FURIOUS (1984) – BAD MOVIE

FURIOUS (1984) – It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a classically bad movie here at Balladeer’s Blog. To remedy that here’s a look at the wildly out there film Furious, one of the most joyously weird action/ fantasy movies ever made. It’s like the most incoherent dream that anyone ever described to you. 

Furious starred the (at the time) up and coming Rhee Brothers, Simon and Phillip, who never quite became martial arts superstars but certainly carved out their own special niche in action films. Unfortunately, this flick is undeservedly obscure. As of this writing there are only four user reviews at IMDb. Therefore, for the first time since Musical Mutiny I’m going to present a step-by-step breakdown. 

ONE – In what we are supposed to believe is Mongolia, an adventurous young woman named Kim Lee (Arlene Montano) is being chased through the countryside by a trio of modern-day Mongol warriors dressed in the old fur and triangular hat look.

These “Mongols” wield battle staffs and are, for some reason, played by three obviously white guys. At no time do they go “Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on us, so be thankful for small favors I guess.

The pursuing Mongols treat us to the only sounds during this opening bit – bird calls. Yes, bird calls. And these bird calls will put viewers in mind of the opening of the old Great White North sketches on SCTV. Except for the calls from the third Mongol, whose efforts sound more like the killer doll in the original Trilogy of Terror.

Our valiant heroine pauses in her flight to put an enchanted tusk in her upraised palm to get a directional reading (Just go with it. There’s much weirder stuff ahead.) The tusk mystically points in the direction our female Asian Condor relic hunter needs to go. 

Next, Kim Lee starts scaling a mountain before her, followed by the Mongols, whose close-ups as they do their mountain-climber bit made me reflect that they should be yodeling in the Alps instead.

Somehow, all of the Mongols beat her to the top of the mountain despite her huge head start and attack her from above. Kim shows off her martial arts skill by killing two of the three men to reach her obvious goal – an enchanted box and skeleton in a cave. 

To avoid letting her lone surviving pursuer know that the objects they have both been questing after are in a cave nearby, Kim fights it out with the man on top of the mountain. (Credit where it’s due, we get impressive aerial shots from a helicopter all throughout this opening business.) 

Confusingly, Last Mongol Guy suddenly has the mystical tusk that our heroine was using. We don’t see him defeat or kill Kim Lee, but she’s apparently dead.

For some reason, though Kim was using the tusk to find the relics, and though we learn later in the movie that the Mongol Guys and their boss are indeed after those same items, this henchman does not bother using the tusk to locate those ULTIMATE MAGUFFINS FOR THE ENTIRE FLICK! Instead, with his boss’s most desired objects mere feet away from him in a cave, Mongol Guy leaves with just the tusk. (“D’OH!”) 

TWO – The next scene confirms that Kim Lee is dead, as we join her brother Simon (Simon Rhee) as he mourns her loss. No, I don’t know how he found out about it since the place she died is supposed to be incredibly remote. So is his own humble cabin home, come to think of it.

Simon’s grief is interrupted by several Asian and white children who wordlessly make him accompany them. And speaking of wordlessly, we now get the very first actual spoken words in the movie as Simon says “Yeah, yeah, yeah” while being led away by the children. Comically enough, it looks like they’re taking him off for a human sacrifice or some other reason. (“We’ll raise you as one of our own, Simon.”) 

It turns out there are even more children, all awaiting their latest martial arts training session with our hero. He vents some of his anger on a punching bag hanging from a nearby tree while the children watch in awe. He causes the bag to come undone and fall to the ground, followed by the children exchanging embarrassed glances. 

Confusingly, Simon now just walks sadly back to his cabin and lies down, only to be interrupted by a knock at his door. Hilariously, we are clearly shown Simon opening his door to behold Mongol Guy standing on his porch, followed immediately by another shot of Simon opening his door, like it’s a glitch in the Matrix or something.  

Unaware that he is face to face with the man who killed his sister Kim, Simon wordlessly (we still have not had a complete sentence uttered by anyone) accepts a small card with Chinese characters on it. Mongol Guy walks off and first-time viewers will begin to question their film selection for the evening.

To make what’s going on comprehensible for you readers let me explain that the card was a summons from Simon’s old mentor, Master Chan. Yes, since Mongol Guy works for him, the movie has just blown any surprise about Chan really being the story’s villainous mastermind. 

THREE – Cut to a sprawling black building in which Master Chan observes the latest martial arts students of his aide, whom I’ll call Chin Stroking Black Guy because only a few characters are ever addressed by name. It’s one of those kinds of movies.

Master Chan is played by Simon Rhee’s brother Phillip and is supposedly very old. No old age makeup is used, however, and the only sign of how “ancient” Chan is supposed to be comes from the laughable grey wig he wears. The wig looks like Bea Arthur’s hair on Golden Girls.

Master Chan is apparently impressed with the progress of Chin Stroking Black Guy’s adult students, following which Mongol Guy arrives and wordlessly (of course) indicates to Chan that Simon will be coming to see him. (The characters in Furious exchange more Meaningful Glances than Gannon and Friday in Dragnet reruns.)

FOUR – Cut to that same building, but at night. Simon Rhee walks toward the front entrance, which is guarded by two men dressed in white and wearing sunglasses despite the late hour. Light fixtures in the parking lot cast long shadows of Simon as he walks by … and of the film crew and their camera, comically enough. 

Master Chan’s internal security men – also dressed in white and wearing sunglasses – see Simon approaching on their security camera screens. One of them says “Enemy approaching”, and Simon is allowed to pass by the guards at the door – who stand making “x”es with their arms, apparently Chan’s cult’s version of standing at attention.

Simon inserts a keycard in a computerized reader which makes weird “beep boop bop” sounds and admits him to the building. He passes by Chin Stroking Black Guy’s students from earlier – wordlessly, of course. So far the movie’s dialogue could have been written within 140 characters.

Our hero walks along night-darkened corridors before sensing he is not alone. Around the next corner he beholds – a clucking chicken. Poultry as guard dogs? Hey, it’s just the first of many bizarre uses of chickens and roosters in Furious.

Suddenly, Mika the Sorcerer (Mika Elkan), a white guy with a weird quasi-“Freddie Mercury crossed with Fu Manchu” mustache appears behind Simon. Mika wordlessly (of course) escorts Simon down a dark corridor to a room where Master Chan awaits.

Chan is in the lotus position and is supposed to be hovering in the air via levitation in an awkwardly presented special effect. Master Chan now makes up for the long silences in this flick by greeting Simon and doing a long monolog about the death of Simon’s sister and about hammers and anvils and karmic debts while Mika stands beside Chan doing magic tricks to accompany the Master’s rambling.

Amid the fortune cookie level attempts at profundities spouted by Chan we viewers see that Simon does not suspect that his old teacher is really the main villain. The Master gives our hero a large, sculpted puzzle piece worn on a chain like an amulet and tells him he must recover 3 more such puzzle pieces from very dangerous forces to save the world and the astral plane.

(By the way, bear in mind that we will see later that all of these side quests are done in furtherance of locating the skeleton and box from the opening scenes. And that Mongol Guy was mere feet away from them and could have just taken them to Master Chan right then and there.)

Eventually, Simon goes off on his vaguely defined mission. Master Chan shares a sinister smile with Mika the Sorcerer and places the tusk that Kim Lee was killed for on the floor. Once again, it spins around slowly, like a compass needle.

FIVE – Simon exits the building while watched by the interior guards on the security cameras again. He walks past the two guards from before but it is now broad daylight. I don’t know if his meeting with Master Chan supposedly took til morning or if this is just the typical inconsistency that bad movies often show between day and night.

Literally right outside Chan’s evil headquarters building, Simon encounters a young woman and two young men who are old friends and fellow martial arts students from long ago. Our hero shows them the puzzle piece he wears around his neck and asks if they are familiar with similar items.

By hilarious coincidence, not only do the first people Simon bumps into after leaving Chan’s lair recognize the objects of his quest, but they say they have seen similar items at a Chinese restaurant that is right there in the same office park! On my first viewing of Furious I assumed this trio were part of the bad guys, but no, it’s all just sheer, time-saving, cosmically unlikely chance.

I mean, imagine that – some of the objects that Master Chan needs to further his plans for conquest have been in a neighboring Chinese restaurant all this time! Some of his staff and students have probably eaten there plenty of times over the years. Hilarious!

SIX – Simon and his three friends walk up to the glass door and windows of the restaurant and peek inside over and over again without doing what any reasonable people would do – assume they’re not open yet and come back later. Weirdly, while Simon and the two other men continue obsessively peering inside through different windows, the woman walks around with a camera taking pictures of this unremarkable, run of the mill office park. (?)

Soon, several men show up with a truckload of live, boxed chickens for the restaurant. The newly arrived men are very hostile and soon a kung fu fight has broken out among the restaurant thugs and the four “good guys.”

The fight is wordless (of course) but fairly lengthy, and a loose chicken squawks after jumping (or being thrown) into frame. Even more maddeningly, Chin Stroking Black Guy shows up and helps the restaurant thugs fight our hero and his friends. This implies that Master Chan has ties to the restaurant, which would make all of this story even more pointless. 

The competent but not exceptional martial arts brawl continues, and suddenly a man dressed like a chef runs into the scene wielding a bone-chopping axe from the restaurant’s kitchen. He makes with a battle cry and kills one of Simon’s friends with the axe.

Our hero has had enough, and now uses his kung fu skills to kill a few of the restaurant thugs, including one who commits the faux pas of resorting to a gun. The other two friends of Simon get killed under the watchful eyes of the Chin Stroking Black Guy.

The thugs who are still standing flee our hero’s wrath, passing by the Chin Stroking Black Guy who faces Simon while our hero shows off his skill with nunchuks taken from a fallen restaurant villain. Chin Stroking Black Guy nods thoughtfully at Simon and walks away. (?)

SEVEN – Cut to a stream near our hero’s remote cabin as he walks along despondently. There is a Buddha statue there, and it suddenly TALKS TO SIMON, telling him to “Beware” but doesn’t give any specifics. Our non-plussed star proceeds to his porch, where he is suddenly attacked by Mongol Guy and a lengthy and wordless (of course) battle with bo staffs takes place.

The clash carries our combatants into some very eye-pleasing forest scenery. The martial arts fighting is very nicely done, but seems to be carried out at half-speed as if for a rehearsal. Because both Rhee Brothers are highly skilled, I’m assuming the slower pace is for the benefit of the less-skilled actors tasked with fighting Simon in such scenes.

At length, our star defeats Mongol Guy, and only then does he notice that Mongol Guy is wearing a puzzle piece amulet. Simon takes it, following which Mongol Guy regains consciousness and runs off. It should go without saying that neither man spoke during this segment, either.

EIGHT – We cut back to the Chinese restaurant from earlier. They are open now, so Simon enters, is bowed to by a hostess and led to a seat. He sits down and pretends to be reading his menu while really eyeing the other patrons in the restaurant, especially an awkward old lady whose attempts to eat the whole chicken before her seem as painstakingly choreographed as the fight scenes in this movie.

Throughout all this, a muscular, mustachioed white guy has been performing for the customers with nun-chuks and swords while parade-masked waiters service the diners. All of this has gone on wordlessly (of course) for several long minutes.

Finally, one of the masked waiters approaches Simon’s table with a serving tray covered by a top. The waiter places the tray before our hero, then pulls off the top, revealing the decapitated heads of two of his friends who got killed by the restaurant thugs earlier.

But wait, there’s more! The waiter puts the lid back on the tray, then removes it again, this time revealing two whole chickens for Simon. So were the heads an illusion? And why does this restaurant insist on serving whole chickens to every customer? Sometimes more than one whole chicken?

Simon screams in uncomprehending rage (I feel ya, buddy) and is attacked by restaurant thugs from every direction, including mustache and sword guy. The waiter who served up the heads/ whole chickens to our hero takes off his mask to reveal that he is really Master Chan’s aide Mika the Sorcerer. This confirms that the restaurant is part of Chan’s network but throws the entire plot of the movie into even more confusion.

Aside from Simon’s scream, every second of all this has been going on wordlessly (of course) as we soak in this latest lengthy martial arts fight. With comical clumsiness, some of the restaurant thugs presently start throwing food dishes at our star, who uses nunchuks to bash them all away … or he would, that is, if more than one of those thrown dishes ever came close to hitting him. (I love bad, low budget movies!)

Mongol Guy is among the men attacking Simon, and at length Master Chan himself leaps into frame and stands beside our hero, apparently to pretend he is aiding Simon against the bad guys and is not secretly their leader. At last ending this latest marathon segment with no dialogue, Master Chan indicates to Simon that they should leave by pointing to the exit and saying “Quickly!”

NINE – Cut to a beach, presumably nearby. Simon and Master Chan are there, and we can see a skeleton lying in the background. Neither character mentions it, but its unexplained presence adds to the fun WTF? aspect of Furious. 

Now, making me even more confused about what kind of Long Game is being played by Chan, he tells Simon that the fight with the thugs at the restaurant means that his dead sister Kim has been avenged and her spirit is now at rest. (??????) The Master tells Simon to “Go home” over and over again, each time being mystically (I guess) further away from him in another pointless yet hilarious bit.

TEN – Back to the stream near our hero’s cabin. Once again the Buddha statue talks to him, and this time our hero joins the statue in the lotus position while listening to its monotonous, repetitious, whispered warnings. It also tells him that traveling in the spiritual void can be dangerous, apropos of nothing.

Simon enters a trancelike state in which we viewers must endure multiple flashbacks to events from earlier in the film. The talking Buddha statue tells our hero not to trust Chan because Chan is evil. And tells him over and over. 

Eventually, the convulsing Simon awakens from his trance and sees that two Sai daggers now lie in the lap of the Buddha statue. Our star takes the Sai and leaves.

ELEVEN – Cut to Master Chan’s headquarters. Simon, with his newly provided weapons, makes his way along the rear of the building. He slowly works around to the front, where he observes the main entrance from hiding.

The two guards are there, as usual, but this time a series of Chan’s underlings, dressed in white and wearing sunglasses and surgical masks (don’t ask) come out the door one by one, carrying live, clucking chickens and looking around apprehensively as they run offscreen. If this was a movie by Jodorowsky or someone like him I would assume there is some metaphorical significance to the frequent use of chickens in this flick, but not in a film this poorly made.

Simon watches this absurd tableau for a few more moments, then retraces his steps to the rear of Chan’s headquarters. He produces a grappling hook and rope and uses it to scale the building, then break through a window to enter.

TWELVE – Inside Bad Guy HQ, Master Chan talks with Mika the Sorcerer while the lurking Simon overhears their conversation. Chan gives Mika the tusk from earlier and tells him to guard it with his life.

The Master then begins what for all the world sounds like a long string of random Stewie Griffin villain cliches, like “He must be stopped” … “I will not be made a fool of” … “He must not be allowed to interfere with my plans any further” and so on. And no, I have no idea how Chan figures that Simon has thwarted him in any way. Simon’s only involved in the first place because he summoned him! 

To further demonstrate his displeasure, Master Chan calls in all his warriors who have fallen to Simon in combat and has Mika turn them into … live, clucking chickens. No, I’m not kidding! The defeated warriors kneel before Chan one by one, begging for forgiveness, then Mika uses his magic to transform them into chickens, accompanied by a loud BANG and flames each time.

THIRTEEN – Simon withdraws to the outside of the building, with neither Mika nor Master Chan realizing he was inside. Chin Stroking Black Guy, with a guard dog on a leash, now attacks our hero. The dog quickly flees, intimidated by Simon (I guess) but our star and Chin Stroking Black Guy fight it out.

Eventually, their battle is noticed by Chan’s white-clad, sunglass-wearing interior security men at the security camera station. They sound an Intruder Alert alarm for everyone in the building, from Master Chan and Mika on down, then run to join the attack on Simon. 

You may not believe me, but this is followed by rapid-cut scenes of Simon and his latest opponent STILL fighting, of Master Chan’s other students doing their workouts … and of a band of musicians dressed like Chan’s security men playing nonsense, bizarre sounds on their instruments. Really.

Soon, even the “performing” musicians run outside to attack Simon, who is at last forced to flee because of the overwhelming number of men opposing him. We now get a lengthy running fight scene as Simon whittles down the numbers of his pursuers.

At one point, Chan enters the abandoned post of his security camera guys and can, for no apparent reason, see Simon’s ongoing fight with Chan’s lackeys EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOW FAR OFF IN THE WILDERNESS BEYOND THE REACH OF THE SECURITY CAMERAS.

Adding to the nonsense, Master Chan does patented villain laughter while saying “It’s working! It’s finally working!” What he thinks is “working” I can’t say, because Simon is kicking the crap out of his minions in groups of three and four as the chase goes on.

After a looong time, the running fight ends on the weirdest bridge I’ve ever seen. Our hero defeats the last of Chan’s goons and even kills Chin Stroking Black Guy. After killing him, Simon sees that this guy, too, was wearing another puzzle piece (Remember that business?) like an amulet. Simon takes that piece, too, and heads for home.

FOURTEEN – In a very strange tactic for an action hero, our star assembles his child students and leads them in an assault on Master Chan’s headquarters, risking their lives against Chan’s remaining guards. What a guy! 

Meanwhile, Simon reaches the bowels of the building where he faces Mika the Sorceror in a battle of martial arts vs magic. Mika shoots flames and – I swear to God – live, clucking chickens – from his hands while Simon dodges the attacks.

Eventually, our hero dodges one of Mika’s mystic fireballs in front of a mirror, causing the fireball to bounce back and hit the sorcerer. This causes Mika to transform into what is supposed to be a man-sized pig in Mika’s clothing but is obviously just a normal-sized pig occupying the upper half of Mika’s costume. (?) I have to admit I wished they’d have shown the pig having Mika’s mustache, but I’m kind of weird.

Mika in pig form, talking in a human voice, uses his dying breaths to tell Simon how to defeat Master Chan’s evil plan to conquer the world and the astral plane. Or spiritual void. Or something.

The porcine former sorcerer instructs Simon to take his own puzzle piece amulet AND the enchanted tusk that Chan gave him for safekeeping earlier. Mika the Pig tells Simon the tusk will lead him to the Mongolian cave where Master Chan hopes to find the skeleton and box from the beginning of the movie.

With Mika the Pig’s puzzle piece, Simon now has all of them. He runs down the hall to confront Master Chan, who is again levitating in the lotus position. Chan effortlessly steals the amulets from our hero (“D’OH!”) and then we get a Rhee Brother on Rhee Brother fight, one shirtless, one in a Bea Arthur wig.

Chan outfights Simon and then literally flies off to the Mongolian cave in which lie the skeleton and the treasure box. Our hero regains consciousness and chases after the villain … on foot.

FIFTEEN – We return to “Mongolia” (snicker), where the flying Master Chan lands at the sought-after cave. How did he find it without the tusk? That’s classified, I guess.

Directly in front of the skeleton and the box, he lays out the four puzzle pieces to join them together. Chan obviously messes up putting them together the first time he tries, but a quick edit cuts to them properly put together.

Simon, still running and not even out of breath, arrives at the foot of the mountain with no explanation for how he got there so quickly after the FLYING Master Chan did. At this point, I’d have been disappointed if the movie gave an explanation for this. The tusk was used for directions, it didn’t let the user fly or teleport.

At any rate, while Simon scales the mountain like his sister did at the beginning of the movie, Chan places the completed amulet puzzle around a spool inside the now-open treasure box. This frees Kim Lee’s soul from the box. I might have cared if we viewers had ever been let in on the fact that her soul was imprisoned there in the first place.

In addition to freeing Kim’s soul, the box being opened with the amulet puzzle around the inside spool also grants Master Chan what he calls “unlimited power.” Simon at last reaches the top of the mountain and attacks Chan, whose powers now transport them both to the astral plane/ spiritual void.

This place is just a very dark room or studio filled with smoke effects. The two combatants mostly fight physically, despite Chan’s claims of unlimited power. At one point he turns into a big, fake-looking dragon with a skeleton in his mouth for some reason, but just as quickly resumes his mortal form.

Inexplicably, at one point Master Chan starts screaming “It’s sapping my power! It’s sapping my power!” like the Wicked Witch screaming “I’m melting!” at the end of The Wizard of Oz. As for who or what is sapping his power, we are never told.

Chan and Simon now wind up back on top of the mountain, on equal terms now that the villain was drained of his power. We get some more quality helicopter shots, this time of the Rhee Brothers fighting it out.

We are seeing this from the point of view of Kim Lee’s soul as it flies around and around the mountain top. At length, Simon thrashes Chan, and we are shown a ghostly Kim miming pulling something with a rope while she laughingly orders Master Chan to “Come down to me!”

Chan disappears, I guess taken to the afterlife or to some hellish punishment by Kim’s ghost. She disappears forever now, while Chan is reduced to a burning skeleton. Simon, with his adventure over, returns home and resumes teaching martial arts to the children near his cabin.

An on-screen message says “(almost) The End”, and we get gratuitous footage of the white-clad, sunglass-wearing band from earlier playing their instruments again. Like before, they don’t make music, they just make jumbled noises which sound like someone using sandpaper at super-speed. 

And then … the credits roll and this uproariously bad, weird movie comes to a close after a comparatively short 73 minutes. Furious packs more insanity into that amount of time than most other classically bad films do in longer run times. I recommend it for all fans of Psychotronic flicks.     

FOR MY REVIEW OF THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (1977), IN WHICH BRUCE LEE BATTLES DRACULA, MUMMIES AND ZOMBIES CLICK HERE.