Fantasy Mission Force

it doesn't have a subtitle

it doesn't have a subtitle

Fantasy Mission Force

I saw this movie in a bin at the local department store. I remember thinking "wow a Jackie Chan movie for 4.99" Little did I know that Jackie only has a small role,(His face was all over the DVD case). When I got home I watched the movie and it made no sense at all. It was supposed to take place During world war two and there was a guy who looked like Abe Lincoln and the allied forces were talking about sending 007 in (There was a sean connery photo) to rescue the generals and they mentioned Snake Plisskin and even Rocky Balboa. That was weird enough. But it got worse when in another scene, cars obviosly from the 70s came driving up with a gang in them. I gave up and turned the DVD player off. I never watched the movie since. These are just my views though...

If you truly are a Jackie Chan fan, you will clutch your stomach in pain at the truly epic monstrosity that is this film. This is a film about banquets. It begins with what you are lead to believe are WWII generals, such as Abraham Lincoln, being captured by the Japanese in Luxumborg. So the Chinese allies, who are so outraged by this eventuality, enlist the aid of, among others, a ratty asian in a top hat who opens the movie with a song and dance number, a psycho chick with a hypercolour bazooka, and our beloved Jackie Chan, who has a chicken. After one person escapes from a prison camp, to be met with a banquet in the middle of the road, the band of merry mercenaries find themselves attacked by ribbon wielding amazon chicks, sleep in a chinese vampire infested house, and kill seemingly endless amounts of Japanese American muscle car surfing Nazis. There is so, so much blood, and death. And a fight involving a chicken. To be honest, I had more fun reading other people's comments than I did watching the movie. Viva la Imdb.

There's really no middle ground when it comes to this movie. People either 'get it' and they love it or they don't and they hate it. Personally I think it'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. Remember that from the beginning to the end the movie will never once make sense. Don't worry about not following the plot and don't look down on the film for 'errors' like having WWII Japanese troops in Luxembourg. It's called *Fantasy* Mission Force for a reason. Really, the only one that looks foolish is the fool that isn't in on the joke. Don't be shocked when scenes are cut off abruptly by the arrival of a new scene. I don'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't panic, just let it happen and be amazed by whatever it is the film is throwing in your face. If you're brave, clever and capable of handling the overload you'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 'borrows' all kinds of themes and elements of other films. Much like 'Star Wars' Fantasy Mission Force is a celebration of the motion picture medium. You'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's also a road trip movie) climaxes with a cheerfully nihilistic gunfight a la Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch' (with a sad 'Camptown Races' soundtrack to boot) then a Kung Fu scene. Then the film stops. It never really ends. Words haven'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'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. Call Fantasy Mission Force whatever you want: inane, pointless, silly, incomprehensible, ridiculous, trite or even cheesy. But you can't call it boring and you can't call it stupid. It takes some bright people to make a film so unbelievably weird.

This is the only Jackie Chan movie that I haven't liked. It is cartoonish in the worst way. Jackie seems only to be a minor character. And the fight scenes are lame.

SPOILERS! (As if it were possible to spoil THIS movie...) I'd like to add some fun details to what's already been posted. The four "Major-Generals" captured by the Japanese are French Major-General Pierre Latrec (Lautrec?), English Major-General Robert Foster, American Major-General Abraham Lincoln(!), and African Major-General Guvoyise Secallo (sp?) I can find no information about Latrec/Lautrec. There was an Air Marshall Chief Robert Foster attached to a British squadron immediately after WWII, so it's possible he was in the service during the war as well. However, if he were a war hero I think info would be more readily available. Lincoln looks more like General Sherman - gray uniform and all! I wonder if the American actor playing him knew he was in a WWII film. He clearly mouths "Abraham Lincoln" when he introduces himself. I'm sure I'm misspelling the African Major-General's name (he represents ALL of Africa?) so I can find nothing on him. The four Major-Generals are captured by the Japanese somewhere between Alaska and the North Pole! Then for some reason they are taken to Luxembourg for holding. This is where the Fantasy Mission Force must find them because in four days they will be taken to "Tokyo City" for "propaganda". I'm not sure if the movie is set in Hong Kong where it was made, but it seems that Luxembourg is a long way off. Why not wait until they get to Tokyo City? In the end, the FMF DRIVES to Luxembourg! I'm pretty sure more than four days pass before they get there. The people considered to lead the FMF have their pictures shown via overhead projector. They are "007" (an illustration of Roger Moore as James Bond), the "Bald Detective" (another illustration), "Snake King" (I'm pretty sure it's an illustration of "Snake Plissken" - Kurt Russell's role in "Escape from New York"), and "Captain Black Bart (a photograph of a woman with an eye patch and Russian fur hat). 007 is on assignment in South Africa, the Bald Detective has defected to the enemy, Snake King has been dead three years, and Captain Black Bart has retired to raise a family. So they settle on Lieutenant Don Win. After many adventures they finally get to Luxembourg. The POW camp has two Nazi flags, one green, one yellow. The Major-Generals are gone because other Nazis driving Mad-Max cars have taken them. The cars are all late '60s/early '70s American models. When the FMF finally prevails, Major-General Robert Foster is missing. This is never explained, so I can only assume it is a continuity error. I also don't understand about the money. The whole incentive for the FMF to rescue the four Major-Generals is half a million dollars. I assumed this was a reward, but in the end it turns out that it's modern American money hidden in the POW camp. I paid $.97 for my copy (DVD). I'll be showing it to many unsuspecting friends! Lili is my favorite.

A hectic martial arts farce, it's a hard movie for casual fans to accept. Drinking helps. By our collective second beer, we stopped caring about glaring anachronisms and Benny Hill-like comedic sequences and just started whooping like baboons at the film's many hilariously bad "high points." Apparently this is the "Good, Bad and the Ugly" of chop-saki flicks, inasmuch as every character gets his or her own ten-minute introduction to the audience. Yes, there is minimal Jackie, but he makes up for it with a well-choreographed fight scene against a dozen amazon warriors (played by women in the closeups, by men during the stunt sequences) all the while holding a chicken. Other highlights include a houseful of decapitated, blood-sucking ghosts which falls somewhere between Disneyland's Haunted Mansion and Roger Corman's Death Race 2000; Plus, a young Kate Bush kicking butt in her vinyl thigh-high red booties; Also, Fans of the "Sharp Object Injury to the Butt" school of comedy won't be disappointed. As for the undubbed musical number at the beginning of the film, what can I say that hasn't been said before? It was at once both mind-bendingly horrible and unspeakably fantastic. Well worth the $2.99 I paid for it. As long as you approach it as a novelty film rather than expecting a "Drunken Master" out of it, you'll be cheerfully repeating "But first you must call me 'papa.'" with glee and fond memories for days following.

This is not really a Jackie Chan movie; because, Chan is only a minor character in it and appears briefly. A group of mercenaries is supposedly trying to rescue a group of generals being held captive by Japanese soldiers during World War II. There is another group though that's after the generals, so the mercenaries have to contend with that group as well as the Japanese. Along the way, they also run into a collection of weirdos, including vampires, ghosts, and even Amazon women. You know the quality of any movie is in doubt when Amazon women characters appear. It's always a lame attempt to corral the male audience's attention. The action is laughable in this movie and so are the effects. The soundtrack was stolen from several American movies of the time, which means this was a very low budget film. By the time that the end of the movie arrives, so many characters have died that you really don't care anymore. This is easily one of the top five worst movies that Jackie Chan has ever appeared in. 1/2 star of 4.