Review by Ben Bussey
Ah, they would have to go and give it a title which promised sequels with the utmost self-assurance. Small wonder that, after flopping in the US, it was retitled Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous in the UK (appropriate enough, though perhaps a little too easy to mix up with the John Candy action comedy Armed and Dangerous which emerged not long thereafter). Given that to date Remo Williams has enjoyed no further adventures the big screen, the temptation is clearly there to mock this film from the get-go, but once again, this was the 80s – brash overconfidence was the order of the day. Orion, mini-studio which came second only to Cannon in the ambitious 80s upstarts ranks, were clearly hoping to create a screen icon of Bond-esque proportions, as their enlisting of seasoned Bond director Guy Hamilton clearly suggests. But even if it failed to kickstart a series, Remo Williams: the Adventure Begins remains a cracking bit of fun which stands apart from most action-adventure films of the era in some interesting ways.
I must confess to being largely unfamiliar with The Destroyer book series on which this film is based, but it’s certainly no surprise to learn this story originated on the page, as it’s pure pulp novel material from start to finish. Fred Ward is a New York cop who, following a mysterious riverside confrontation, finds himself waking up in a private hospital bed with his comedy prosthetic nose and moustache removed a new face, and a new identity: Remo Williams, the latest recruit of a tiny, ultra-secretive organisation devoted to bringing down the long arm of the law on those who believe themselves above it: namely, corrupt politicians and corporate criminals. Filled in on the essentials by his superiors Wilfred Brimley and JA Preston, Remo promptly finds himself shacked up with Chiun, an aged Korean martial arts master played by… erm… Joel Grey. Wilkommen, bienvenue, hwan-yeong. (Thanks once again, Google.) Under Chiun’s harsh tutelage, Remo will become more than a professional assassin; he’ll learn how to dodge bullets, and sprint across wet sand without leaving a footprint. And all the while he’ll still be a wise-cracking all-American smartass.
It’s just such a fun idea straight away, with Remo as this unique mix of superspy, ninja master and blue collar everyman. The casting of Fred Ward was a masterstroke; he’s so far from the classic model of action hero, particularly in the body beautiful 1980s. Ward has a genuine guy-from-the-street charisma which makes him far more endearing than a great many action men of the time. Whilst Remo may gain in skill, he never loses his attitude, nor does Chiun ever stop giving him shit, so we’re happily free from the sentimentality and disengenuous morality that we so often get with these kind of student/teacher relationships. This doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get over the fact that it’s Joel Grey in fairly obvious make-up as the Korean geriatric. In the extras Grey insists he took some convincing to play the role, and was very concerned about offending the Oriental community; judge for yourselves if he made the right choice. I also have to wonder if this is another of those films on Kim Jong-Un’s shit list…
So how come it flopped? Well, once you get past Remo’s training, the central plotline is a bit dull. There’s some sort of military-industrialist cover-up going on surrounding a defective new model of machine gun which explodes in the face of an unfortunate soldier (one of the few grisly moments which gets the film a 15 certificate – though honestly, I’m sure it’d be fine as a 12), and Kate Mulgrew gets a dry run for her later role in Star Trek: Voyager as the principled Army Major trying to find the truth, only to find an ally in Remo. All very nice in a conspiracy theorist, stick-it-to-the-man kind of way – an outlook which I suspect is rather more popular today than it was in the mid-80s – but it isn’t really that compelling as the driving force behind what was intended to be an action-adventure epic. Nor does Remo face any particularly worthy adversaries, all the villains proving a bit 2D and forgettable.
As ever, this is a nice package from Arrow Video. The main bonus feature is an interesting one; rather than an in-depth look back at the film itself, we have a 70 minute documentary on 80s action cinema overall, with a number of knowledgeable interview subjects, including academic Susan Jeffords, whose book on the subject – Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era – I can highly recommend. While it’s a shame there are no interviews with Ward or Hamilton, we do get a commentary track with producers Larry Spiegel and Judy Goldstein, the aforementioned interview with Joel Grey, plus interviews with make-up artist Carl Fullerton and composer Craig Safan – on which note, I defy anyone to watch this and not have the central refrain stuck in their head for weeks (though sadly it’s missing from the rather naff trailer below – on the strength of which it’s small wonder the film flopped).
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins is out now on Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.