Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

eltsr-1 The movie "The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go", works on many levels. Here's mine barely on one level. James Joyce was as little understood in 1970 as Buddhism, the Far East (including Vietnam)and MKULTRA. Only MKULTRA notionally survived unscathed because CIA Director Richard Helms destroyed all agency records shortly after this film was made. It alone has escaped the brutal epiphany of the last 40+ years. "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) did not publish "Remember, Be Here Now" until the year after the movie's release. Had he seen it? The Hong Kong Tourist Bureau which contributed greatly and nearly lost its soul to this film knew more about all of the above including James Joyce than anyone in or around the movie. Here are the facts: James Mason wears oral prosthetics and allows his then almost 2d wife (Clarissa Kaye-Mason) to administer a lesbian rape scene. Peter Lind Hayes (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T)plays himself and appears in a violent homo erotic scene with a very young Jeff Bridges. Irene Tsu gives her acting and substantive all to everyone involved apparently including some Hong Kong hookers replete with excellent Number One Hong Kongs. Broderick Crawford plays the head of the CIA in what appears to be an unintended?, spliced-in unrelated Ed Wood production. He's Broderick Crawford, for Christ sakes! And he's wonderful! You will recognize Jay Adler and Jack MacGowran reprising themselves in roles that they had accomplished many times, but not this time. Buddha appears typecast as himself in Hong Kong tourist stills voiced over by Christopher Lee? as narrator. Oh yeah, Burgess Meredith stars and directed it if Buddha didn't. Rags Ragland composed the soundtrack and songs and I am sure Peter Lind Hayes influenced same with his immortal 1950s Chevrolet jingle. The music at times however, fractures into rather both authentic and thought provoking accompaniment including a brief oriental theme played with a bowed lute Ragland was an arranger for the Dorsey's and provided music for many 40s movies and then this one. There, I wrote it. For YOU!!!! James Joyce was writing--like Bridges says,"For the next 1,000 years." You can watch this prescient epistle throughout the next millennium if you need to. In 1970, the world needed to...

lolotehe I was only in the bar for a quick drink. It was hot outside and I figured a cold beer might knock off the oppressive stillness of it all.As promised, the Shiner hit the back of my throat like an alpine breeze. I clutched the bottle to my brow, letting the cool condensation roll over my eyebrows. Luckily, the bar had no windows, so the dark inside was a fine respite from the tenacious sun outside. No windows allowed that surly teen of a star force his rays inside.And then I saw him.He was sitting in a corner, holding his gin and tonic with both hands. For a moment, he raised his hand to his mouth, maybe questioning something? Then, as swiftly as it happened, the thought escaped him and he waved away the lingering memory.I recognized it immediately. I had to talk to him. He was one of the few who had slogged through the same terrible adventure as I. Maybe, by speaking with him, I could alleviate his pain.He didn't even look at me as I approached his well-padded booth."If you had heard I were killed," I asked him. "Would you still be afraid?" "That's when I would be afraid the most," he muttered to his drink.There it was, a shared connection. I had been correct in my assumption about this broken man. He was just like me and had seen the same horrors.He had seen "The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go." We sat in silence, each nursing our own drinks, our own chance at forgetting.He shook his head. "Did you know that lesbian rape scene is the opening credits?" I had to admit I didn't. The scene in question had been so shocking, so unexpected when it happened. The opening credits, I had blissfully ejected from memory."I didn't catch it the first time," he confessed."You watched it a second time?" I asked. "Why?" He closed his eyes and lowered his head. With his chin resting on his chest, he whispered, "I don't know... I don't know...." A deep, ragged breath and sigh. He looked at me, a fellow victim. "If tomorrow is in question..." he started."And your meditation is interpreted by what lies ahead," I answered.Yes, his pain was deep. Seeing it brought back my own pain: the stilted dialog, the terrible soundtrack, the gratuitous breasts that made us both (I am sure) feel skeevy because they looked they they belonged to a 14-year-old. I shuddered and reached for my cigarettes.Not missing a beat, my companion lit a match and held it out. "Puff the magic dragon," he sighed.I was afraid to accept, but only did so to oblige him. We sat in the still of the room, smoke and nightmares swirling around us.And when he cried, I only held out my arm to comfort him. Like our connection in the bar, it was brief and disturbing. We had both seen the horror. It was not something we could share with others.We both knew our warning would fall on deaf ears. "But Jeff Bridges is in it!" our companions would say. "What about that narration by Christopher Lee?" Oh, what of it? Of all the things that should have made it right, there was only so much wrong a man could bear. James Mason is a fine actor, yes, but playing a half-Chinese\half-Mexican crime lord is too great a burden. And the script, written by Burgess Meredith? No finer form of torture has been devised, even if directed by the man himself. No. It was too great a passion that burned in that idea and all involved were singed by its efforts."You know that Peter Lind Hayes played Mr. Zabladowski in "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T?" I asked. I hoped to lift the mood."Very atomic," my companion said, and then laughed. "I guess he got to lay some pipe!" We both laughed until tears covered our faces. Then we cried and held each other. We had been there. We had seen it. We had both been through "The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go".

mjrkong I picked this up at the Dollar Tree along with a bottle of Ajax dishwash liquid, a box of Fiddle Faddle and some Tums. All are gone except for Mr. Go (facilitating my consumption of the Tums) which still remains.Now, not all $1 discs suck. I've picked up old Sherlock Holmes flicks w/ Basil Rathbone for a buck and enjoyed them thoroughly. But Mr. Go? Ach du lieber! I really can't add anything to the madness. Worst of all, I can't get that bizarre song out of my head, when Jeff & Jack go zipping around Hong Kong in a couple of rikshaws. "Got to be free... Freee.. weee!". WTF!?!

funkyfry This film is truly a sight to see. I've seen a lot of really odd films but never anything exactly like this movie. It has exploitation content, but not enough to play in the grind-house circuit. It has a lot of really great actors -- including Burgess Meredith (who also directed and contributed to the screenplay), Broderick Crawford, James Mason, and Jeff Bridges ("introducing Jeffrey Bridges"). It has a lot of action and plot twists, so it doesn't get dull -- but it also ultimately doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It has sci-fi elements -- a so-called "side-winder laser beam" which could neutralize all nuclear weapons -- but it is mostly a confused attempt at a James Bond-ish international suspense film, with a dash of Fu Manchu thrown in.The plot is so bizarre that I had to write this review today, the day after seeing it, or I would not remember it. But I don't think there were that many "holes" in the plot, it's just very complicated and intricate. The film moves very fast. Fast enough that if there are any holes we don't really have time to worry about them.James Mason plays Mr. Go, a ruthless international blackmailer who is interested in obtaining the laser beam for his own purposes. Meredith plays The Dolphin, an acupuncturist with underworld ties. In order to get the plans for the laser, Mr. Go hires a young American deserter who's hard up for cash, Finnighan (Bridges), to lure the American CIA agent, Professor Bannister (Peter Lind Hayes) into a gay sex encounter that is captured on film and used for blackmail. OK, hang on it's even stranger.... Finnighan believes himself to be a descendant of James Joyce and fancies himself a great up and coming writer, so the CIA sends in an agent who happens to be a self-described "James Joyce scholar", Zimmerman (Jack MacGowran). Zimmerman, posing as a literary agent, takes Finnighan out on the town, where they visit a whorehouse on a boat and get extremely drunk. Back in Finnighan's apartment, Zimmerman attempts to extract information about Mr. Go's identity from the drunken would-be writer. Upon learning that Finnighan is being investigated by the CIA, Mr. Go decides to have him and his girlfriend Tah Ling (Irene Tsu) kidnapped. However, after taking Finnighan into a helicopter and telling him he is about to be executed, Buddha decides to intervene on behalf of humanity, as he claims he can do in the 5th month of every 50th year. A beam of light comes out of Buddha's belly and illuminates Mr. Go, making him into a good man and causing him to abandon his plans of killing Finnighan and selling the weapon. For the rest of the film, Mr. Go and Finnighan rescue the girl and set about faking Go's death and releasing the information about the sidewinder laser beam to the public so that all the nations in the world will be safe from nuclear attack.On the whole, the directing is exceptionally poor. Some of the confusing passages had to be explained with the dubious device of Buddha-as-narrator. The actors are all overplaying their roles, across the board. The action scenes are just ridiculously slow and awkward. The Asian makeup for Meredith and Mason are extremely unconvincing -- at one point early in the film Mr. Go has to say something like "I came here many years ago as a young Mexican-Chinese boy...." just so that the audience will know what race he's supposed to be. He speaks with his normal rather stately British accent throughout, perhaps seeking to salvage some dignity.However I think there was a germ of a good movie in the screenplay -- from the very first scene with Mr. Go and the Dolphin discussing how Mr. Go might be assassinated, to the bizarre scene where Finnighan and Zimmerman are hanging out with naked prostitutes in his apartment while he angrily vents about the fact that his (kidnapped) girlfriend isn't there cooking for him and cleaning the house. Another example would be near the film's conclusion when Mr. Go tells Tah Ling that he wants to consider she and Finnighan as his children, but she interrupts and tells him that she's been thinking about him a lot and "a lot of it is very sexy". So just like that Mr. Go drops the father act and starts getting hot and heavy with Tah Ling from their hiding place inside the Buddha's belly.I think they either needed a bigger budget and another director to turn it into more of a fun espionage film, or they could have played it just a bit less seriously and it would have been camp fun. Instead there is the sense that the film is trying to be much more than it really is. Still, it's never boring, and that's not something you can say about every movie.