a5c7b9f00b Set at some point during the thirties or forties, Japan is at war with China. During an attack on the Chinese forces, the Japanese capture four Western Generals. Fearing that if this news were to reach their troops it would affect their morale greatly, the Chinese hire Captain Don Wen to form a commando squad and get the Generals back in four days. Don decides to regroup his old squad (consisting of thief Old Sun, escape artist Grease Lightning, con artist Billy and his ex-girlfriend Lily, the bumbling and apparently unnamed General and his buddy Stone) one last time to get the Generals back. Don is apparently killed in an attack but the group continues on regardless, with the aid of ex-wrestler Sammy and his former manager Emily who trail the group to make sure they stay alive, so they&#39;ll have a share of the reward. Towards the end, the previously comical film takes a bizarre turn and climaxes at a Japanese bunker where the group go kamikaze and fight off a small army in the hope that the last survivor will be able to claim the reward. But are the Japanese the only villains? Similar to &quot;The Dirty Dozen&quot; or one of that nature. Japan is trying to take over the world and the generals of the allied forces trying to stop the Japanese have been taken prisoner. A force of loners and fighters is put together to try and rescue the generals and save the war effort with the promise of gold and/or pardons of past crimes. There&#39;s really no middle ground when it comes to this movie. People either &#39;get it&#39; and they love it or they don&#39;t and they hate it. Personally I think it&#39;s one of the greatest films ever made but it takes an open mind to appreciate Fantasy Mission Force. Not everyone is cut out for the experience.<br/><br/>Remember that from the beginning to the end the movie will never once make sense. Don&#39;t worry about not following the plot and don&#39;t look down on the film for &#39;errors&#39; like having WWII Japanese troops in Luxembourg. It&#39;s called *Fantasy* Mission Force for a reason. Really, the only one that looks foolish is the fool that isn&#39;t in on the joke.<br/><br/>Don&#39;t be shocked when scenes are cut off abruptly by the arrival of a new scene. I don&#39;t know if the smash cut editing is intentional or if the foriegn distributors cut up the film when it was released on video but it adds to the cinematic insanity. The movie literally moves faster than the speed of thought and you will never know what comes next. Don&#39;t panic, just let it happen and be amazed by whatever it is the film is throwing in your face.<br/><br/>If you&#39;re brave, clever and capable of handling the overload you&#39;ll find the film is loaded with references to other movies. This is intentional. Producer/Director Jimmy Wang Yu was a notorious lover of Cinema and he &#39;borrows&#39; all kinds of themes and elements of other films. Much like &#39;Star Wars&#39; Fantasy Mission Force is a celebration of the motion picture medium. You&#39;ll find the film opens with a war movie theme, then jumps to a song-and-dance number (more on that later) and after many misadventures (it&#39;s also a road trip movie) climaxes with a cheerfully nihilistic gunfight a la Peckinpah&#39;s &#39;The Wild Bunch&#39; (with a sad &#39;Camptown Races&#39; soundtrack to boot) then a Kung Fu scene. Then the film stops. It never really ends.<br/><br/>Words haven&#39;t been invented yet that can accurately describe the opening song and dance number. It is quite possibly the greatest scene ever made for a motion picture. It&#39;s like a wierd dream you understand through subconscious instinct yet you can never quite explain it to your friends. And what makes Jimmy Wang Yu a great Director is that he makes it all look so easy.<br/><br/>Call Fantasy Mission Force whatever you want: inane, pointless, silly, incomprehensible, ridiculous, trite or even cheesy. But you can&#39;t call it boring and you can&#39;t call it stupid. It takes some bright people to make a film so unbelievably weird. I&#39;ve seen some pretty bizarre movies from Hong Kong, and I&#39;ve long since learned my lesson about old kung-fu movies that have Jackie Chan on the cover. Sure, &#39;Young Tiger&#39; and &#39;Eagle Shadow Fist&#39; were terrible, but things like &#39;Spiritual Kung-Fu&#39;, &#39;Half a Loaf of Kung-Fu&#39;, and &#39;Killer Meteors&#39; were great. In fact, I thought &#39;Killer Meteors&#39; could not be beaten when it came to random kung-fu awesomeness and fake Jackie Chan movies…<br/><br/>… but then I saw &#39;Fantasy Mission Force&#39;. And it transcended levels of awesomeness that &#39;Killer Meteors&#39; could not even dream of. By now, fans of my writing will be saying &quot;But Dave, in your Killer Meteors review, you said, and I quote, that Killer Meteors is &#39;pure awesomeness&#39;!&quot;. Well, I&#39;m sorry, but not even Killer Meteors could quite prepare anyone for &#39;Fantasy Mission Force&#39;.<br/><br/>I would summarize the plot, but I&#39;m not entirely sure that is even possible. It goes something like this: China, 1944 - a group of crusading kung-fu heroes are assembled by Chinese officers. They have 4 days to travel (on foot) to Luxembourg and rescue captured Allied Generals from some Japanese Nazis who watch too much Mad Max. Hence the &#39;fantasy&#39; in &#39;Fantasy Mission Force&#39;.<br/><br/>That was saying nothing about the Chinese Scots, the ninja Amazons, card-playing ghosts, or the movie having the feel of an old silent comedy. &#39;Fantasy Mission Force&#39; appears to be how Jimmy Wang Yu would have made &#39;The Dirty Dozen&#39; if he had been under the influence of many, many drugs. I&#39;m not ashamed that I&#39;m easily amused by really random comedy stories, movies etc, and thus &#39;Fantasy Mission Force&#39; is something of a God-send. It may fall shorta kung-fu movie, but does that really matter when really random scenes depicting Chinese people dressed upa Scottish marching band come and go? Yet I still think there is some method to all this madness. Did I mention that &#39;Fantasy Mission Force&#39; is awesome?
Smarthorntfulis Admin replied
366 weeks ago