The Ghost (2001)

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.