Saturday, October 09, 2010

Honourable Mention: Fantasy Mission Force

Yen-Ping Chu, you have a lot to answer for. Having just watched the 1982 Taiwanese flick, Fantasy Mission Force, I really do feel like my head has caved in. Four United Nations Generals are captured at the beginning – by the Japanese. The Japanese have them held in Luxemburg and the morale of the allies might be shaken if they release news of their capture.

Most of the world’s good guy agents are unavailable or defected and so Don Wen (Yu Wang) is called in and told to get a force of men together to rescue the Generals… if they are captured then knowledge of the mission will be denied. Cut to… a comedy song routine that turns out to be a fantasy of the bandit Old Sun (Yeuh Sun) – the first recruit. The first half hour is taken up getting the recruits.

Jackie Chan as Sammy
Then with our odd ball group together – being tracked by the con artists Emily (Ling Chang) and Sammy (Jackie Chan, the Twins Effect), who had money stolen by one of the group. We enter a topsy-turvy world including Amazonian warriors who wear leopard skin print and sacks over their heads and Japanese warriors, dressed as a cross between Nazis (including swastikas and SS symbols) and punk warriors from Mad Max.

Kyonsi hope
Where then the vampires? With the characters Lily (Brigitte Lin) and Don both missing the remaining force – having just escaped the Amazonian warriors – get to a spooky house and bed down for the night. One of them, the Chinese Scots Guard called Stone (Shiu Bu Lai), sees a coffin open. The occupant gets out and kyonsi hops over, sniffs at their breaths and then hops out of the room. The rest of the segment involves more ghost like creatures (and then Lily turns up and says that its actually sorcerers faking ghosts to scare people). A 30 second appearance but an appearance none the less and now, if you’ll excuse me, my head hurts and I’m going to lie down! The imdb page is here.


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