The effort that Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins puts in to entertain its audience from beginning to end is something marvelous to behold. There’s a pure enjoyment factor here befitting its “working class James Bond” origins that worked for me when I was a young boy renting this film from the video store on countless occasions, but also works for me as I approach middle age and long for the lost art of films such as these.
Helmed by a veteran director of the James Bond franchise (Guy Hamilton) and adapted from a massive series of pulp fiction novels known as the “Destroyer” series from writers Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy (and adapted for the screen by Christopher Wood, another James Bond alum), Remo Williams arrived on the scene in 1985 with a potential pre-existing fanbase that modern studio heads would salivate over. (Hey, modern studio heads… we might be interested in another crack at this character here in 2016). This fanbase must not have been entirely lit on fire by the film, as an intended series never went beyond this single (and unfortunately subtitled) entry. But what an entry.
Sapir and Murphy’s pulp hero Remo Williams is an amalgamation of all kinds of fan favorite hero archetypes. Trained by a supernatural master of the martial arts (Chiun, here played by caucasian actor and Oscar winner Joel Gray), a secret government agent who has been given a new face and identity, Williams is a globetrotting secret agent with mystical powers and a gruff and humorous relationship with his mentor. I’m not particularly familiar with the character outside of this film adaptation and all the information I gleaned from this stellar home video release. But I can tell you I’m extremely interested in checking out more of the Destroyers adventures after learning about him via this release.
In the film adaptation, character actor Fred Ward takes on a rare leading role and thrives in the action sequences and especially in the relationship he forms with Chiun. There’s comedy gold to be mined in these sequences, even if the casting of Gray as a Korean man is unacceptable to modern audiences. The makeup used to create this now infamous look was nominated for an Oscar and my younger self had honestly no idea Chiun was not portrayed by an Asian person. The character was apparently well researched by Gray and others, with pains taken for the costuming and even musical themes to specifically reflect Korean culture. All of which is great, but simply begs the question why a Korean person couldn’t have been cast in the role. It’s unquestionably uncomfortable today, along with the gender norms of the film most notably surrounding comments made to Kate Mulgrew’s character, Major Rayner Fleming. These troubling and dated elements aside, Remo Williams is one of the most outright enjoyable action adventure films to ever come out of the 1980s, science and logic be damned.
The pulp of the film cannot be overlooked. Through a few well-placed training montages, Fred Freakin’ Ward becomes a master of martial arts able to levitate, start fires with his fingers, and dodge bullets with ease. It’s ridiculous, but the character of Chiun sells it, and there’s an internal logic to Remo Williams’ use of the martial art known as “sinanju”… a term totally made up for this character. It works, and it’s entertaining as hell. It’d be easier to buy Ward as a New York cop killed in the line of duty who is sort of revived and given a new identity to work for a spy agency if there WASN’T a mystical martial arts component to the story. But credit to the filmmakers that they did not eschew this key element of the literary character… even after casting Fred Ward.
And about that secret organization. There’s a lot of slapdashery seemingly going on here in Wood’s screenplay. For one thing, we know nothing about Williams’ life before he’s kidnapped and turned into a lethal weapon for good. And even once he wakes up with a new face and identity, he never once wrestles with the former life he’s apparently left behind. The Adventure Begins does not care about who this guy was, only who he’s going to become. And I’m on board for that… it just might have made for a richer character down the road if his previous life had even the slightest bearing on the story. The organization that more or less kidnaps him is run by Wilfred Brimley, who sits at the computer for the whole film and assigns missions to Williams that seem more than a little sketchy here in post-Snowden America. Something tells me Remo Williams in 2016 would feel a little bit more like a bad guy than a hero. But in 1985 his working class James Bond vibe is absolutely wonderful.
Also wonderful are the action set pieces and hugely, bombastically entertaining score by Craig Safan. These elements send Remo Williams into the stratosphere for pure entertainment value. One set piece on the Statue Of Liberty is mid-80s Hollywood gold. The crew got permission to film on the real Statue during a time when it was surrounded by scaffolding. Shots of Fred Ward hovering perilously off the sides of the Statue with Manhattan in the background are priceless. The movie magic behind it all is that a replica statue was also built in Mexico so that the statue itself could be touched and blemished. As a set piece, it is pure magic. And all of Chiun’s antics and magical martial arts set pieces also succeed.
The true icing on the cake of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins is Safan’s score. Stuck in my head for the past week now, it isn’t just the main theme, but also Chiun’s theme, which rival any action/adventure score ever recorded. There’s an ’80s feel to it, sure, but the soaring and triumphant melody mixed with a specifically researched Korean cultural music generate a magical score which makes for great review writing material, but also amplifies the on screen action to glorious heights.
I’ve focused a lot on the entertainment value of Remo Williams because it’s somewhat hard to isolate this from the film’s overall quality. There are story beats that are outright bad. There are cultural and gender politics at play that are positively cringe-inducing. There’s a weak-to-non-existent villain. It can’t be argued that Remo Williams is a perfect movie. But it can be argued that it’s endlessly more entertaining than countless films that are inarguably of a higher quality. Remo Williams is anti-boredom. Keeping you laughing one minute, thrilled the next, and leaving you humming its themes for weeks after watching; there are very few films that work so hard to entertain their audience from top to bottom the way this one does.
The Package
It’s no secret that we here at Cinapse are big fans of boutique home video distributors Twilight Time. Sure, sometimes their release strategy of creating only 3000 units of a particular title rubs some folks the wrong way. But it isn’t unprecedented that they do a re-pressing if a title proves to be red hot. And it’s precisely that method which allows them to make some pretty deep cuts and bring to high definition a whole slew of films that might never have gotten that treatment. I count this film in that latter camp.
The Twilight Time Blu-ray of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins quickly joins the ranks of some of the discs I’m most proud to own. From its roots in my childhood to my most recent adult watch, on down to the tremendous bonus features and content on this Blu-ray, I can’t recommend this release highly enough.
Brand new bonus features were created for this release and highlight some of the most interesting elements of the film including the design, the score, and the literary background of the character. There is a commentary track that’s hugely entertaining precisely because the scholars discussing the movie (Eddy Friedfeld, Lee Pfeiffer, and Paul Scrabo) don’t even particularly seem to be big fans of the title, but rather quite knowledgeable of the character.
Action/Adventure films are my genre du jour, and Remo Williams hails from the golden age of that subgenre. It’s a film I’ve seen dozens of times and will continue to revisit throughout my lifetime. Now, on top of simply revisiting the film, I’ve got a wealth of bonus material to revisit as well (and perhaps a book series to delve into). I’m as thrilled as can be to own this disc and it is highly recommended.
And I’m Out.
Originally published at cinapse.co on November 1, 2016.