Rage and Honor (1992)

Rage and Honor (1992)

Starring: Richard Norton, Cynthia Rothrock, Terri Treas, Brian Thompson, Catherine Bach, Stephen Davies, Alex Datcher, Patrick Y. Malone, Toshishiro Obata, Tim DeZarn

Director: Terence H. Winkless

Action Director: Bernie Pock

Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock. They are like the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the martial arts movie world. Or maybe Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland…if Olivia had trained in Chinese wushu, Japanese karate, and several other martial arts systems. The thing is, these two have done lots of great things for the action movie world, but most people are likely to remember their collaborations, especially once both of them stopped working actively in Hong Kong and focused on making movies in the States.

Their first collaboration was in Sammo Hung’s Millionaire’s Express, a film that followed their respective Hong Kong intros: Yes, Madam! (for Rothrock) and Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (for Norton). That film put them on the same team as bandits working under Dick Wei and Paul Chang. They quickly teamed up a second time in The Magic Crystal, this time as opponents: Rothrock as a the plucky Interpol agent and Norton as the kung fu-clawing KGB villain. Although it appeared they went their separate ways, with Rothrock working mainly in Hong Kong while Norton did projects in the Philippines, the two did join forces for a pair of programmers from low-budget legend Leo Fong: Fight to Win and Jungle Heat. 

But in 1990, Golden Harvest found itself trying to break into the American market once more and financed China O’Brien, which reunited the two. They joined forces the following year for its sequel, followed by this film and Lady Dragon in 1992. They teamed yet again for Rage and Honor II: Hostile Takeover. Norton choreographed Rothrock in Guardian Angel the next year. They both had supporting roles in the Don “The Dragon” Wilson film Redemption (2004), although by that point, I think most people figured that we would never get something like they did in their heyday. Most of their collaborations afterward appeared to be documentaries, until last year when they did the Western film Black Creek. 

Rage and Honor was their seventh (or eighth) collaboration and it is a conventional martial arts movie: the one where characters regularly break out into martial arts stances, even the policemen. Very seldom does anyone think to use a gun. But then again, that’s what gives these films their char.

Richard Norton plays Preston Michaels, an Australian policeman working in some urban hellhole American city for…reasons. He is currently working undercover in hopes of ferreting out a big drug dealer known as Conrad Drago (Brian Thompson, of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Lionheart). However, he is constantly getting in trouble with his superior, Captain Murdoch (Catherine Bach, best known for “The Dukes of Hazzard”), for playing the karate vigilante. Murdoch is always threatening to send him back to Melbourne, which begs the question: Just how did he get the job of working in the States in the first place. There is talk of his partner getting killed in the line of duty, but the film never makes it clear if it had anything to do with Conrad Drago. Or maybe he was on a police exchange program or something? I dunno.

Anyway, Cynthia Rothrock is also in this film. She plays Kris Fairfield, a history teacher at the local high school who also runs a dojo in the evenings. She is constantly followed by one of her students, a wannabe freelance reporter named Paris (Patrick Y. Malone, of “A Different World”). Anyway, some of the local policemen show up at Fairfield’s dojo to watch her give a demonstration in practical self-defense, including a pair of cops of whom Michaels is suspicious. 

He follows them after the class and catches them selling drugs out the trunk of their car and confronts them. They are interrupted by the arrival of Rita (Terri Treas, of Death Stalker III and various “Alien Nation” TV movies), who runs a pharmaceutical company and is Conrad Drago’s main squeeze. She kills one of the cops, but the whole confrontation is filmed from afar by Paris. Paris manages to hide the tape, but is nearly beaten to death by the other corrupt cop. The blame for the cop’s murder falls on Preston and he enlists the help of Kris to help him find the tape and clear his name. While that is going on, we learn that Kris has her own history with Conrad…

What would normally be a standard, predictable film is rendered a little less so by a supporting cast of weirdos. We learn that Paris was able to give the tape to a junkie (and former stock broker) named Baby (Stephen Davies, of Bloodfist VII—there were seven of those damn films?), who is quite the character. He then hocked the tape to a career criminal named Fast Eddie (Tim DeZarn, of Spider-Man and Cabin in the Woods), who speaks mainly in top-heavy dialog. Then there’s a female gang of hookers and butch lesbian bruisers, led by an attractive black woman named “Hannah the Hun” (Alex Datcher, of Passenger 57 and The Expert). She is interesting because she speaks entirely in third person. And Brian Thompson is…well…it’s Brian Thompson. He gives a standard Brian Thompson performance, although Brian Thompson doesn’t chew scenery to the degree Brian Thompson did in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. 

The film was directed by Terence H. Winkless, who got his start in the industry by adapting the source novel The Howling into a workable screenplay. He went on to direct the killer cockroach film The Nest, followed by Kickboxer clone Bloodfist, which introduced the world (outside of kickboxing circles) to Don “the Dragon” World. Interestingly enough, after making this movie, he spent a lot of time in the realm of tokusatsu, directing numerous episodes of “The Mighting Morphin Power Rangers”, followed by smaller stints on “Power Rangers Zeo”; “BeetleBorgs” and “The Masked Rider.” He even joined the Big Killer Animal boom that followed the “success” of the first Shark Attack and wrote Scorpius Gigantus.

Winkless’s direction in this movie is a bit odd. It has a story I can follow, but it never feels like a cohesive whole. The Captain Murdoch character disappears from the narrative shortly after Michaels is framed. There is a bit about most of the police being on Conrad’s payroll, but nothing much is done with that subplot. The movie teases a huge fight between Michaels and Drago’s bodyguard, Chan (Toshihiro Obata, who played Tetsu in the Ninja Turtles films). That never happens. In fact, both Chan and Rita just sort of observe the final throwdown between Drago and our heroes and then do nothing when good prevails. It almost suggests that they will just walk away scot-free. It’s weird: stuff happens and I understand why it is happening—except for Michaels being in the States in the first place—but it frequently doesn’t feel like an actual movie. Maybe it’s that cheap Cassio keyboard score that makes it feel like a made-for-TV film instead.

Credited as the stunt coordinator is Bernhard Pock, who did stuntwork in lots of big Hollywood films before dying in 1996 at age 33. I do not know if Pock did the fight choreography, of it that just fell to Norton and Rothrock, who did their best within the constraints of the production. The fights suffer from the same issues that plague a lot of American martial arts movies of the period: bad camerawork (i.e., too many close ups and bad angles) and editing. While it isn’t edited with a chainsaw like many movies these days are, it often cuts to an unflattering angle just as a blow is about to hit. It’s pervasive enough to be annoying, but there are still a few decent moments in the action.

Norton comes across as a standard Hollywood brawler who can throw a few kicks when need be. Rothrock is served better and gets to perform flashier moves, including a scorpion kick at one point. Norton’s earlier fight with Toshihiro Obata shows some promise, especially as it establishes Obata as the superior fighter. I was hoping that the climax would be set up so Rothrock would take on Thompson and Norton would have a rematch with Obata-san. But that does not happen and I’m disappointed because of it. Norton was better served by the choreography of his Hong Kong films and the China O’Brien movies. Both of them were, to be honest.

Lady Dragon (1992)

Lady Dragon (1992)
Aka: Lady Kickboxer

 

Starring:  Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Robert Ginty, Bella Esperance, Hengky Tornado, Pitradjaya Burnama, Diaz Tangkilisan
Director: David Worth
Action Director: Tanaka

 

The prevailing wisdom dictates that Cynthia Rothrock’s non-HK output is not only inferior to what she did in Hong Kong, but that it’s actively bad MA cinema, all things considered. I’m pretty sure that was true to some extent, especially the further into the 2000s we got. After all, Sci-Fighter was just horrid and Outside the Law ran out of money before they filmed the finale, leaving them a few hours for what was supposed to be one of her best end fights since her HK years. Within a few years, she was playing supporting roles in beefcake parades and no-budget Christmas films for David DeCouteau. I think the older she gets and more unlikely it is that we’ll ever see a good showcase from her again, the more her 1990s output will be re-evaluated.

Not all of her post-HK output was made in America. She made three English-language films in Indonesia: Angel of Fury and the two Lady Dragon movies. Written by Clifford Mohr and directed by cinematographer-turned-director David Worth, the Lady Dragon films are essentially two different of takes on the same premise: Cynthia Rothrock using her martial arts skills to take revenge on the scumbags who raped her and murdered her husband. David Worth is best known for photographing Bloodsport and directing the first Kickboxer, and one can definitely see the influence of the latter in this movie.

Rothrock plays Kathy Galagher, an expatriate martial artist living in (presumably) Jakarta, Indonesia. When we meet her, she’s participating in an underground fighting contest against a much bigger opponent—prepares to listen to the groans of people who can’t suspend disbelief at this sort of thing. She takes more than a few lumps, but is ultimately victorious and walks away with a nice purse from the fight.

While getting a drink at the bar later that evening, Kathy is visited by Gibson (Robert Ginty, best known for The Exterminator 1 & 2), a CIA agent of sorts who confronts her about her quest for revenge against Ludwig Hauptman (Richard Norton, of Rage and Honor and City Hunter), a German-Australian arms dealer working out of his importation company in Jakarta. We learn through flashback that Hauptman had her husband murdered just as they were leaving the church on their wedding day. Gibson warns her that Hauptman is too powerful and well-guarded for a single person to take down. As expected, she just ignores him.

Later that evening, Kathy dresses like a hooker and heads to one of Ludwig’s nightclub haunts. She gets in a fight with several of his guards, but then tries to retreat when they all start pulling guns on her. Ludwig interrogates her in a room reserved for Hauptman and whatever strumpet he picks up on any given night, but Kathy is a horrible liar. When she refuses to answer any question he asks to his satisfaction, he rapes her, beats her, and leaves her for dead out in the sticks. Interestingly enough, the rape is depicted as a quick montage of close-ups of the scantily-clad women on the posters that adorn the walls of the room they’re in. Sort of an odd, but tasteful way to depict something that is anything but.

Kathy is found by a young boy (Diaz Tangkilisan, of Blood Warriors and Without Mercy) and his mute grandfather (Pitradjaya Burnama, Escape from Hellhole and Blood Warriors). They nurse Kathy back to health and, as luck would have it, grandfather is some sort of master of pencak silat. He’s to Indonesia martial arts what Dennis Chan’s Xian Chow was to muay thai in Kickboxer. So she starts a training regimen that involves moving up and down bamboo poles and all sorts of flexibility training. Eventually, Kathy is ready to leave and head back to the big city for revenge. And to get close to Hauptman, she’s going to start with his lover, played by Lady Dragon 2’s Bella Esperance.

Lady Dragon plays a lot like David Worth’s own Kickboxer, but with a female lead and the element of sexual assault included among the protagonist’s grievances. The middle act in the rural Indonesian village is very similar to Jean-Claude Van Damme’s extended training sequence in Kickboxer. This film, however, starts off with Cynthia’s Kathy Galagher already being a top martial artist, albeit not quite good enough to face off with Richard Norton’s Ludwig. That said, there’s even a bit during the final fight where Cynthia is (temporarily) forced to throw the fight at the risk of losing her loved ones.

Both Lady Dragon films give Cynthia Rothrock a little more opportunity to act than most of her Hong Kong fare did. Those films generally required her to look tough and kick ass, which was fine. In these films, she’s both emotionally vulnerable and subject to some of the worst sort of treatment any woman can go through. I’m not sure she plays the most convincing or compelling rape victim, but I appreciate her efforts to do more than usual no-nonsense persona.

Richard Norton plays his villain much in the same way he played Giancarlo in Mr. Nice Guy: a charming villain with a sophisticated exterior covering a savage inner self. Considering the number of times they have played partners, lovers and fighting buddies, it is strange to see him do horrible things to Cynthia, even if it’s offscreen. Later scenes suggest that Norton’s villain is a full-blown sexual deviant, making him the slimiest of villains that Norton has thus far played.

The action was staged by a fellow named Tanaka, who is also credited with Rothrock’s other Indonesia films. He also shows up as one of Richard Norton’s chief enforcers. I was surprised with the quality of the action in this movie. On a scale of 1 to 10—"1” being the crap that Don “The Dragon” Wilson was churning out at the time and “10” being Sammo Hung at his 1980s best—I would rate the action a 5 or a 6. The exchanges are not quite as detailed and complex as the best of Hong Kong’s 1980s kickboxing era, but they are not slow and static affairs. My main complaint about the fighting is the sound design, which is crappy. The sound FX themselves fail to accentuate the power of the blows, and they are often played at a low volume which makes the hits feel weak.

The first fight, which pits Rothrock against a tall, muscular fighter, is actually quite long and sets up the film quite nicely. She performs her infamous scorpion kick against him several times, even though the dude is buff enough that he can take three to the dome without flinching. The fight at the nightclub is shorter, but she does some good moves. A fight between Cynthia and some guards later in the film allows her to show off her pole skills and perform a vertical front over-the-shoulder kick. A later fight has Norton fighting with some of his guards, one of whom is wielding a pair of sai swords and another who fights with nunchaku. It’s actually a really well-choreographed one-vs-many fight and Norton shines in it. The finale is a lengthy one-on-one pit fight between Rothrock and Norton, and the two just savage each other for almost ten minutes. Forget JCVD vs. Bolo Yeung or Tong Po. This fight is where it’s at. Both of them get a very good showcase here.

The pacing could have been tightened up a little better. The camera could have been placed better during some of the fights. And the sound FX could have been more…dynamic. But all in all, Lady Dragon makes for a solid 90 minutes of martial arts mayhem.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

The Octagon (1980)

The Octagon (1980)

 

Starring: Chuck Norris, Karen Carlson, Lee Van Cleef, Art Hindle, Carol Bagdasarian, Tadashi Yamashita, Kim Lankford, Larry D. Mann, Kurt Grayson, Richard Norton
Director: Eric Karson
Action Director: Chuck Norris, Aaron Norris

 

The Octagon is an interesting film is that it was one of the contributors to the “Ninja Craze” that took international action movies by storm in the first half of the 1980s, and whose collateral effects can be seen to this very day. Everybody knows what a “ninja” is and has some mental image of a person in black (or white) clothing with a hood/mask leaving only an eye slit visible, armed with a katana. Although The Octagon was not the first Occidental film to feature those infamous spies/assassins—I’m sure that honor goes to You Only Live Twice—this movie, along with the following year’s Enter the Ninja, really helped ninja enter the Western pop culture lexicon. And given the movie’s release date of 1980, it was only appropriate that Chuck Norris play moviedom’s first American Ninja.

Norris plays Scott James, a former karate champion who retired from the ring after seriously injuring (killing?) his opponent during a match. The movie makes no reference to what his current profession is, although it is kinda sorta suggested that James either has experience in the military, or at least did a limited stint as a mercenary at some point. Or maybe he’s just the co-owner of the martial arts school he frequents—look for a young Ernie Hudson as one of the students there. Anyway, when we meet James, he and his friend (little brother?) A.J. (Art Hindle, of Porky’s and Black Christmas) are at the ballet, where James’s potential girlfriend Nancy (Kim Lankford) is performing.

After a night on the town—during which Nancy comes across as being particularly jittery—the couple retire to her house, where they are ambushed by ninja assassins. Nancy is killed, and we later discover that every inhabitant of the house had been murdered previous to their arrival. James later learns from A.J. that her brother had been arrested a few days prior for murdering a European diplomat. Scott suspects that ninjitsu antics are afoot (well, duh!) and goes over to his old friend McCarn (Lee Van Cleef, who later was cast in the ninja-themed series “The Master”).

McCarn runs an outfit that specializes in hiring out bodyguards and doing mercenary work, albeit only jobs that involve anti-terrorism. Both him and James have a history together, although their dialog is elliptical enough that I can’t quite figure out what it is—thus my earlier speculation about James having done some mercenary work in the past. McCarn doesn’t know enough to set James on the right path, but their story isn’t over yet.

Enter Justine (TV actress Karen Carlson), the wealthy heiress to a European newspaper empire. Her dad was murdered by terrorists a few years ago, and now she uses her money and influence to track down and kill terrorists all over the world. Her next target is Seikura, who happens to be Scott James’s former ninja brother. Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita, of Za Karate and Soul of Chiba) runs a ninja training camp in Central America, which routinely receives both mercenaries and terrorists as pupils. Justine tries to convince Scott in a myriad of ways to get involved, although he refuses to work directly with her.

James eventually does get involved, but of his own accord. He signs up to mercenary outfit run by a guy named Doggo (Kurt Grayson, another TV veteran), who is one of Seikura’s principal sources of income. McCarn is out to get Doggo, mainly because the latter does business with anyone with money, independent of their political or moral stances (which would include terrorists). And when James shows up at Doggo’s compound yammering about ninjas, it’s going to get both him and Justine into trouble. And when the latter convinces A.J. to get involved in the Seikura mission, too, James is going to have some good reasons to see this through to the end.

The Octagon has a lot more story than one might expect from an 80s ninja movie. While not necessarily incidental to the plot, the ninjas themselves kinda run in parallel to the Scott James mercenary storyline until they finally intersect in the third act. Until then, it’s mainly about James trying to investigate Doggo in hopes of learning more about Seikura’s training camp, with lots of dialog being thrown around about “getting involved” and “embracing a cause.” There’s a subplot about A.J. falling into Justine’s “clutches,” which presents him with a cause to live (or die) for—fighting terrorism—and get out of James’s shadow. On one hand, it is rather silly for someone like A.J. to think he could fight the anti-terrorism cause: there is only so much a black belt in karate (or tang soo do) can do against a small ninja army (or any terrorist with connections to international crime).

On the same token, however, this year saw the invasion of Ukraine by Russia under the command of Vladimir Putin. Despite the fact that the United States has not directly involved itself in the fighting itself, many former soldiers and Special Forces operatives have seen the plight of the Ukrainian citizens and felt the call to go there and offer their services on a volunteer basis, sometimes as instructors, others on the front lines or in guerrilla tactics. And although Putin isn’t using ninja in this particular invasion, I can see the parallel between Scott James and A.J. getting involved in the anti-terrorist game and ex-military types flying to Poland, crossing the border into the Ukraine, and making a stand against international bullies.

The problem is that for a movie with this many characters and this much story, there isn’t enough information for us to really get a feel for what’s going on. Moreover, a lot of characters’ motivations just don’t make any sense. In one scene, Scott James meets a fellow named Tibor (Larry Mann, yet another TV veteran), an Israeli fur coat maker who moonlights as a financier of Doggo’s and Seikura’s operations. When he meet him, he tells Scott that he joined the mercenary game after his little brother was murdered in the Munich Olympics. But if that’s the case, why would he get involved with two outfits that encourage (and train) terrorists? Wouldn’t he be better off working with McCarn instead?

I also had a difficult time figuring out the motivations of the character Aura (The Aurora Encounter’s Carol Bagdasarian). We meet her at Seikura’s training camp and she seems to be a pretty apt pupil of the ways of ninjitsu. But as soon as she leaves, she wants out of the mercenary game before even getting her first mission. She tells us at one point that she wanted a cause to fight for and joined Doggo’s mercenary team for that reason, but at what point did she determine that it was no longer what she wanted for her life? Was it when Seikura’s ninja enforcer (Richard Norton, in one of two roles) murdered a man for trying to desert the camp in front of her? Maybe, but like a lot of characters in this movie, the motivations are rather murky.

The fights were handled by Chuck and Aaron Norris, although I suspect that Richard Norton had a lot to do with staging the finale. After all, tang soo do—Chuck’s original style—isn’t known for its weapons forms. On the other hand, Norton’s training in goju-ryu had a strong kobudo, or weapons, element to it and Norton learned how to use a number of weapons, including the katana, the bo staff and the sai swords. So, in addition to playing the lead ninja enforcer, Kyo, I’m pretty sure that Norton helped choreograph the weapons fights (although he only gets billing as a stuntman).

The way Norton tells it, he met Norris back in ’78 when a friend of his brought Chuck over to Australia participate in the local martial arts demonstrations while promoting his Good Guys Wear Black. Norton was doing weapons demonstrations on the same circuit at that time. The two hit it off and Norris told Norton to look him up if he ever found himself in California. Besides teaching martial arts, Norton also worked as a bodyguard for a number of singers whenever their tours brought them to Australia. One of them, country music legend Linda Rondstadt, invited Norton to be her personal bodyguard, which resulted in him flying out to California. There, he looked up Chuck, who was doing pre-production for The Octagon. As he had the right weapons background for this kind of a movie, Norris brought him on board.

The action is limited for the first two acts. There is a brief scuffle between Chuck and some ninja assassins in one of the early scenes. The action dies down as his Scott character investigates the world of mercenaries, although there is a short fight between him and said soldiers-for-hire (including Richard Norton in a second role). There is a second scuffle between Chuck and the ninja in a hotel room, after which we get the big finale in which Chuck storms Tadashi Yamashita’s ninja compound.

As a kid, I kinda let the earlier scenes just sort of “wash over” me as I waited for that big finale. I’m pretty sure that a lot of martial arts fans can (and do) forgive The Octagon’s sluggish pacing and muddled storytelling on account of the climax, which is 20 minutes of Chuck Norris killing ninja. There is lots of spin kicking, sword swinging and judo takedowns as Norris fights one ninja after another, before having big showdowns with both Kyo (Norton) and Seikura (Yamashita). The former is one of those “Best Chuck Norris Moments” fights, especially because it was the first time since his fight with Bruce Lee years before that he really had an opponent worthy of his abilities[1]. The two go at it with katana and sai swords, with Norton getting in a lot of good hits against a typically-unbeatable Norris. This fight, although not the last, is certainly better than his final throwdown with shorin-ryu master Tadashi Yamashita, who has done better work in other movies. But there is enough good in those last 20 minutes that I can understand why so many people place this in their top 3 (or 5) Chuck Norris films of all time.

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[1] - I suppose the previous year’s A Force of One did in the form of Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, but I think their fights could have been better.

Magic Crystal (1986)

Magic Crystal (1986)
Chinese Title: 魔翡翠
Translation: Magic Emerald

 

Starring: Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Cynthia Rothrock, Nat Chan Pak-Cheung, Bin Bin, Wong Jing, Max Mok Siu-Chung, Sharla Cheung Man, Phillip Ko Fei, Richard Norton, Shek Kin
Director: Wong Jing
Action Director: Tony Leung Siu-Hung

 

Magic Crystal is an exceptionally strange oddity—from a territory known for such—coming out of Hong Kong. One part 80s martial arts film; one part goofy E.T. rip-off; and one part Indiana Jones rip off, this multi-genre concoction may very well cause even the most stalwart Hong Kong cinephile to lift their eyebrow at the weirdness on display. Back at the Bad Movie Message Board, of which I actively participated from 2009 until 2020, it was the crux of a running inside joke regarding soul-crushing movies, the sort of film that one might class with the likes of Sextette and Invasion of the Star Creatures. But then you go to more fight-centric circles, like The Stunt People, and the film gets the highest rating on account of the action.

The hero of our film is Andy Lo (Andy Lau, of Firestorm and Casino Raiders), a high-kicking private investigator who is routinely hired by the police (represented by Enter the Dragon’s Shek Kin) for to help gather evidence for tougher cases. When we meet him, Andy and his partner, Snooker Pan (Wong Jing, the director), are infiltrating a crime boss’s house to get the contents of his safe on the eve a trial. While cooling down afterward, Andy gets a letter from an archaeologist friend (Philip Ko Fei, of Dragons Forever and Shaolin Intruders) whose discoveries in Greece have attracted the unwanted attention of the KGB. He requests Andy’s help in helping him get out of the country alive. Andy, Snooker and Andy’s nephew, Pin Pin, take a plane to Athens for a brief Greek jaunt.

After the basic sightseeing, they run into both Dr. Shen and the KGB, resulting in a running fight between Andy, the KGB’s kung fu killers, and a pair of Interpol agents: Cindy Morgan (Cynthia Rothrock, of Fast Getaway 2 and Yes, Madam!) and Max (Max Mok, of Once Upon a Time in China 2 and Nitelife Hero). Shen is eventually shot and captured by the KGB, but not before slipping his “discovery” into Pin Pin’s suitcase.

Once back in Hong Kong, Pin Pin discovers a glowing crystal (complete with magical powers and a child’s voice) inside his luggage. While Andy is out protecting Dr. Shen’s sister, Winnie (Sharla Cheung Man, of Crystal Fortune Run and Kung Fu Cult Master), Pin Pin is using the crystal’s magic powers to help him fight bullies and torment Winnie’s tag-along would-be suitor Lau Ta (Nat Chan, of Last Hero in China). The KGB, led by Mr. Karov (Richard Norton, of Millionaire’s Express and Mr. Nice Guy), tracks down the crystal to Pin Pin’s house and kidnaps the boy, but not before a big kung fu fight between Karov, Cindy Morgan and Pin Pin’s stay-at-home mother (late-period Shaw Brothers actress Wong Mei-Mei, The Convict Killer and The Boxer from the Temple).

Andy and Snooker Pan ultimately team up with Interpol and follow the KGB back to Greece, where a House of TrapsÔ is discovered beneath the Acropolis (or some other set of Greek ruins). At the center of the House of Traps is a UFO—the origin of the crystal—and an explanation so strange that only a madman like Wong Jing could have dreamed it up.

Magic Crystal is certainly not a movie for the faint of heart when it comes to B-movies. Casual viewers will probably dismiss the nonsensical story, a second act that focuses on the “comic” shenangigans of Wong Jing regular Nat Chan, and a final round of exposition that…well…will assuredly make people reply, “Wait, what!?” I mean, this is the movie where the KGB is represented by one white guy (an Australian), and a bunch of Asian martial artists. This is a movie where Wong Jing touches a crystallized piece of green snot and declares, “I have the power!” before falling face-first out a window. This is a movie where an alien crystal temporarily transforms a little boy into Bruce Lee. If that sounds entertaining to you, then have at it! With regards to the Nat Chan subplot, I did like how it ended: him getting escorted away in a strait-jacket after the crystal convinces him that he has hypnotic powers—he unsuccessfully tries to rob a bank with them.

If you can get past all the silliness, then there is some wonderful action courtesy of Tony Leung Siu-Hung. In fact, I’d venture to say that this is the best gig that Leung has had in all of his Hong Kong career—I exclude the Seasonal movies that were produced for American audiences (No Retreat, No Surrender III; King of the Kickboxers; Bloodmoon; Superfights). And for an action director career that has spanned almost five decades and ninety films, that is definitely saying something. Leung Siu-Hung goes for a pseudo-old school approach to the action, with the characters often breaking out into traditional forms just because…well, that’s what they do.

Andy Lau and his stunt double get all sorts of work outs in their fights, especially the latter when it comes to impressive acrobatics. The movie opens with a fight between Lau and some stuntmen, including Sammo Hung regular Chung Fat. Even better is a later fight between him and a room full of bat-wielding killers at a gymnasium, which is full of crazy jumps and classic 80s fight choreography. He’s even better here than he was in The Lucky Stars Go Places, and that film got the Best Action Choreography nomination at the HK Film Awards!

Overshadowing him, however, are gwailo actors Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock. Rothrock had already been in Yes, Madam! and The Millionaire’s Express, so by this point, she was visibly more accustomed to the Hong Kong method of screen fighting. Rothrock had trained in wushu and had championed in forms between 1981 and 1985, and this is the first film to really give those traditional forms an showcase. In her first fight, Rothrock takes on a KGB henchman (played by Leung Siu-Hung himself, wielding a pair of tonfa) with three-section staff that connects into a spear—standard-issue Interpol equipment. Next, Rothrock wields a saber (or broadsword or dao) against Norton, whose Goju-Ryu skills have been adjusted to make him look like a Tiger Claw expert. Joining her is Wong Mei-Mei, who wields a two-edged sword (or jian) like an old school Shaw Brothers wuxia pian.

The finale is a special treat: Rothrock digs deeper into her wushu repertoire with not one, but two animal styles on display. Those would be the Ying Jao Pai (Eagle’s Claw) and Praying Mantis styles, which she looks really good and flexible performing. Once more, Leung Siu-Hung tailors Richard Norton’s skills to look something more akin to traditional Chinese kung fu, instead of Japanese martial arts. But then Leung Siu-Hung allows Norton to dip into his repertoire, which includes Kobudo, of Japanese weapons. He whips out a pair of sai swords and gives a complex demonstration in the context of fight choreography that is one for the ages, ranking up there with Heroes of the East and Tiger vs Dragon. The choreography in this segment is so good that you almost wish that Rothrock and Norton had been cast in earlier kung fu movies that could have given more space for them to shine. And to some, it’s enough for you to forget Nat Chan trying to sexually harrass Cheung Man.

Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

Mr. Nice Guy (1997)
Chinese Title: 一個好人
Translation: One Good Man

 

Starring: Jackie Chan, Miki Lee, Richard Norton, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, Karen McLymont, Barry Otto, Vince Poletto, cameos by Sammo Hung and Emil Chow

Director: Sammo Hung

Action Director: Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association, Cho Wing

 

When I picked up Jackie Chan: Inside the Dragon by Clyde Gentry III back in August 1997, the last chapters of the book mentioned Mr. Nice Guy, plus Rush Hour[1] and Who Am I? The writing suggested that the former had wrapped up production, although the author let on that he himself had not had the opportunity to watch the film as of whatever moment he sent in the manuscript to the publisher. When I picked up The Official Jackie Chan Sourcebook by Jeff Rovin several months later, there was a small review of it in the filmography section, while Who Am I? was in production.

Around January of 1998, I started pestering one of my good Chinese friends for whatever Chinese action film he could get his hands on. I asked if he had Lung Hing Foo Dai (i.e. Armour of God) and he just sort of shrugged—he wasn’t good with the names. He eventually got a movie for me, which turned out to a laser disc rip of Mr. Nice Guy. This was a good two months or so before it got its American release; I considered myself a lucky man. This was the first—but not last—time that I would be able to watch a Jackie Chan movie before the rest of American audiences could.

Clyde Gentry’s book suggested that Mr. Nice Guy would essentially be one long chase sequence, and that’s really not far from the truth. We open with an Australian drug lord named Giancarlo (Richard Norton, The Magic Crystal and City Hunter) warmly greeting his girlfriend, Tina (Judy Green, who is Richard Norton’s wife and appeared in films of his like Sword of the Bushido and Under the Gun), who’s hanging out in the Jacuzzi at his mansion. He tells her that he has found out that she’s a member of the rival Demons[2] gang and orders his men to take her to “the Guest House.” What that translates into is that they throw her off a cliff while an ultra-class Haul Truck[3] buries her in a mountain of dirty. Exit Tina, stage left.

Shortly afterward, Giancarlo and his men arrange for a meeting with the Demons in an abandoned building. It seems that one of his men had been dating a girl, Tara (Rachel Blakely, of The Lost World TV series), who turned out to be one of the head Demons. This resulted in the theft of 10 million dollars worth of cocaine from Giancarlo’s possession. The Demons show up and Giancarlo offers to give them half a million dollars for his stuff back. The leader of the Demons, Gronk (Peter Lindsay, of Blood Chase and Delta Force 2), turns down the offer. Things quickly get heated and shots are fired between the rival gangs. Gronk is mortally wounded and a grenade thrown by one of the Demons reveals that a pair of investigative reporters, Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie) and Richard, had recorded the entire fracas. Richard gets shot, leaving Diana to make a run for it with the tape of the events in her possession.

Diana runs into Jackie (Chan), a local celebrity with a popular cooking program. Giancarlo’s men immediately assume that the two in cahoots and soon Chan is running around Melbourne fighting off goons. Being a Jackie Chan film, this is Counter-Earth Melbourne, where bikers participate in mass weddings officiated by Biker Reverends, which ceremonies are decorated by giant gorilla balloons filled with helium! Jackie eventually shakes off the gangsters, but a mix up leaves him with Diana’s tape. The tape falls into hands of his friend Romeo’s children. Romeo (Vince Poletto, of Sally Marshall is Not an Alien) is a cop, but he is generally useless until the third act.

After the initial encounter, the bad guys chase him at a mall where he and his partner, Baggio (Barry Otto, of Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher and Rogue), are throwing a charity event. Then they attack his house, which scene ends with him and female entourage—Diana; Lakisha (Karen McLymont), his producer; and his girlfriend, Miki (Taiwanese model Miki Lee)—narrowly escaping a series of explosions that reduce his apartment to rubble. Then the Demons kidnap Miki, leading him on a wild goose chase all over Melbourne. While all this is happening, a whole bunch of fights break out, this being a Jackie Chan movie and all that.

Jackie Chan movies have frequently been attacked for their thin plots. I think this says more about the reviewers themselves: complaining about the plot of a Jackie Chan movie usually means that the reviewer is little more than a pretentious bag of dicks. That said, Mr. Nice Guy has an especially thin plot. I’m pretty sure the plot stops after the first act and from there on out becomes the set up for each successive action set piece. I suppose that it beats Rumble in the Bronx in that the gangs are a little less colorful (or tacky) than the multi-ethnic street gangs roaming NYC in that film. Moreover, at least the this doesn’t switch villains halfway through the movie. That said, there’s not much meat on the script’s bones, so Jackie Chan naysayers will probably not be converted by this movie.

This was the first time Jackie had worked under Sammo Hung’s direction since Dragons Forever. According to Inside the Dragon, Jackie looked more relaxed under Sammo’s direction than he had in some time[4]. Hung keeps the movie moving at a fast clip, with rarely ten minutes passing before another stunt-based action sequence begins. At the same time, Sammo does give the film a slight intense edge missing from a lot of Chan’s typical action comedies. There is a hint of sadism to Norton’s Giancarlo, although it never goes over the top like the woodchipper scene in Rumble in the Bronx. Chan is his usual likable self, although he does display the manic intensity that defined his Kevin Chan from the first Police Story movie during that character’s more desperate moments.

Jackie Chan’s stunt team, including Nicky Li Chung-Chi and Andy Cheng, handled the action duties, assisted by Cho Wing (of In the Line of Duty IV and Kung Fu Cult Master). Their efforts won them a nomination for the Best Action Choreography Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards, although they lost to Stephen Tung Wai for Downtown Torpedoes. Mr. Nice Guy did, however, beat out Downtown Torpedoes for the Taiwan Golden Horse Award in the same category. The action on display is vintage Jackie Chan, so most of his fans should be pleased with the fighting and stuntwork on display. The now-defunct “Martial Artist’s Guide to Hong Kong Films” wrote:

 

Jackie and Sammo know each other, and they know action, and it shows. The timing of the action sequences, down to the minute details, is exceptionally good here. Much of the infighting that Jackie uses vs. the thugs is great…[Jackie] must fight his way through shopping centers, into weddings, over rooftops, in vans, on public transportation, across construction sites, etc. etc. using every possible trick. It is absolute mayhem. What's more, the stuntwork and action start quick and then BUILDS.

 

Indeed, Jackie looks great in his fights and does some great kicking, especially during the closed-quarters van fight. Watch for a nice whirlwind kick during the much-hyped construction site sequence, too. The action in Police Story IV: First Strike was a little disappointing because Chan spent the movie fighting on the defensive. Here he’s fighting with pure fury when he needs to.

The aforementioned construction sequence is as odd as it is funny (and thrilling). It starts off with Chan fighting off the gangsters in a section of the building whose rooms all appear to be about nine square feet. It becomes a complex sequence of Jackie Chan opening and closing doors as he fights his way through the rooms. In some cases, the doors open to absolutely nothing, almost resulting in Chan falling to his doom. The fight progresses to a more open area of construction, where the gangsters come at him with metal pipes and buzz saws, while Chan fights back with boards, cement mixers, jackhammers, and buckets. In one moment of insanity, Chan around a running table saw. A fraction of a second in misjudged movement would have bisected our friend.

The action does flag unfortunately in the last twenty minutes, when Jackie is transported to Giancarlo’s home. People expecting a repeat of their lengthy end fight from City Hunter were undoubtedly disappointed: they have a short fight in which Chan has to square off with Norton with bungee cords tied to his arms and legs. Norton’s lackeys pull the cord every time he tries to land a punch or kick. It’s a novel idea, but I think we the viewers wanted something that would really test the limits of the combatants’ physical abilities.

Much like Rumble in the Bronx and Thunderbolt, this movie eschews a typical fight-based climax for something a little more stunt-based. In this case, Jackie is able to commandeer the haul truck and drive it through Giancarlo’s mansion, razing the structure as if it were the victim of a giant monster attack. Fountains, glass walls, staircases, designer cars, etc. are completely destroyed during this demolition sequence. Jackie Chan movies were successful enough on the international market that he was able to spend a bit more money for these large-scale set pieces. While some fans would have liked this mayhem, most people from people close to the author to professional critics like Leonard Maltin, would have preferred less driving and more stunt-fighting.

If you can ignore the flimsy excuse for a plot and Miki Lee’s shrill acting, there is more than enough creative action and stuntwork in Mr. Nice Guy to make for a mainless 90 minutes of entertainment. It’s not Jackie Chan’s best, although the dire nature of a lot of his post 2010-work means that it’s overdue for a reevaluation from the most pretentious of Hong Kong movie lovers.

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[1] - Interestingly enough, this was when Martin Lawrence was still attached to the project, before Chris Tucker got onboard.

[2] - If you watch the Hong Kong version with the burned-on subtitles, it’s the Wolves Gang.

[3] - Large dump trucks used mainly in mining operations.

[4] - It should be pointed out that Jackie worked with a number of other directors throughout the 1990s—Wong Jing, Kirk Wong, Gordon Chan, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Lau Kar-Leung—and each of those experiences turned out to be less than satisfying for Chan.