1982 Color 90min
Starring: Brigitte Lin, Jimmy Wang Yu, Yueh Sun, Tao Da Way, Jung Fang, Shiu Bu Lia, Ling Chang, Jackie Chan, and Gou Ling Feng.
Directed By: Yen-Ping Chu
Warning: Viewing this film may permanently affect your brain's logic center. It is recommended that you remove your brain before viewing this film.
Thank you,
The Management
Let the insanity begin!
This rarely happens to me, but I have reached two completely contradictory conclusions on this film. I'm not entirely sure which one to believe, as they both seem equally feasible to me. From what I can tell this film, Fantasy Mission Force, is either an absolute triumph of Chinese, avant-garde, neo-surrealist cinema, or it is merely an insane collection of bizarre, nonsensical, LCD-induced scenes that were hastily cobbled together to form an almost incomprehensible, albeit entertaining, mess of a film. Come to think of it, maybe those conclusions aren't all that contradictory after all.
Fantasy Mission Force begins when Japanese soldiers kidnap several of the Allies top generals including—I kid you not—Abraham Lincoln. The Allies come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable, so they quickly assemble a rag-tag team of mercenaries to rescue President Lincoln and the other generals.
Here we see the screenwriter of Fantasy Mission Force during a writing session.The all-star rescue team is lead by military commando, Lt. Don Wen (played by a doughy Jimmy Wang Yu). Along the way, Lt. Wen picks up the rest of his team including the beautiful and dangerous Lily (played by the equally lovely and dangerous Brigitte Lin), her lecherous and Wayne Newton-like husband Billy, a hobo named Old Sun, famous escape artist Greased Lightning, and two possibly homosexual Chinese Scotsman (I'm serious. They're highly effeminate and they wear kilts), one of whom is decked out in a full suit of armor. Why? C'mon, why wouldn't he be?
“Umm, you're drinking out of my codpiece.”On their way to rescue Lincoln, the group encounter a spear-wielding tribe of Amazons, a haunted house full of Chinese zombies, and even Jackie Chan (billed here as “Jacky” Chan). That's right, Jackie Chan is in this movie. According to the box cover, he is the star of this movie, but honestly his participation would be more accurately described as an extended cameo.
♫♫Oh, me so horny. Oh, me so horny. Oh, me so horny, me love you long time.♫♫By all accounts, Jackie Chan only appeared in this film to return a favor he owed to Jimmy Wang Yu. For those of you who don't know, apparently Jimmy Wang Yu helped Jackie out when he had some problems with the triads (Chinese mafia). What is somewhat unclear is exactly how Wang Yu helped. One story is that by using his connections, he was able to take the heat off of Jackie. Another more entertaining story, is that Jimmy flat kicked the living hell out of some thugs who were sent to kill Jackie. You may question whether or not Jackie, simply by appearing in one movie, completely repaid the man who saved his life. I can assure you that after seeing this film, all debts are officially paid in full. In fact, Jimmy Wang Yu may now be slightly in Jackie's debt.
Jackie's reasons for appearing in this film are much clearer now, aren't they?Fantasy Mission Force's plot (I call it “the plot” simply for clarity's sake. Sadly the English language lacks a word to more accurately describe it) is somewhat hard to follow at times. Let me give you a short sampling of my notes from this film:
- What?
- Huh?
- WTF?
- Lincoln? Japanese Nazis?
- What?!?
Before it was all said and done, I began to question my very sanity. This movie can't be this crazy, I thought. Clearly it had to be me. I then began to theorize on the possible reasons for the insanity. Maybe director Yen-Ping Chu was using this film as a cinematic metaphor for dementia.
Seemed like a reasonable explanation to me. Or maybe this film had been chopped and edited for the English version to the point of being incomprehensible. It's certainly possible. I mean, it's happened before right? Slowly I started to feel a little better. In fact I had almost completely come to terms with the insanity. But when our intrepid team of heroes reached an encampment of Amazons who were being led by an Oscar Wilde impersonator, I simply gave in to the madness. Fighting it any longer would have certainly led to the permanent destruction of my capabilities for rational thought.
“Either those curtains go or I do.”It all culminates in an epic battle pitting the (Japanese/Chinese?) Nazis, along with their samurai, Roman gladiators, and fleet of Road Warrior-styled 1970's muscle cars against our crack team of heroes. In the end everyone is killed except Jackie and Jimmy Wang Yu and the two martial arts legends battle it out. It is a fairly disappointing fight considering the two men involved, but Jackie does manage to get in a couple of cool moves before it's all said and done.
Oh great. Like I didn't have enough emotional scars already. If you haven't figured this out by now, allow me to state the obvious. This film is 100% bat-shit crazy. If you buy it expecting a typical Jackie Chan movie, you will be very disappointed. On the other hand, if you are a fan of the bizarre you should definitely do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this film as soon as possible. Just a friendly warning, all of the prints that I have seen are in pretty bad shape. Here's hoping that some day Dragon Dynasty or someone similar will release a pristine, widescreen, dual-language version of this film. Whoever does finally release the deluxe special edition, please feel free to quote my review on your box cover, as long as I get my free copy, of course.
Reviewed by Derek Miller
Posted 3/1/08
Video Clip
Watch as Jackie singlehandedly takes on an entire raiding party of Amazons. Amazingly, he is almost able to defeat them all without even letting go of his chicken. Uh, just watch.
