What is wrong with people? Only two reviewers here at IMDb appear to have 'got' this film - etna3 and crankscorner, and I thank them for their insight.
The Yin & Yang of Mr Go is probably the kinetic masterpiece of the cold war. It's a film so stoked in symbolism, meditation and nudity that Strindberg himself could have called it a wrap. In the end Burgess Meredith settles for Joyce in his script, which is almost the same thing.
Following a voice-over by Christopher 'Bhudda' Lee, we meet James Mason as Mr Yin Yang Go, criminal, murderer, drug-addict and seducer, making ready to move into the big nuclear league. He tricks broke writer Jeff Bridges into a compromising love scene with a male American scientist, then blackmails the scientist to get plans for a new nuclear defence system. But Christopher Lee has other plans for Yin Yang Go - the nuclear plot turns to meditative karma and Go becomes the focal point of all human history, past, present and future. In short, Go goes nuts and becomes a kind of karmic superhero, saves the world etc, you know the score. If this is the effect radiation has on karma we could all use a shot.
Throw in Mason's real life wife, Clarrisa Kay, as a butch sort of lesbian, Jack McGowran as nominal CIA, a script that will not come into its own for another 500 years, and you have a classic.
This film really needs to be restored directly from the negative, in its true colour and original aspect ratio. If I were a monastic or Bhuddist monk, or alternatively, the leader of the People's Republic of China, I would make the restoration of The Yin & Yang of Mr Go my life's work.
A classic.
The Yin & Yang of Mr Go is probably the kinetic masterpiece of the cold war. It's a film so stoked in symbolism, meditation and nudity that Strindberg himself could have called it a wrap. In the end Burgess Meredith settles for Joyce in his script, which is almost the same thing.
Following a voice-over by Christopher 'Bhudda' Lee, we meet James Mason as Mr Yin Yang Go, criminal, murderer, drug-addict and seducer, making ready to move into the big nuclear league. He tricks broke writer Jeff Bridges into a compromising love scene with a male American scientist, then blackmails the scientist to get plans for a new nuclear defence system. But Christopher Lee has other plans for Yin Yang Go - the nuclear plot turns to meditative karma and Go becomes the focal point of all human history, past, present and future. In short, Go goes nuts and becomes a kind of karmic superhero, saves the world etc, you know the score. If this is the effect radiation has on karma we could all use a shot.
Throw in Mason's real life wife, Clarrisa Kay, as a butch sort of lesbian, Jack McGowran as nominal CIA, a script that will not come into its own for another 500 years, and you have a classic.
This film really needs to be restored directly from the negative, in its true colour and original aspect ratio. If I were a monastic or Bhuddist monk, or alternatively, the leader of the People's Republic of China, I would make the restoration of The Yin & Yang of Mr Go my life's work.
A classic.