Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Invincible Obsessed Fighter (1983)

 
Invincible Obsessed Fighter is a Filmark film, but not a cut'n'paste one, whch is surprising. I guess they must make normal films every once in a while.

The movie opens immediately with two courier-guys getting chased by a guy with a terrible hairdo (a buzzcut and two chest level ear hairs), until they reach their boss. The hairdo guy accuses the boss of working for 'General Cheng'. A fight breaks out and the boss dispatches Hairdo with help from a door. Haircut reports to his boss about his failure. The scene abruptly cuts to two guys-one of whom's dubbed voice sounds like Elvis!-talking about General Cheng, and gold, and stuff.


Next, some guy (who'd dubbed with a very unintimidating voice) breaks into the base of Hairdo's boss. Hairdo's boss hires the guy to kill Fat Ho, General Cheng's 'right hand man'. Some Guy locates kills Ho via a clothesline, and the body is found by Ho's son (Elton Chong). The movie then cuts to a thief, who goes to a chicken coop to steal some chickens. When the coop's owner confronts him, the scene suddenly cuts away, and the thief is in a forest (ah, the old 'escape your antagonist by skipping the film reel' trick!). The thief encounters a couple of brutal thieves hassling two guys for toll, and he dispatches them-chopstick style!


The thief asks the hasslees for directions to Dragon Town, and comes across Ho's son, training. The thief, a fortune teller, tries to do business at a local market, and gets into a fight with a guy over a permit. Thief comes acoss a crosseyed guy with a hilarious dub voice (a husky southern accent) who's lost heaps of money, and Thief agrees to help him. Thief goes to a rigged gambling game, run by a Snake Plissken lookalike. After winning all the gamblers money, he has the swindler follow him. Eyepatch loses track of Thief and tries to force Elton Chong to give him directions to Thief. Elton kickboxes them all down and walks off.


So, twenty-five minutes into the film and it's not clear what the film's even about, or who the main character is! The market is breached by Some Guy, who tells everyone to leave, saying that the market is under Hairdo's boss' control now. Elton fights them off, then the movie abruptly cuts to a guy eating maggots out of a bowl for some reason. Meanwhile, Elton is chatting up a lady, Lily, (hey, the movie actually names somebody!) until she's kidnapped by Some Guy's men. Elton chases after and dispatches them.


Elton is approached by the maggot-eater who was watching his fight earlier. He asks Elton where he learnt Eight Chopper Fist from, and when Elton doesn't answer, they get in a fight...which has cat meows scored over it for some reason.A few weird scenes follow. There's a strange drag scene, followed by a battle with the living dead after Maggot-guy raises them up raises the dead (this is the second Elton Chong film that I've seen that involved zombies!)...


Invincible Obsessed Fighter isn't a good movie at all. It's definitely entertaining, but it has huge problems. For one, the movie never names its characters! The Invincible Super Guy at least named most of its characters eventually, but the only characters whose names were ever said were Lily and Fat Ho (it took me halfway into the movie before I noticed that!-there's an unintentionally hilarious line late in the movie-"I wonder where he knows that Fat Ho from?"!). The film is also terrible with its characters, period! The movie trudges along for over ten minutes, then the Thief dude becomes our main character for a long while, then he walks off and is never seen again! And Elton Chong's character barely appears until a third of the way through the movie!


The movie also has a super abrupt ending-and not in the fun Godfrey Ho way! The film at least has fun goofy dubbing and hilarious wireworks though. Another plus about the film is that Elton Chong's character already knows great kung fu-he doesn't need a mentor to train him for over half the movie. That was a nice change from a load of other movies like this that I've seen.


And no, there's no trace in this movie of a fighter who is either invincible or obsessed...

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Invincible Super Guy (1977)


The Invincible Super Guy!Well that's a cool and succinct  title, isn't it! Too bad this chopsocky film doesn't quite live up to the title, for reasons I'll explain soon.

The movie starts off with opening credits that are cut off by the screen's edges-apparently I'm actually watching The Invincible S! Also, the credits misspell supervisor. In the opening credits are several cool illustrations, scored to a fun theme.

The movie opens wth two thugs tackling a woman out in the countryside and trying to rape her. I say try, because she screams, the guy kneels over her for a second, then gets up and walks away with his friend, acting like he's just done something. The two thugs then come across a noble being carried around the area on a wooden thingie. The two thugs, armed with crazy weapons (a chain whip, and two giant buzz-saw ninja stars that scream "I am made of cardboard") rob the man, then go on their merry way, eventually coming across a sign that says "Your name or your life".


A guy and a girl-siblings-approach the two thugs and demand that they give them their names. The thugs introduce themselves-Yenkashu and Invisible Feet. The two people have heard of them, and fight. During the fight, Yenkashu steals the woman's earrings, so the two people decide to make a deal with the thugs, and the take the two to a hidden village/temple/something-or-other.


The two people give the two thieves a mission-break into the palace of a Lord Lee and steal his treasures. The thives refuse at first, but accept when called cowards (ah yes, the Marty McFly technique). Meanwhile, a woman is training, with her fists, feet, and kickass weapons! She's at Lord Lee's palace, and she goes inside, finding Lee furious, as his gold has been stolen-with a note left at the scene, saying that Lee's gold is 'going back to the people', signed, 'The Super Guy' (hey, whaddya know, the movie's title isn't a misnomer-yay).

One of Lee's worker-and the woman's father-starts packing, and when Daughter asks why, he says that when he was younger, he was a robber, and he had a run in with the Super Guy, who was a worker for a security organisation. The confrontation left Worker with two coins embedded into his chest. Daughter (MOVIE! Will you name your bloody characters!) goes to pack, and she gets her Mortal Kombat Scorpion spear-rope-blade thingies out, and says a strange and funny line-"Does Super Guy think he's so great? He must have six arms!".


The two people who hired the thieves are attacked by them, because they found the gold already stolen, and they think that the two tried to frame them. Both parties realize that someone else took the gold, and they agree to meet up later and find the thief.

A mysterious man is roaming the city, and bumps into Daughter, who finds out where he's going and asks him if he can deliver a letter to Coach Lin (the name of the guy who was coined-how 'convenient' that when I first heard his name, there was less than an hour left of movie!). The guy (who must be blind, as he keeps calling Daughter, 'he'!) finds Lin and gives him the letter. Lin goes off and is followed by Killer Fan (the gal who hired the two thieves with her brother). She attacks him and questions if he's the thief, and Lin tells her that Super Guy is the robber. Meanwhile, Brother (MOVIE! NAMES!) finds Lin's daughter and kidnaps her, taking her back to a cave hideout, where Killer Fan is. They talk, then are attacked by Daughter. Their fight is cut short when the mysterious guy Cool Aid Man's straight through a wall!


Mysterious Guy saves Daughter and the two slowmotion hightail it outta there, with Guy throwing a bomb to cave in their escape route.  Killer Fan and her brother leave to find Lin. Soon, allegiances are revealed, and sinister new people enter the fray...

The Invincible Super Guy is a fun, albeit flawed chopsocky film. It's like a movie adaptation of a fighting game-it's full of characters, all of whom have special weapons (from explosives, to Scorpion-spears, to boot daggers, ghost armies, and invisibility). This also means that practically all of those said characters are going to die, and they do, save for a couple.


The film has a few negatives. One is it's sheer refusal to name characters for long stretches of time, and the film has a downer ending-not an 'orphanage on fire' ending, but still a downer. The biggest problem is that Super Guy, the title character, is only in the film for about six minutes, tops!

The positives make up for that though. There's goofy dubbing, cool weapons and traps, crazy dialogue here and there, and fun characters, with crazy names!

The Invincile Super Guy is flawed, but definitely worth a watch for fans of goofy martial arts films.

Rage of a Ninja (1988)


Well, here I am with another Godfrey Ho/Joseph Lai cut'n'paste extravaganza! And one which features a muscly topless Cornish man wearing fleuro yellow pants and a ninja headband, screaming "I AM THE ULTIMATE NINJA!!". There's nothing else to introduce about Rage of a Ninja, so I'll just jump right into things!

The movie starts off full pelt, with fluero-yellow ninja Mike Abbott (I don't think his character is ever named) chasing pink clad ninja, Mel (Marko Ritchie). Abbott wants Mel to give him 'the manuel', a book of ninja techniques that will make the reader invincible. Abbott killed his and Mel's ninja master to get the manuel, and he's stopping at nothing to get it back.


What? You thought I was kidding when I said he was wearing pink? Learn to expect the craziest things from these types of movies!

The swordfight escalates into a gun-battle, because apparently, even ninjas pack heat! Believe me when I say that you haven't lived until you've seen a yellow ninja weild a submachine gun! Mel is shot, then he wakes up, the whole fight having been a dream-flashback.


Mel, the swanky boss of an insurance company, is having business trouble, thanks to a recent rash of burglaries of his stores. The movie then cuts to Movie A, with 'an associate' of Mel's coming home, finding his wife with another guy. He beats the crap out of the guy, then said guy is in Mike Abbot's office, bandaged up, way too heavily than required just for a few cuts (of course, it's to hide the fact that this is a totally different actor). Abbott is super displeased at Bandage's failure to locate the manuel, and he ragechokes the henchgoon to death.


Next the film cuts to a cat-burglar, scaling a building. He goes inside and tries to steal a suitcase full of jewels, which sets off an alarm. The house's occupants fight him off, but he escapes with the jewels. His body-double in Movie-B presents the jewels to Mike Abbott, who congratulates him and gives him a holiday! Well he's a gracious evil boss, that's for sure! He then instructs his henchman Bill to kill Henry, an arms dealer-"A real mean bastard!".


Back to Movie A, a couple of cops go to the house of a Mrs. Chan, and tell her to lock up her house, as a murderer is on the loose. She locks up, and has a bath, and while she bathes, a guy breaks into her flat, spies on Chan, then quickly makes himself a meal! Because that's totally a good idea when breaking into a house! She hears him and rushes outside, seeing no-one, then she's ambushed by the man, who cuts her phone line, and says that he's not going to hurt her. ..a promise that lasts until a minute later, when she tries to call the police from another phone.


Back to Movie B, Mel is following Bill, and Henry (a blonde guy with a terrible haircut) arrives at Bill's meeting place in a park, then is immediaately killed by Bill. Mel pops up from out of the wooodwork and gun-battles Bill (all the while, the theme from Reanimator plays!). Bill escapes, and the movie cuts back to Movie A, with the Chan woman still held captive by the guy, who has a case of reverse stockholm syndrome. The two movies 'mesh' when Mark Abbott calls a subordinate to see if Mel's 'ex-wife' Cindy has the manuel.


After the police come back to Mrs Chan's house to make sure she's ok, Movie-B Mel is walking on a street. He bumps into a woman, and offers to help her with her shopping. She leads him to her car and into and ambush by other henchman Paul. Mel escapes the scene by...backflipping, and Paul chases after him...by backflipping! Um, yeah... So Mel turns into a pink ninja (in these movies, people would always swirl around and their suits would magically appear on them), and Paul turns into a black one, and they fight, until the woman (she's never named either) shoots at him. After taking Paul hostage and throwing him at her, he runs off and Woman proves herself to be the worst marksman ever-she shoots left, he diagonally runs right, she shoots right, he runs diagonally left, etc.! If this lady had ever played Space Invaders, she'd know how to shoot a moving target properly! Mel then jumps up and teleports away...yeah...ninjas can do that in these movies...


Meanwhile, Chan talks with her 'captor', and come nightfall, the house is attacked by 'John' (what Movie B names the cat burglar ninja from before). The captor guy (he's named Steve) does his best to fight off the constantly teleporting ninja, even deflecting a ninja star with a cushion! He wakes up, the previous scene possibly having been a dream, and the movie segues into a 90's sexophone skinemax scene (in which Chan looks like she's cowgirl riding thin air).

Next, cue montage time in Movie-B! Mel gears himself up and trains for the final confrontation with Mike Abbott and his henchman. Back with Chan, her cousin Winny arrives, and several armed thugs wait outside. And it's here where Chan's name is said to be Cindy. Well good, I've only been waiting half the damn movie to find that bit of info out! Then Winny's dubbed voice almost turns Scottish. Then a sports montage of Steve and Winny happens, and the ET theme plays! Everything goes fine until John attacks. Steve ninjas up and gives chase. The two ninjas battle with smoke bombs and scythes (Children of the Corn XI: When Ninjas Attack!...well it wouldn't be the farthest that the series has deviated before).


After the fight ends (John escapes), Steve tells Cindy what happened to him. So the house from before that John broke into, that was his, and his wife was murdered by John...I think. CUE HAPPY MUSICAL SCENE! So poor Steve, who's wife was brutally murdered only a few days prior, is being henpecked by two women who both want to jump his bones!

The film cuts back to Movie B, with Paul and Chick reporting to Mike Abbot. They hand him a ninja star left at the battle, and he recognises it-this mysterious man named Mel, who Abbott has never heard of is really...Mel, his old training associate...Um, yeah. He then namedrops Steve, claiming that he, along with Mel were a ninja trio training under their ninja master (ninja ninja, ninja). Then Abbot yells the film's best, and most overacted line!-"I was so close to becoming the ULTIMATE NINJA!!!!".


Movie A comes back, again armed with the ET theme, played over a happy romp on the beach (ughhhhhhhh, will something happen in this movie?!). Then Movie B comes back, when Paul and Woman are ninja suited-up and ready for battle with Mel. They have a long fight, which involves sword throwing and coloured smoke bombs!

The film cuts back to Steve, Cindy, Winny and a couple others, who decide to stop by a house, as night's coming. Stuff happens, stuff hapens, and the film is eventually ready for Mel and Mike Abbot's final showdown...


Twenty minutes of Rage of a Ninja are very fun! Full of absurdly multicoloured ninjas, straightfaced actors, and hilariously ridiculous moments! The other hour though-Movie A-is boring, confusing, uneventful, and unexplained. I still don't know who Steve was, or what he did, if he was guilty, or if he was framed, and it really doesn't help when the movie doesn't have an ending! Steve helps the police dispatch John and a few other henchman...of someone, and when Steve takes down John, the movie just stops. The only entertaining things about this plot are the sex scenes, and the use of the ET theme, Alan Parsons Project's Sirius (used in the finale of American Commando 3: Savage Temptation) and the climax music from Crackdown Mission!

The ending to the Godfrey Ho story is sheer brilliance though. Mel and Mike Abbott square off, and after a brief gunfight, they ninja up and fight a fight that lasts only forty seconds, and has one of the funniest, most abrupt endings I've ever seen in one of these movies! The two square off, then Abbott jumps up into a tree, Mel throws a few bombs up into it, they explode, fluero yellow material rains down for a split millisecond, then the The End powerpoint card comes up!


He may be wearing bright pink, but he is a badass!

Monday, May 28, 2012

My thoughts on The Avengers

Ok ,I don't have much to say about The Avengers at this point, I'm terrible at writing reviews from scratch. I'll get a proper review out once it comes out on DVD. For now, here are my thoughts-THE AVENGERS WAS FUCKING AWESOME!

Two highlights I will mention-
1. The 'puny god' scene.
and 2. The post-credits scene (which only about fifteen people in my theatre saw!) featuring a certain villain...Thanos, God of Death!!!!





Yes Thanos, you did let go of the cube!

A couple of other things about that comic...Why the hell is Thanos god of death flying a helicopter? Why can't a god get the cosmic cube off of a small child? Why was Thanos, all powerful lord and master of the universe being arrested by the fuzz at the end?
*end tangent*

So, for those who still haven't seen The Avengers, know that you court death until you do...

Friday, May 18, 2012

Zombie vs Ninja (1988)

 
If there's something that I'm going to be reviewing more of, it's Godfrey Ho cut'n'paste films, I've only reviewed a couple (well, one Godfrey Ho, another Filmark). I'll start that off with Zombie vs Ninja, a film that stars the great Pierre Kirby! [For those unfamiliar with the films of IFD, here's an explanation]

After the IFD logo (a Columbia pictures logo knockoff scored to a copied Star Wars theme) the movie starts of with the trailer for itself, which is pretty schizo. The trailer calls the movie Zombie Rival: The Super Ninja Master, and the tailer voice calls it that, but constantly misses out the 'Ninja' portion of the title!


The movie opens with undertaker (dubbed with a bugs-bunny style voice, and with a couple of bits of carboard in his mouth, meant to be his buckteeth!), doing some ritual with paper, which makes a bunch of coffins behind him rise up, and the reanimated bodies inside come out. He fights them off until they go back in their coffins.


Next the movie cuts to the evil Mason (Edowan Bersmea) is talking with an Asian guy who is totally actually sharing screentime with Bersmea. The two intend to kill Chang, a guy who has gold. The film cuts to Chang, who intends to give his gold to 'the general', and he waxes philosophical to his friend about greed and stuff until his beaten-up son, Ethan (Elton Chong...I think) is thrown by his feet. Two henchmen arrive at the scene at demand Chang's gold. He refuses, and they kill him.

Undertaker rides around and comes across Ethan's body, lying in a ditch. He assumes Ethan is dead and takes him away in a coffin. Later, Ethan wakes up and is taken out of the coffin. Undertaker hurls him out after making sure he's not a zombie, then randomly decides to take Ethan as an apprentice.


I bet you're wondering, 'where's Pierre Kirby, our hero?'. Well the movie was wondering that too, because twelve minutes in, the scene abruptly cuts away to PIERRE KIRBY! So as it turns out, Pierre (named Duncan in this movie), 'knows' the undertaker, and they have a 'conversation'. Pierre thinks Undertaker should train Ethan in martial arts, as he's in trouble. Pierre only gets about twenty seconsd of screentime though, and the film cuts back to Ethan, who doing jobs for Undertaker (and carrying coffins on his back! He's as strong as The Tall Man!). Ethan complains about stuff, gets into fights...and I'm going to stop talking about this plot for a bit and just skip to Pierre Kirby, who I haven't talked about yet except for half a paragraph!


So, Pierre jumps down from the trees to two of Mason's henchmen (IFD regulars Dewey Bosworth and Patrick Frzebar (or Frbezar, it's spelt differently in different movies he's in)), and kicks the crap out of them, killing Frzebar. He tells Bosworth to tell Mason that it was a mistake to kill Ethan's father, and that 'The dragon's fire burns hot!'...as opposed to cold fire?!


Meanwhile, Ethan's storyline has pretty much become a madcap romantic comedy. Movie B (Movie A in my eyes) comes back, and Mason and his henchgoon Ira talk about how when someone they gave gold to becomes emperor, their power will grow tremendously (yeah, maybe Mason can hire more than three workers!). Then Bosworth comes and tells Mason what happened (and it's here that Frzebar's character's name is said-Bobby!-a person in China several centuries ago named Bobby! yeah right!...and Bosworth's character is named Burt!). Mason says that 'the dragon's fire burns hot' is a martial arts technique that hasn't been used in centuries. He sends out his goons to try and take down Pierre for good.


The goons find Kirby, and he takes care of all of them, except for one, who he has a tense standoff with, both of them standing still, waiting for the time to strike, all while dramatic music plays!...then an acorn randomly falls on the henchman and Pierre lunges forward and kills him! That really just happened!

As for Ethan, he does some more coffin exercises (he could probably defeat Mike and Reggie, what does he need more training for?). Then the man who sent the goons to kill Ethan's father gains control of the town from some government official. Meanwhile, Ehan is snowboarding with a coffin and crashes into said government official's...thing (those Chinese carriage things-what David Carradine threw a spear through into to kill the prince in Kung Fu). The official attacks Ethan, and this randomly makes the official's entourage break out into a brawl with each-other for no reason (ah, movies!)!


Ethan and Undertaker go out and Undertaker leaves the scene with a hilariously blase line (that I won't spoil)! Undertaker secretly raises a zombie (yay, the title characters are finally back in their own movie!) and it attacks Ethan, as a training exercise ("The kid's useless! He can't even beat up a zombie!"). Later, Pierre 'visits' Undertaker again and 'tells' him the he should raise more zombies to fight with Ethan.

So some stuff happens, Pierre Kirby fights more multi-coloured ninjas, and a scene in the movie repeats itself like a skipping record! Eventually, both Ethan and Pierre go after their respective enemies...


Zombie vs Ninja is a fun movie on it's own, what wth the goofy dubbing and plot, but there's one massive problem with it-Pierre Kirby has less than ten minutes of screentime! What little Godrey Ho footage there is is fun, full of ninjas, silly names, a main villain with whose terribly dubbed, and Pierre Kirby doing his thang-walking around random forests, beating up evil ninjas! As for the Ethan storyline, it's cool, (and there's quite a bit of 'zombie' action in the last half) though it gets in the way of the IFD action.

There's not much else to say about Zombie vs Ninja. One last thing before I finish up. Can anyone tell what Pierre Kirby's accent is? It's either Australian or British, I can't tell which (it's at 1:08 in the clip below).


Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Adventures of Fu Manchu: Episode 5-The Golden God of Fu Manchu


The Assassins of Fu Manchu only had one assassin, Death Ships only had a single ship, and naturally, The Golden God of Fu Manchu has nothing to do with either a god or a golden idol. The episode centres on Fu's gold smuggling operation, and his efforts to silence a witness...


The episode opens with two trains colliding, followed by a newspaper montage showing that a gold shipment has been stolen. Dr Petrie starts narrating, talking about how Macao is the hotspot for smuggling large amounts of gold, and that in an effort to get this stolen shipment back, he, Nayland Smith, and Betty have contacted Lum Sen (Keye Luke), from internal affairs, who tells the trio that Fu Manchu is behind the gold smuggling, and that he's got a man, Viscenti investigating a Captain Morgan, who is heavily involved with the smuggling.


Smith asks Sen why he was called onto the case, and Sen says it's because "No-one else better knows Fu Manchu, his mind, and his ambitions!"-Uh-huh, Fu Manchu has ambitions? Like hell he does! He does completely different things each episode, from smuggling gold to stealing viruses to resurrecting Hitler!


Meanwhile, Fu Manchu has captured Viscenti, and has tortured him (offscreen of course, this is the 50's after all, though the scene is very bloody for something during the Hay's Code era). Fu says an evil speech to Viscenti before branding his mark on him. Next we cut to Smith, Petrie and Sen finding Viscenti's body in a shack. Also in the room is a catatonic woman (Jean Willes).


Next, Fu tells Captain Morgan (Rick Vallin) that Dr. Petrie has arrived in Macao ("So that's it. The way you sent the giant [Kolb] after me, I thought something was really wrong"). Fu tells Morgan of the potential witness the police now have against him, and he instructs Morgan to kill her. Morgan is reluctant at first, but follows orders when Fu threatens to brutally murder him. Morgan goes to the hospital and is about to stab the woman when he sees her face-he recognizes her!...


The woman (who, despite being a catatonia patient, is wearing lipstick!) awakes from her catatonia shrieking and Morgan flees. The scene cuts to the woman-Ann-talking to Smith and Petrie, explaining how her husband, Captain Morgan, was in the navy, and committed suicide. But she didn't believe he was dead, because "Phillip wasn't the type to commit suicide". Great reasoning, lady, you've got me convinced! She says she investigated more into the matter, and found out that the letter she got from the navy telling her of the suicide was a fake, and that Morgan was really court-martialed and thrown in jail.


She continues explaining about how she found shipmates and friends of Morgan, which eventually led to the shack with Viscenti's body. Smith tells her that Morgan was tried for black-marketing.

Next, Morgan explains to Fu that 'the woman' was too heavily guarded for him to reach. Fu tells him to try again, and that failure a second time will be fatal. Morgan leaves and goes to a harbour, where he tells a midg...little person to ready the ship, so he can leave that night. The vertically challenged guy is treacherous though, and goes to Fu Manchu to tell him about Morgan's intentions.


Morgan sneaks into the hospital and into Ann's room. As a ploy by Smith and Petrie, she pretends to be pleased to see him, claiming that she kept her mouth shut to the police, pretending she couldn't talk. They both escape from the hospital, but Fu Manchu is on their trail...


Will Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie smash Fu Manchu's gold smuggling operation?
Will Fu Manchu escape justice and be swallowed up into the teeming millions that make up Red China?
Will Keye Luke actually get more than two minutes of proper screentime in this?

The Golden God of Fu Manchu  is a fun as usual episode. It has a good plot, decent acting, and, if anything else, it has cool scenery stock footage!

The Adventures of Fu Manchu: Episode 4-The Death Ships of Fu Manchu


The Death Ships of Fu Manchu-or The Death Shops of Fu Manchu as it's misspelt on the DVD-R's menu! This episode centres on 'the Devil Doctor's' evil scheme to conglomerate the world's shopping malls!...
...Really to sell stolen deadly germ cultures to the highest bidder.


The episode opens on a boat, The Carfax, sinking off the coast of Hong Kong. The radiomen manage to get help in from the coastguard. The ship's captain, Captain Warren (Hugh Sanders) can't get away immediately, as he has a package that he has to secure. We cut abruptly to Fu Manchu's base, where he laments the loss of the ship to Karamaneh and Kolb, as he had invaluable cargo onboard.


Nayland Smith, Dr. Petrie, and Betty are also in Hong Kong, and they have been investigating The Carfax, as they suspect it contained deadly germs that were stolen from a California research lab. Petrie waxes on about the trouble that would happen if 'the Red Eastern powers' got their hands on the germs-being able to tell where the germ cultures came from, they could accuse America of illegal germ warfare (with the help of 'brainwashed US Citizens'). They leave to investigate the Carfax's crew (all of whom survived the wreck).


Meanwhile, Fu Manchu has his hands on the germ cultures, thanks to his henchman, Carston (Peter Mamakos), who had given the package containing the cultures to Captain Warren, for urgent safe-keeping, and Warren, not knowing what the box contained, took it with him from the wreck onto a lifeboat, and instead of taking the package through customs, Warren took a brief detour and gave them straight to Carston. Fu tells Carston to get Warren again, but Carston tells Fu that Warren only sails as far as Hong Kong, because he doesn't want to get caught up in criminal 'Oriental trades'.


Fu sends Karamaneh to The Blue Dragon Cafe, a local haunt of Captain Warren, to find him and bring him to Fu. Karamaneh finds Warren at the bar and she tells him that a friend of hers and Carston's, a very rich man, is interested in hiring Warren to make shipments. He agrees, and doesn't change his mind when Karamaneh tells him that his new employer is Chinese and one that's escaped enemies from behind the Bamboo Curtain, hence he should remain secretive about the business. She takes Warren blindfolded to Fu's secret base, where he finds out that this will be an Oriental trade. Warren declines, but Fu blackmails him into taking the job.


After seeing Karamaneh and Kolb inject the germ cultures into melons (where they can incubate), we cut to Smith and Petrie investigating Carston's boat, who stop it from sailing until they've finished inspecting. They break open a few cases and take some of the cargo back to a lab for further investigation. Meanwhile, Carston instucts Warren to guard the melons while the ship is stuck in the harbour. Unbeknownst to Carston, Warren, having guessed at what's inside the melons, removes them from the ship. Carston realizes this the next morning and has Warren taken away for interrogation.


Meanwhile, cuteness abounds when Fu sends Kolb out to find Smith and Petrie, and he's decked out in an adorable little business suit! Kolb goes to the Blue Dragon to find out where the two are staying, while Smith an Petrie look at the warehouse outside the ship and notice the melons missing. They realize that the germ cultures could be hidden inside them, so they go to find Carston-at the Blue Dragon.


After some static/rainbow interference to the film print, Smith notices Kolb in the bar, and he tells the bartender that if he sees Carston, tell him that his missing cargo has been found. Hearing this, Kolb leaves the bar, and is unknowingly followed by Smith and Petrie.

Will Nayland Smith and Dr. Pietrie prevail?
Will the evil Reds get their hands on the deadly apocalyptic germs?
Will the episode end more abruptly than Franz Kafka's The Tower?


This episode is entertaining, as usual. It's has silly moments and it's full of action, as well as a cool plot. The acting ranges from good to decent, and Kolb and Betty have more screentime than in Satellites-it's still not too long they're in the episode for though.

The ending is also cool! I won't spoil it, I'll just say that it involves Fu Manchu, an infected henchman, and fire!