NOTE: there are slight spoilers, but this movie has so little plot that you will not care in the slightest.
If you are watching a Godfrey Ho film after having seen a few, you come into the viewing with certain expectations in mind. Conversely, it is a sweet thing indeed to discover Ho's insane cinema worlds for the first time. Just make sure that first time is not Mr. X.
Godfrey Ho is famous for his beyond-bad Ninja movies of the 80s, often starring washed-up B-movie stars like Richard Harrison, alongside random tourists or ex-pats like Stuart Smith, Grant Temple, and Mike Abbot (God love 'em all). What makes these movies ultimately watchable is that for all their badness, they ultimately exude a contagious, manic glee about them, as you witness these nonsensical, hypertensive crime yarns concerning evil Hong Kong-based Ninjas (or NINJERS, as they are often pronounced), with heaping scoops of clueless acting, pacing, editing, and choreography. It's all good fun.
However, Mr. X is one of those films Ho made after breaking up with the Yin to his Yang, Joseph Lai, of Imperial Films Division. Ho alleges that Lai was refusing to pay him for his work, or something along those lines. All the same, it was a great loss because as sleazy as Joseph Lai was, he provided Ho with the budget and material to make some true movie magic. It is funny to note that as Ho got technically better at film-making (shots here are slightly more adventurous and competent than his 80s output), his movies got worse.
The titular Mr. X is played by Joe Lewis, and he is so inconsequential to the plot he is hardly worth mentioning. The movie opens promisingly with some competent shots of a Reservoir Dogs-style gang staking out a wedding which incidentally happens to take place in another decade and another movie, with completely different film quality. I have to hand it to Ho for making the two completely non-fitting clips work so well together.
After a massacre leaves the entire family dead aside from the groom, his bride (who is written out of the script as 'kidnapped'), and his brother, and the two begin a John Woo-style slaughter-fest against the syndicates that set them up. Another promising scene has the groom gun down all of Godfrey Ho's white-person army in a hilariously extended sequence - they continue to barrel into the room only to be gunned down by the dozens for what seems like three minutes, if not more. This is easily the best scene in the entire film.
Unfortunately, things turn sour precisely as Mr. X enters the scene. A hard-boiled mercenary with a penchant for shooting at people in completely different films, he is contracted by his friend, some dumpy schmo in New York, to work for a mafia group in Hong Kong to settle the dispute between the Triad, the brothers, and the newly-arrived Yakuza. Mr. X's liaison will be a kindly monk named Chaplin Chang, whom we are told is played as himself. I mention this because his character can barely speak English, barely act, and mumbles "Ok" every time something is said to him. It's funny at first, but you dread every scene between Mr. X and Chaplin Chang because they are so ad-libbed and boring.
In fact, every single scene not from the Asian stock-footage Ho used to pad out his movie does not seem to have a script at all. It's hilarious to watch these non-actors try to fill the time with dialog with only the vaguest direction.
E.G.: "Look at this guy. He makes me sick to my stomach. There's something about him, this Asian toad-looking guy. I want you to, uh, get rid of him. He makes me sick and I can feel it." -Schmo talking about some guy on TV
Chang: "I uh got you uhhhh present" Mr. X: "Oh, the Art of War. Yeah I have this book." Chang: "Oh uhhhh OK." ^Note, the movie essentially ends on this winner of a scene
Riveting.
The only other part worth mentioning, and the only reason this movie would be of interest to Godfrey Ho fans, is that the master himself has a small bit part in the film, as... "Godfather Ho." His scene is a real treat, from his goofy sweater, his belabored attempts at English (we can glimpse what it was like to be directed by such a man), and the ultimately pointless, amateur nature of the scene. It's wonderful, and easily the second-best scene in the movie.
There's little else to say. The Asian sub-plot is sort of fun to watch, and you can tell Ho was so cheap at this point that he couldn't even dub the movie, so it is subtitled (Ho's dubs were half the fun). Mr. X is randomly inserted into the plot, basically to shoot a few people off-screen, and then we're back to the action.
The film-quality between the sub-plot and the "Mr. X" scenes is so jarring, so cheap, and so bad, you'd swear Joe Lewis was taped fighting random thugs at the end using a home-video camera. One of the thugs, whom I assume is credited as "Bobo", is particularly funny for his bald shaved head, sans two strips running along the side, and his farmer overalls. It's a brief spark of lunacy in an otherwise dull tread through the twilight of Ho's career.
If you are watching a Godfrey Ho film after having seen a few, you come into the viewing with certain expectations in mind. Conversely, it is a sweet thing indeed to discover Ho's insane cinema worlds for the first time. Just make sure that first time is not Mr. X.
Godfrey Ho is famous for his beyond-bad Ninja movies of the 80s, often starring washed-up B-movie stars like Richard Harrison, alongside random tourists or ex-pats like Stuart Smith, Grant Temple, and Mike Abbot (God love 'em all). What makes these movies ultimately watchable is that for all their badness, they ultimately exude a contagious, manic glee about them, as you witness these nonsensical, hypertensive crime yarns concerning evil Hong Kong-based Ninjas (or NINJERS, as they are often pronounced), with heaping scoops of clueless acting, pacing, editing, and choreography. It's all good fun.
However, Mr. X is one of those films Ho made after breaking up with the Yin to his Yang, Joseph Lai, of Imperial Films Division. Ho alleges that Lai was refusing to pay him for his work, or something along those lines. All the same, it was a great loss because as sleazy as Joseph Lai was, he provided Ho with the budget and material to make some true movie magic. It is funny to note that as Ho got technically better at film-making (shots here are slightly more adventurous and competent than his 80s output), his movies got worse.
The titular Mr. X is played by Joe Lewis, and he is so inconsequential to the plot he is hardly worth mentioning. The movie opens promisingly with some competent shots of a Reservoir Dogs-style gang staking out a wedding which incidentally happens to take place in another decade and another movie, with completely different film quality. I have to hand it to Ho for making the two completely non-fitting clips work so well together.
After a massacre leaves the entire family dead aside from the groom, his bride (who is written out of the script as 'kidnapped'), and his brother, and the two begin a John Woo-style slaughter-fest against the syndicates that set them up. Another promising scene has the groom gun down all of Godfrey Ho's white-person army in a hilariously extended sequence - they continue to barrel into the room only to be gunned down by the dozens for what seems like three minutes, if not more. This is easily the best scene in the entire film.
Unfortunately, things turn sour precisely as Mr. X enters the scene. A hard-boiled mercenary with a penchant for shooting at people in completely different films, he is contracted by his friend, some dumpy schmo in New York, to work for a mafia group in Hong Kong to settle the dispute between the Triad, the brothers, and the newly-arrived Yakuza. Mr. X's liaison will be a kindly monk named Chaplin Chang, whom we are told is played as himself. I mention this because his character can barely speak English, barely act, and mumbles "Ok" every time something is said to him. It's funny at first, but you dread every scene between Mr. X and Chaplin Chang because they are so ad-libbed and boring.
In fact, every single scene not from the Asian stock-footage Ho used to pad out his movie does not seem to have a script at all. It's hilarious to watch these non-actors try to fill the time with dialog with only the vaguest direction.
E.G.: "Look at this guy. He makes me sick to my stomach. There's something about him, this Asian toad-looking guy. I want you to, uh, get rid of him. He makes me sick and I can feel it." -Schmo talking about some guy on TV
Chang: "I uh got you uhhhh present" Mr. X: "Oh, the Art of War. Yeah I have this book." Chang: "Oh uhhhh OK." ^Note, the movie essentially ends on this winner of a scene
Riveting.
The only other part worth mentioning, and the only reason this movie would be of interest to Godfrey Ho fans, is that the master himself has a small bit part in the film, as... "Godfather Ho." His scene is a real treat, from his goofy sweater, his belabored attempts at English (we can glimpse what it was like to be directed by such a man), and the ultimately pointless, amateur nature of the scene. It's wonderful, and easily the second-best scene in the movie.
There's little else to say. The Asian sub-plot is sort of fun to watch, and you can tell Ho was so cheap at this point that he couldn't even dub the movie, so it is subtitled (Ho's dubs were half the fun). Mr. X is randomly inserted into the plot, basically to shoot a few people off-screen, and then we're back to the action.
The film-quality between the sub-plot and the "Mr. X" scenes is so jarring, so cheap, and so bad, you'd swear Joe Lewis was taped fighting random thugs at the end using a home-video camera. One of the thugs, whom I assume is credited as "Bobo", is particularly funny for his bald shaved head, sans two strips running along the side, and his farmer overalls. It's a brief spark of lunacy in an otherwise dull tread through the twilight of Ho's career.