not marrying the mothers and bringing them home—is that if your side loses the war, those children are not going to be well-liked by the new leadership. The government will probably see the mother as a sort of “race traitor” and the scion as an aberration of sorts. That sort of discrimination is even more likely if the father happens to be black: let’s be honest, a lot of East and Southeast Asian cultures have traditionally placed greater value on paler skin. This sort of gets some lip service in one scene in this film.

There is one little detail about the story that I should mention before I discuss the story: Missing in Action 3 is a complete retcon of the Braddock story arc. Instead of getting captured by enemy forces in 1972, Braddock (still Chuck Norris) is still around come 1975 when Saigon is falling to the insurgents. Instead of an American wife, he is now married to a Vietnamese woman, Lin (Miki Kim), who works as a translator at the American embassy. As the final American helicopters are departing from Saigon, a series of tragedies prevent Braddock from getting his wife out of the country.

First, Lin’s best friend (Pita Liboro) steals her bracelet while the other is packing. Ly gets out of the apartment before her friend does. A couple of minutes later, a mortar destroys the building, with the friend’s body getting completely carbonized in ensuing fire. Braddock arrives in time to see the body getting removed from the rubble. Upon seeing the bracelet, he assumes that it’s his wife. Meanwhile, Lin is making her way to the American embassy, only to trip and fall and get her purse stolen…the purse with her passport inside. With no way to prove her identity, Lin is unable to enter the embassy before chaos erupts and forces the soldiers to withdraw, leaving hundreds of Vietnamese—including Lin--stranded in the country.

Fast forward 12 years. Braddock is hanging out at a bar in Washington D.C. when he receives a visit from a certain Father Polanski (Yehuda Efroni, of Deadly Outbreak and Delta Force). Polanski runs a mission in Vietnam that houses orphaned Amerasian children. He has recently come into contact with a young boy named Van, whose mother is named Lin…Lin Braddock. Braddock initially dismisses the possibility of his wife being alive, but then changes his mind once the CIA, led by Agent Littlejohn (Jack Rader, of Outbreak and The Blob ’88), shows up to tell him that Father Polanski’s is a load of hogwash. I find it interesting that even in 1988, one’s first inclination of hearing something from the CIA was to assume that the opposite is true. So, Braddock takes the first plane to Bangkok, with arrangements to take a civilian plane into Vietnam. The CIA tries to stop him, but this is Chuck Norris we’re talking about. He beats the hell out of the agents following him and makes his way back into ‘Nam.

It doesn’t take Braddock long to find Father Polanski’s mission. Polanski leads him to the shack where Lin and her son, Van (Roland Harrah III, who tragically died at the age of 21), are living. After a tearful reunion, Braddock tells Lin and Van that they need to get out of dodge as quick as possible. While waiting for Braddock to get his speak stealth boat ready, the Vietnamese army shows up to stop them. Their leader, the sadistic General Quoc (Aki Aleong, of The Quest and Sci-Fighter), murders Lin on the spot and takes Braddock and Van into custody. Of course, “custody” means “torture” and this one is a doozy: Braddock has his hands tied up, which are also tied a cord that is rigged to a shotgun aimed at Van (who is strapped to a chair). As long as Braddock stays on the balls of his feet, his son will be fine. But if he relaxes his feet, it will pull the cord and KA-BLAM! Oh, and Genral Quoc also electrocutes Braddock with jumper cables just to make things interesting.

Braddock eventually escapes because…well…this is Chuck Norris we’re talking about. His son goes to the mission to hide, but is found out by General Quoc and his men. Quoc then rounds up all the Amerasian kids and imprisons them. Braddock now has a new mission: save his son and get all the children out of Vietnam to safety. This time, we win!

Braddock: Missing in Action 3 is considered by Norris himself to be the best in the trilogy. I’m inclined to agree. The film is a lot more polished than the first two and Aaron Norris gives the film a more professional look than the earlier movies. He does a better job of convincing us that the Philippines are Vietnam than the earlier movies. Although Canon was swiftly approaching bankruptcy by the time it came out, had more money to spend when production began in 1986—the same year they made Invaders from Mars and Lifeforce. The failure of that last film helped put them on the road to financial ruin. The early scenes in Saigon have an appropriate sense of scale and probably cost more to stage than the other two films combined. It also benefits from better pacing, more martial arts, and a final act that has more emotional investment, considering that children’s lives are now at stake.

With a higher budget, there is more and better action than the previous two installments in the series. The last half hour or so is one long series of set pieces, starting with Braddock’s raid on a prison camp. In one exploitive scene, a soldier tries to rape a teenage girl. Braddock shows up, kicks him around a little, and then rams a grenade launcher into his gut. Firing the weapon, the force of the grenade carries the guy through the wall and leaves a bloody hole in his stomach, after which it explodes. That is followed by an extended truck-helicopter chase through a forest of palm trees. It all leads to a final showdown at the Vietnam-Thai border, which goes into Rambo territory when General Quoc shows up in a Russian Mil Mi-24 attack chopper.

The (relatively) plentiful fight sequences were staged by Rick Prieto, a member of Chuck Norris’s stunt team. He also did fight choreography for The Hero and the Terror and the second Delta Force movie. Although there are no stand-out classics, every time Chuck has to take down some Vietnamese soldiers in close-quarters combat, he performs his usual kicks with great aplomb. He also does some nice leg locks and scissor takedowns in a couple of his fights. With more fighting than the other two movies, plus better explosions, the film was much more satisfying on the action front. This is sort of mindless one-man-army madness that The Expendables wad made to pay tribute to.