The Ghost (2001)
Aka: Code of the Dragon;
Thunderbolt Female Killer
Starring:
Julie Lee Wa-Yuet, Michael Madsen, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Richard Hatch, Michael
Paul Chan, James Hong, Louis Herthum, Brad Hunt, George Cheung, Brad Dourif
Director:
Douglas Jackson
Action Director: Koichi Sakamoto
The Ghost
is an interesting oddity, if not a completely successful one. It was made in
2001, when the success of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon—not to mention the success of Jackie Chan and Jet Li in
Hollywood—meant that much of Hollywood action would have a Hong Kong flavor to
it. The Ghost was a made-for-cable movie with a few recognizable names
and faces, from Michael Madsen to the ubiquitous James Hong, and some Hong
Kong-style action, courtesy of Alpha Stunts. The filmmakers also brought in a
Hong Kong actress to play the lead: Julie Lee Wa-Yuet.
I would like to know how she was chosen
for the role, considering that she hadn’t acted in Hong Kong since 1995. Nor
was she a particularly huge name, even to Hong Kong cinephiles. Moreover, Miss
Lee was mainly known as a Category III actress and not an action one. She had
roles in Cat III favorites like The Untold Story and Love to Kill.
She garnered a lot of attention in Hong Kong in 1995 when she wrote, produced
and directed Trilogy of Lust and its sequel, which are known for mixing
extreme gore with un-simulated sex. Although the first of those films did OK,
the sequel did not. This came at the same time that her self-financed solo
music album was released and also flopped, at which point she seemed to drop
out of the entertainment industry. Once again, how she was cast in this is
anybody’s guess.
An intertitle at the opening informs us
that the real power in Hong Kong belongs to the Tong Societies, and that they
often employ ninja-like assassins known as “Ghosts” to eliminate their enemies
with extreme prejudice. This brings up an interesting point: What is the
difference between a Tong and a Triad. Tong comes from the Chinese word for
“hall” or “gathering place,” and refers to benevolent organizations or secret
societies of Chinese immigrants abroad. They are not by definition criminal
organizations, although there might be some interactions between them and the
Triads, which refer to the Chinese organized group organizations. Interestingly
enough, even the Triads started out as something benevolent (depending on your
point of view), as they were secret societies organized with the intent of
raising up rebellions to overthrow the Manchurian-led Qing Dynasty and restore
rule of China to the Han people. But as these things go, they often had to
engage in illegal activities in order to raise money for their cause.
Our main character is Jing (Julie Lee,
credited here as Chung Lai), the adopted daughter of a Tong leader (James Hong,
of Bloodsport 2 and Everything Everywhere All At Once). We learn
that she was abandoned as baby for being a girl—darn that One Child
Policy!!!—and raised by the Tongs to be a cold-blooded killer. Her mission at
the beginning is to strike fear into the heart of a renegade Tong leader, Chang
(Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, of Mortal Kombat and The Man with the Iron
Fists 2), who has gone a bit mad. Jing crashes his birthday orgy, which
sets up the dark running joke of Chang shooting his girlfriends whenever he’s
in a frenzy. She threatens his life if he doesn’t reign in his behavior and disappears.
Chang is pissed that another leader
would send a Ghost after him, so he has Jing’s father and some other leaders
murdered. One of the remaining leaders (stuntman George Cheung, who played Soo
Yung’s driver in Rush Hour), tells her to leave Hong Kong for the
States, even so much as giving her a new identity as a mail-order bride. As her
future husband, Edward (Richard Hatch, best known for his roles in “Battlestar
Galactica”), has been corresponding with another girl for some time, he has no
idea what to expect when he sees her. That said, did the Tongs just kill the
other girl and substitute Jing for her?
Jing arrives in the United States and
meets her new fiancé, whom she is initially repelled at—she tells her Tong
contact in L.A. Chinatown that he’s “weak and patronizing.” She gradually comes
to like his “good man” ways and falls for him. But while she’s settling into
her new identity, Chang and his spy on the HK Police Force, Detective Wu
(Michael Paul Chan, of “Major Crimes” and U.S. Marshals—his filmography
suggests that he’s the guy you get when you can’t afford Tzi Ma), are beating
the information as to her whereabouts out of [George Cheung]. Wu then calls in
a favor with his opposite number in Los Angeles, Captain Garland (Brad Dourif,
of Alien Resurrection and the Child’s Play franchise). Captain
Garland hires bail bondsman/bounty hunter Daniel Olinghouse (Michael Madsen, of
Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Reservoir Dogs) to find her. But with two
out-of-focus pictures and no name, Olinghouse has his work cut out for him. And
the longer it takes to find her, the more people from Hong Kong will come to
L.A. to speed up the process.
The Ghost was written by David Tedder and Douglas Jackson, the latter of whom
also directed. Tedder only has four writing credits to his name, although he
helped in the sound department for God’s Army, a popular film among members
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Jackson has been in the
game since the early 1970s, although he has been mainly involved in making TV
movies. His biggest film—one that I vaguely remember as a child going to
theaters—was Whispers, with former Mrs. Steve Martin, Victoria Tenant.
The story is the sort of “white guys write for Asian culture” that you’d expect
in an early 1990s DTV movie. There is no real understanding for Tongs or Triads
and their power structures in Hong Kong and abroad, and controversial issues
like the One-Child Policy receive lip service, but in a shallow, sensationalist
manner.
The acting is very much a mixed bag.
Julie Lee stands out in that her performance is particularly stilted, even if
her English accent is easy to understand. On the other end of the scale is Cary-Hiroyuki
Tagawa, who overacts wildly as the main villain, breaking stuff in coke-induced
rages and sneering and snarling so much that the scenery chews itself in fear.
In the middle are Richard Hatch and Michael Madsen, whose roles don’t really require
much of them. Then there’s Brad Dourif channeling his inner John Malkovich. A
friend of mine said that John Malkovich always comes across as a man who’s
perpetually irritated at the service he’s getting a restaurant. Dourif, with
his deadly serious and over-annunciation of his lines, comes across very much
like that.
The action was staged by Alpha Stunts
and Koichi Sakamoto, best known for Drive (1997) and dozens of Japanese tokusatsu
films and shows. Sakamoto also worked on DTV martial arts films like Martial
Outlaw and Mission of Justice, which enjoy good reputations among
fans. The fights, while generally short, have that fast Hong Kong vibe to them.
Most of the fights involve Julie Lee—or to be more accurate, her stunt double—performing
fast kicks and punch combos on a bunch of stuntmen: killers in Hong Kong, car
jackers, killers at her house, thugs in Chinatown, etc. It’s clear that Lee isn’t
doing any of the heavy hitting, since she’s notably slow the few times the
camera focuses on her doing anything. Her double does some neat moves, like
jumping backwards off a railing, performing the splits, and landing behind her
opponent. There is also a legless black guy in Chinatown who gets in some
fights (thanks to some accommodating stuntmen). The film ends on a big
gunfight, although it has nothing on A Better Tomorrow 2…or even City
War.
The film’s low budget (and script
shortcomings) shows in numerous ways: Chinese people in Hong Kong who normally
speak perfect American English; a Chinese assassin in Hong Kong leaving threats
in English; L.A. Chinatown without crowds; the most chill police precinct in
the entire L.A. metropolitan area, etc. In the end, there isn’t enough fighting
from Alpha Stunts, nor does Julie Lee delve deep enough into her Category III
roots to give the film anything to write home about. It’s just a mediocre
little film all around.
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