I'm not sure if these two movies really qualify for Memorial Day, given that they aren't specifically about fallen troops. However, they were the only two movies I saw this weekend in between the memorial day festivities, so they'll have to do. Both movies do have a lot in common, though. They both have adventure in the title, they are both from the mid-80's, and they are both about private citizens working for the US government to stop hostile threats. The movies are Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins! (1985) and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), which I mentioned in my last post.
First, Remo Williams. Played by Fred Ward, Remo Williams isn't even his real name. Basically starting out as a simple patrolman in a corrupt system of police and government, Remo is targeted for assassination by CURE, a government organization that answers only to the president himself. Only the "asassination" turns out to be a means of faking his death, so he can be reassigned as a government assassin. Retrained by Chiun, a korean master of Sinanju (the origin of all martial arts), Remo begins his efforts to clean up society one target at a time, arranging his first "perfect accident" for a corrupt politician with his fingers in the military pot.
Remo Williams was an awesome movie for it's time. The 80's were steeped in the mysticism of the martial arts, starting with Bruce Lee in the early 70's to Bruce Lee's own vision of a Shaolin Priest that became the Kung Fu TV series back in the late 70's. But there were so many arts. Kung Fu, Karate, Ninjitsu (also huge in the 80's), pretty much anything involved with martial arts was guaranteed to be a hit. This movie was probably intended to be the first of a bunch, based off of a long series of books about the adventures of one Remo Williams. I can't really say the acting was all that great or the martial arts moves were all that spectacular, since I am pretty sure neither Chiun (Joel Grey, I think?) or Fred Ward were even moderately interested in martial arts at the time. But, given that they are both moderately decent actors, they were able to put forth a decent portrayal of martial artists. Wilford Brimley plays "Emperor Smith," who is running CURE for the government. Chiun isn't even technically part of CURE, just a part-time trainer for their chief agent, Remo. But the movie is still an enjoyable watch, and I've seen it dozens of times.
A little backstory on this, in case you are interested. Remo Williams' origin story is told in The Adventure Begins, but to really know the rest of the story, you'd have to read all 100+ novels written by the guy or guys who write the books. And yes, that's a lot of books. Luckily for you readers, I've read most of them already (after seeing this movie, I devoured every copy of the novels I could find back in the 80's). The writers churned them out like dimestore westerns. In short, Remo was prophesied to be the "Shiva" of the art of Sinanju, but that statement makes no sense unless I explain it a little, so here goes.
Sinanju, according to the books, is a small Korean village with little or no means of supporting itself. The land is too rocky to farm, the waters empty of fish, the nearby forests devoid of game. The only way for Sinanju to support itself was to hire its people out to be assassins. Eventually, the assassins of Sinanju became so great at their jobs that only one was ever required, titled the Master of Sinanju, which also became the name of their martial arts style. Sinanju was supposedly so great that it spawned a number of lesser shadows of itself, such as kung fu, karate, ninjitsu, etc.. Each master would take assassination contracts, paid in gold to the village to help support it, and then as they got older, they would train a replacement, and so on. The village was protected from the Master by agreeing that the Master would never harm a member of the village, else ties with the village would be severed and the Master of Sinanju would become homeless, and nothing but a common mercenary trying to sell his kills to the highest bidder. It was perhaps a meaningless rule, but it protected the people of the village from being ruled by an invincible tyrant, and kept the gold flowing into the village coffers. The current Master of Sinanju, Chiun, was a believer in the prophecy that a white man would come and be trained as the new Master of Sinanju, and that this white man would be the greatest master of Sinanju that had ever existed, and come to be known as "Shiva, the Destroyer." The book series would come to be known as the Destroyer series, chronicling Remo's adventures after being initiated into the mysteries of Sinanju by Chiun.
Remo's greatest nemesis, and the climax of the Destroyer series, came in the form of a former apprentice to Chiun, who was a member of the village of Sinanju, korean, and one who had received much more training than Remo. After battling it out with him over several books, and being wholly unable to defeat him, Remo engaged his enemy one final time in the village of Sinanju itself. After a titanic battle in which Remo had both arms and one leg paralyzed, the apprentice declared himself the new Master of Sinanju. Remo, able to do nothing but move one leg, hopped up behind the "new master of Sinanju" and delivered a vicious but probably non-fatal kick. However, Chiun, standing beside his former student but unable to help due to the constraints of his title as Master of Sinanju, slew the upstart master with such a lightning fast blow to the head that none of the villagers even suspected that it was not Remo that had killed the former apprentice. Once Chiun helped Remo to recover, Remo asked Chiun about violating the rule that Masters of Sinanju were not allowed to harm anyone from the village. Chiun replied that, once the apprentice had declared himself the new Master of Sinanju, Chiun was no longer bound by that law because, for that instant, he was no longer the one Master of Sinanju. And that was the last of the Destroyer series that I can remember.
Now, on to Buckaroo Banzai! If this isn't the most enjoyable movie about a rock-star / brain surgeon / physicist / adventurer I've ever seen, well, it should be. Buckaroo (played by Peter Weller of Robocop fame), goes from performing brain surgery with Jeff Goldblum to breaking the 8th dimensional barrier in one afternoon. However, his actions in breaking through the 8th dimension have garnered him some emnity from the black lectroids. The Black lectroids are a peaceful race of aliens from planet 10. However, after a failed coup, they imprisoned a bunch of red lectroids, vicious rebels, in the 8th dimension, and Buckaroo Banzai was in danger of freeing them. They give Buckaroo a time limit to stop John Worfin from using Buckaroo's overthruster device to free his red lectroid rebels, or they will trigger the destruction of earth. Buckaroo must get to the bottom of the red lectroid conspiracy with the help of his Blue Blazer regulars and his elite group of hard-rocking friends, the Hong-Kong Cavaliers! :-o
Peter Weller does a wonderful job of portraying a multi-talented adventurer at the head of a group of people trying to save the world. Ellen Barkin plays a pretty girl tossed into the mix, and Jeff Goldblum plays a brain surgeon invited to join Buckaroo's group of Cavaliers. The acting in this movie wasn't exactly spectacular, except perhaps the totally over the top performance by John Lithgow as the leader of the Red Lectroids. If you want to see Jeff Goldblum work his acting muscles, try catching him in Mister Frost (1990). I've seen Buckaroo Banzai a few times and it's always fun to watch. Ellen Barkin is very easy on the eyes here (she's aged a lot since this movie), and the background music alone in both of these movies is a pretty good example of the 80's. It's been two days since I watched Buckaroo Banzai, and the whistling finale is still echoing in my head.
If you want to watch either of these movies, it's probably a good idea to head to Netflix, although they do still occasionally show them on TV. One of them will be available for a while, but the other expires from the streaming list in a few days. Can't remember which one, though, so good luck!
In other news, I happened to be watching Dinocroc vs Supergator or some such movie on Syfy's memorial day movie marathon while I was typing this, and lo and behold, but David Carradine shows up. Now, I am all confused, because the movie is dated 2010 and yet I remember David Carradine dying in 2009. So I look him up, and he did die in 2009. And, he's got more movies coming out than most of the live actors. Aside from that one Syfy movie, he had 8 other movies released with him in it between 2010 and 2012, and he has another movie coming out this year that hasn't even been released yet! Pretty busy for a dead guy! :-o Amazing, and eminently enjoyable, to still be seeing this guy popping up in parts four years after his death.
That's all for this holiday. See you soon for more reviews, since Netflix is removing another string of movies I have to watch. Hope everyone had a nice memorial day! I know I did!
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