English. And it is truly a thing of wonder:
"Everywhere you go you just commit mayhem, man... This is Australia, mate, not 55 Days at Peking!"
Ah, Australia in the 70s - where films were cheap but life was cheaper.
The Man From Hong Kong (released in the US as
The Dragon Flies), George Lazenby's second-finest hour, is truly a thing of joy - an essential Ozploitation movie that does what it says on the label even if Jimmy Wang Yu doesn't exactly burn up the screen as
`the tough Hong Kong cop who learned every trick in the book - then threw the book away.' Unlike Lazenby.
Where else can you see a film where they set a former James Bond on fire - for real - and he just goes on fighting? Roger, Shir Sean and Pierce would never have done that in a million years. Not only is he
`the ruthless czar of international evil' but he's racist with it -
"I've never met a Chinese yet that didn't have a yellow streak!" - and even has Frank Thring on the payroll, sneering disdain as only he could at a hero who can only speak English in a badly dubbed American accent (
"We like to bounce our customers, not to break them"). Thring at least lasts longer than Sammo Hung, who choreographed the fight scenes and has a supporting role billed as Hung Kam Po before taking an early shower before he can show up the star too much (
"A master of kung fu, he used his art for an evil purpose, but he fought well. I will like to meet the man who employed him.").
Wang Yu is never more than adequate - Lazenby still looks like he could beat him in a fair fight, even when on fire - but the film is so much fun and such an intoxicating mixture of car chases, outrageous action movie stunts, gratuitous hang gliding and. in at least one sequence, literally pant-splittingly good fight scenes that it doesn't matter. This is the kind of movie where stuntmen get kicked off racing motorcycles or thrown through very solid objects and stage terrific car chases on back roads without bothering to tell the local police, who probably wouldn't understand why they needed to destroy quite so much property in the process. Indeed, director Brian Trenchard-Smith's original pitch was a bulldozing cop who causes more collateral damage than the villain he takes down (
"This country's got a small population, and he's getting through them very fast!"). That tends to get lost until the big car chase near the end of the film, but there's plenty of choice locking of cultural horns between him and the recently departed Hugh Keays-Byrne's hip local detective en route (
"I don't want to be rude, man, but no torture, no thumbscrews. This is Australia. We're not allowed to get into that sort of thing, mate."). There's even room for the odd love scene with the two leading ladies, and boy is Wang Yu a charmer:
"Do you think you've recovered enough for me to make love to you?"
"I think I could stand the pain."
"That was nice."
"What did you expect - acupuncture?"
And that's not mentioning the infectiously catchy title song,
Sky High (
. Ah, they don't make 'em like they used to...
Trenchard-Smith's audio commentary, while not as explicit as some of the comments made on the documentary Not Quite Hollywood, is worth a listen, detailing just what an arrogant xenophobic sexist nightmare Jimmy Wang Yu was to deal with during the shoot (when the director cameoed as a thug in a fight in a lift, Wang Yu didn't pull any punches, and that was one of his better days). The compression sucks on the overstacked Australian Blu, so hopefully this should be an improvement.
The Man from Hong Kong - Trailer (1975) - YouTube
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