Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

It’s the action movie franchise that never was. As its full title suggests, REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS was intended to kick off a new movie franchise based on the long-running pulp novel series known as THE DESTROYER. The $40 million action comedy stars Fred Ward as a former police officer who has his past and identity erased as he is reluctantly recruited into a shadowy government agency tasked with taking out bad guys that the judicial system cannot. Trained in the fantasy martial art of sinanju by his soap opera-loving Korean mentor, Chiun (played by Joel Grey regrettably appearing in “Oriental” prosthetics), Remo is ordered by his no-nonsense boss (Wilford Brimley) to take on corrupt government contractors dealing in arms. The film flopped at the box office in 1985 with mixed reception from critics and fans of the books. The film has since found cult appreciation thanks to repeated airings on cable TV in years since but the initial failure of this wannabe action movie remains justified.

The paperback novels that the movie is based on began appearing in 1971 under the dual authorship of Warren Murphy and the late Richard Sapir. The books now number well over a hundred with many having been ghost-written by a variety of authors including infamous kung fu movie patron Ric Meyers. The series is a mash up of cultural and genre conventions involving political intrigue, super spies, assassins, secret associations, martial arts, Asian religion, sex, and sci-fi and fantasy elements. This hearty stew is served with a healthy portion of political and social satire that many fans of the series would count as the best feature.

“THE DESTROYER” itself is a reference to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Chiun, who over the course of the series develops a close fatherly bond with the hero believes that Remo is a reincarnation of this god. This supernatural concept is tied in with the authors’ creation of sinanju, an invented Korean martial art that Chiun is master of. It is said to be the origin of all modern Asian martial arts which would contradict accepted theories that Asian martial arts originated either in India, China or Mongolia, not that such claims really matter given that new martial arts techniques are often founded on experience and need rather than tradition.

Screenwriter Christopher Wood (MOONRAKER) ignored much of what made the book series popular by generating a bland and poorly constructed script with uninteresting and stereotypical villians. The books contained all sorts of outlandish characters for Remo to contend with including super-soldiers, androids and even a Chinese vampire but all we see in the movie are a couple vaguely criminal-minded military officers and defense contractors dealing in poorly-designed weaponry. It’s hardly a challenge for highly-trained assassins capable of dodging bullets, nimbly hopping around scaffolding surrounding the Statue of Liberty or effortlessly performing light-step skills over the surface of water and wet cement like wuxia heroes.

The script also clumsily attempts to inject the film with a small measure of the humor that is apparently common in the books. Government contractors and the military portrayed as villains and/or baffoons and references to the “Star Wars” program suggests effort to make a statement about the military industrial complex and corporate greed but there is nothing funny or witty about how it’s done. If there is any parody it seems unintentional, or at the very least far too understated, such as the goofy military radio chatter we hear.

Most of the humor comes from the relationship between Remo and Chiun. Had I never seen dozens of other master-student relationships portrayed in martial arts films I might have found this one to be adequate. There is chemistry between the two actors, both of whom are actually good at their trade. However, Grey’s character is never anything but a pitifully weak copy of far more substantial and entertaining Asian martial arts masters. For starters, the film should have found a real Asian actor, preferrably Korean. Even for 1986, Asian prosthetics on a Caucasian actor is an embarrassment. At least John Carpenter had the grace to actually hire Asian actors for Asian roles in his similar in tone yet far superior action comedy BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. The only way it could have worked would have been as an intentional parody of race stereotyping similar to what Robert Downey Jr. did by wearing “blackface” in TROPIC THUNDER.

The rest of Grey’s act involves cliched fortune cookie utterances, juvenile similes and zen-like posturing. If these traits were all conceived in the books during the 1970s then the character might have seemed fresh and interesting at the time. But in 2008, this kind of characterization is the cultural equivalent of caveman grunts. What makes the performance worse is that for a martial arts master, Chiun displays no knowledge or experience of anything resembling martial arts. It’s all fantasy rubbish consisting of pressure point attacks, dodging bullets at point blank range and training that never has anything to do with engagement.

The film devotes a significant portion of its running time to the training that Chiun puts Remo through, training that is supposed to prepare him to be an assassin by using his body as a weapon. Yet all Remo is shown how to do is jump around onto objects (similar to Chinese plum flower pole training), hang off the side of a ferris wheel car and run over beach sand, two inches over beach sand with nothing but air underneath him. He’s being groomed as an assassin and yet he learns nothing about how to actually kill people, nor do we get to see how he learns to dodge bullets. One day, Chiun whips out a gun and starts firing and suddenly Remo is making like Neo in THE MATRIX, only without the nifty visual and camera effects. There is a massive leap across a raging river of disbelief that audiences are supposed to make that is never quite possible. Maybe if we had the ability to walk on water and simultaneously dazzle a platoon of armed soldiers then it would be easier.

Guy Hamilton, helmer of quite a few classic action films including the BATTLE OF BRITAIN (1969) and four James Bond movies topped by GOLDFINGER (1964) and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974) has little to work with in this feature but offers competent direction anyway.

Hamilton’s direction is beefed up by excellent cinematography by Andrew Laszlo, a DP who previously lent his camera skills to Walter Hill’s cult classic THE WARRIORS (1979) and JAMES CLAVELL’S SHOGUN (1980), the TV mini-series. Laszlo definitely makes the most of the film’s signature action sequence on the Statue of Liberty which as the time was undergoing restoration and was surrounded by scaffolding. The scene plays out very much like something from a James Bond movie but as with most of the action sequences, it lacks a certain punch that can be at least partly blamed on the lousy villains. In this case they’re three construction workers hired on the spot to toss Remo off the statue. As implausible as that is, what’s worse is the pointlessness of Remo being on the top of the statue in the first place.

There are two short fight sequences in the movie. The first is probably the best and takes place before Remo is even recruited or trained as an assassin. As a police officer he gets in a classic Hollywood-style bash-up brawl with three thugs. Towards the end, an idiot henchman dons a gas mask and chooses to enter a locked room filling with poisonous gas to fight Remo who otherwise would have died. How Remo uses him to get out of that predicament is pure lunacy that is only outmatched by the ridiculousness of how Remo dispatches the remaining bad guys. It involves a perfectly timed release of logs while suspended 50 feet in the air, some superhuman bullet dodging and the lighting of a tree branch by rubbing his thumb on it. Right…

It’s really hard to tell whether Hamilton was trying to shoot REMO WILLIAMS as a spoof or as a real action movie with some humor. This is often a sign of trouble when audiences cannot easily categorize a movie. This may have been a reason why the film did so poorly. It’s not a great film but it’s no worse than RAW DEAL, INVASION U.S.A. or any number of other B-grade ’80s actioners. Ultimately, what it’s lacking is clearer definition. The filmmakers could have focused on just a few elements and made them more distinctive and colorful. For an example of how it’s done right, look no further than BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA.

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