Heroes Three (1985)

Heroes Three (1985)- * * *

Directed by: Shing Hon Lau

Starring: Lawrence Tan, Laurens C. Postma, Kim Bill, Lim Wai-Kee, Hudson Leung, and Mike Kelly

Sailors Dutch Hagan (Postma) and Jim Burstall (Kelly) are on shore leave after traveling from Taiwan to Hong Kong. When a bunch of masked assailants start a brawl with them once they arrive, local private detective and part-time Tai Chi teacher Horatio Lim (Tan) joins in the fray with his newfound friends. 

When Burstall goes missing, it sets in motion a chain of events that leads all the way to the top of the Asian high finance industry. An unscrupulous businessman named Winter (Lovett?) wants to monopolize the gold market and it seems Burstall is involved somehow. However, there are a myriad of baddies looking to cause trouble for Hagan and Lim, as well as Hagan’s new love interest, who just happens to be Lim’s sister. These men, naturally, are named Ah “Coffin” Fang (Lim Wai-Kee), Night Club Wu (Hudson Leung), and Junkmaster Cheong (Kim Bill). Of course, many melees ensue. What will happen to the HEROES THREE?

Heroes Three is enjoyable, modest, and entertaining. It’s set in Hong Kong – and one of the movie’s strengths is some of its fascinating location photography – but has something of an international pedigree thanks to some of its American, British, and European cast and crew, as well as the fact that it was written by a guy named Pat Dunlop, who mainly worked in American TV. There’s a mix of the old culture of Hong Kong, and some of the new, modern technology of that time. For example, Lim has a high-tech command center complete with a stand-up arcade machine, and there are other scenes of characters playing arcade games. So the 80’s-ness is on display clearly, which gives it automatic points in our book.

Speaking of which, it all starts with a jaunty, synthy song which we think is called “Looking For You”, and sung by Rowena Cortes, who sings the closing ballad as well. Cortes had a nice career throughout the seventies, releasing five albums and two singles in the decade, even winning the 1976 Hong Kong Popular Song Contest. As far as we can tell, her work for Heroes Three was her last. 

The whole outing kicks off (literally) with not a Fruit Cart chase, but a Fruit Cart fight. After this display, one character calls another, and we quote, “a snoopie”. If anyone has ever called you or anyone you know a snoopie, please write in today. There are some large and funny burned-in English subtitles in some scenes that are quite amusing. Additionally, some poor schnook is not a victim of Chinese water torture, but Chinese milk torture. So, overall, there are some interesting tweaks that let Heroes Three stand out, and they don’t take things overly seriously, so it all has a fun vibe that is easy to like.

As in a lot of movies, there is a goon that looks a lot like David Cross. His name is Max Schwartz in the film, so do look out for him. But all the heavies in the movie are no match for Dutch Hagan, who wears a very intimidating Donald Duck sweatshirt. He has a lot of great activewear in the movie, but that shirt was probably the favorite. And, as if there was any doubt that it’s a Donald Duck sweatshirt, it has the words DONALD DUCK emblazoned in large letters across the top. Why this sweatshirt is made in adult sizes, we may never know. 

In the end, Heroes Three is a so-called “Chop-Socky” film with a difference. There’s a lot of action and fighting, but there’s some welcome diversity and it never gets boring. While the movie was released in many countries worldwide over the years, it didn’t have a ton of market penetration here in the U.S., and it was probably overshadowed by the contemporary Ninja Boom of the day. (Just to be clear, there are no ninjas in Heroes Three). Now that it’s on Amazon Prime – as of this writing – we say check it out. 

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, The Video Vacuum!

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)- * * *

Directed by: John R. Leonetti

Starring: Robin Shou, Talisa Soto, James Remar, Deron McBee, Marjean Holden, Litefoot, and Brian Thompson

The good guys, led by Rayden (Remar), have to fight the bad guys, led by Shao Khan (Thompson) before the "merger" of Earth with the baddie lair of The Outworld. That's it. We're not being lazy. That's really it.



Here's a question the filmmakers behind Mortal Kombat: Annihilation must have asked themselves: How do we fashion a 90-minute movie not just out of a beat-em-up video game (because we already did that once before) - but do it again with a sequel? It seems like the answer they came up with was just to feature as many Mortal Kombat characters as they could, and simply by them being there, that would satisfy young people who were already fans of the franchise or simply didn't know any better.

It does seem that the priority here was being true to the game. Maybe they worried that if they didn't include at least brief appearances by all the countless characters that existed by the time Mortal Kombat 3 rolled around, all the 12-year-olds in the audience would revolt or something. So then they just threw a bunch of childish dialogue, plot points, and CGI/green screen silliness at the screen and hoped for the best. 

There are non-stop fights, as you might expect, but it feels like a video game, not so much a movie. It seems like the priority with the casting was to find people who physically resembled the game characters, and then fit them in costumes that followed suit. As our friend Brendan pointed out, it seems like this movie was made by someone who had never made or even seen a movie before, but had existed solely on a diet of video games their whole life.

After getting off to a rocky start, the movie struggles to find its feet, and by the time that happens, you find that the whole outing is just too silly and nonsensical to really hate.

Of course, that hasn't stopped anyone from adding this movie to lists of the worst of all time. Fan favorite actors such as Brian Thompson, Malibu, Robin Shou, and James Remar (who even does some brief Remar-Fu) manage to keep some level of interest, and there does seem to be a kid-friendly message of "believe in yourself!" but the whole outing is very, very ridiculous and is the type of overblown, unnecessary, computer-generated crud that could only have come from the Hollywood system. It seems that that's all they're good for making these days. So, in that sense, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was ahead of its time.

Featuring all your favorite techno hits on the soundtrack, it's hard to imagine exactly who this movie was aimed towards: if you're a fan of the game series, you're bound to be disappointed, and if you're not, and for some reason you just jumped in cold to the movie, you're bound to be confused and irritated. So, for that reason, it must be "the children" that was the target market. So if, in 1997, they could get their eyes off of Power Rangers or BeetleBorgs for a few minutes, they could watch this. 

For everyone else, it might be wise to steer clear. Let’s face it, you don’t go out of your way to watch Mortal Kombat: Annihilation because you’re looking for a Eugene O’Neill-level of drama. You do it to experience the continuing exploits of Ermac.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett