Mr. X (1995) User Reviews

Godfrey Ho takes up acting!!!!!!

[HaemovoreRex · 6/10 · 19 July 2007]

Well, what do we have here? Why it's a modern cut and paste effort in true Godfrey Ho style! But hold on a minute......do my eyes deceive me or is that actually the great man himself appearing in this?!!!! Good God! - Yes it is indeed! And who directed this film? - Ed Woo eh? Hmmmmmm........pull the other one! - Godfrey, you old scoundrel you! You've been at it again haven't you?!

Yep, all of our God(frey's) trademarks are here; an indecipherable plot (in this case something about the Yakuza and Triads teaming up), plus some brand new footage featuring western actors edited into proceedings in order to give the finished movie a wider international appeal (ostensibly). In this case our lead man happens to be none other than kickboxing legend Joe Lewis. Unfortunately all of Joe's scenes stand out like a sore thumb however as they have been shot on the cheap, on what appears to be regular video tape(!) Added to this, judging by the decidedly awkward performances in these newer segments, the script to was presumably skimped on leaving the impression that the actors are ad libbing most of their lines! On the positive side however, whilst sadly getting very little screen time, Joe does at least get to demonstrate some of his moves towards the end in this.

OK so that describes the newer sequences; what about the original film into which they are (clumsily) edited?

Well actually it's rather solid stuff featuring some excellent John Woo style shootouts plus some cool martial arts throughout. Particularly noteworthy is the rather splendid beginning in this wherein the bad guys gate crash a wedding and proceed to wipe out virtually every guest!

But let's be quite honest here folks; this film is chiefly memorable for one thing and one thing only and that my friends is the majestic on screen presence of one man......ney, one demi-god......the great man himself Mr Godfrey Ho! His electrifying performance here is surely comparable even to his directorial genius; In fact he clearly demonstrates that he is easily in the same league as the likes of the Brando's and De Niro's of this world. Indeed, quite how this master of his craft was overlooked for the best foreign actor award at the Oscar's is a veritable crime! Shame on you Hollywood!

*Cough!*

"It's all about death, plain and simple"

[The_Phantom_Projectionist · 4/10 · 17 July 2015]

Despite being hailed as the best karate fighter ever, Joe Lewis' on screen career was less epic. After attaining mixed results with the likes of JAGUAR LIVES and FORCE FIVE, he seemed finished with fighting for the camera but returned to pictures after a seven-year hiatus under the direction of B-movie guru Godfrey Ho. Why align himself with the man responsible for such scrap classics as NINJA TERMINATOR? - your guess is as good as mine, but be assured that unless you're up for a full dose of Ho's seat-of-the-pants production techniques and serious underutilization of one of martial arts' top stars, you're in for disappointment.

The story: A truce between the Yakuza and the Triads is broken with the wedding massacre of a godfather's family, with the lone survivor (Alex Man) swearing revenge on his family's killers.

Did you notice that I didn't mention Joe Lewis' character in the plot? Joe plays a fairly prominent supporting role as an assassin hired by someone to take out somebody, but you never get the impression that he's in the same storyline as the other characters because - classic Ho tactic, here - the movie is comprised of scenes from another feature into which Lewis' additionally-shot portions were edited. While Alex Man is running around trying to exact his revenge, Lewis spends most of his time chatting with Chaplin Chang and going on sniping missions. He and Alex never even meet, making it really feel like you're watching two different movies...and neither are very good.

Both 'sides' of the film feature poor picture quality, lackluster editing, and bad voiceovers, but simply because there's more of it, it's the Alex Man adventure that suffers exceedingly. It feels like it's trying to be HARD BOILED, but long instances of boring dialogue thoroughly outweigh its action scenes. Even when a shootout or swordfight does take place, it's usually not very good. Four big gunfights feature about two hundred guys in suits and sunglasses getting shot up, but overuse of slow-motion and the impression that they too were filmed separately from the main stars negate any coolness the encounters may have imparted. Two big swordfights also take place; the second one is surprisingly good but the first is shot in such dim light it's impossible to see what's going on. After wandering around and occasionally shooting people for 69 minutes, Lewis has two hand-to-hand fights, including one against fellow kickboxer Dick Kimber. These aren't awful exchanges but pale in comparison to his better work (see DEATH CAGE) thanks to some weird choreography and inopportune cutting.

The film ends with Lewis giving Chaplin Chang advice on life and a lot of people having died with little to show for it. By now, the movie is feeling assured that it's proved Joe Lewis to be a badass, but nothing could be further from reality. MR. X is so confusing that you don't even bother to catch any character's name, and the only guy you do take notice of looks uninvolved and not at all like the kickboxing legend his portrayer is. Perhaps the movie would've been less disappointing if it hadn't been billed as a vehicle for Lewis, but even when watched in ideal conditions, it's far from satisfying and even less coherent. There are plenty of filmed-in-Taiwan flicks you can watch before resorting to this one.

In a word, incomprehensible

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 5 February 2017]

MR. X is one of Godfrey Ho's last movies and sees him up to his old tricks with another cut and paste adventure incorporating new footage shot by Ho and added into a 1990s crime film. This time around Ho is directing under the pseudonym Ed Woo which gives you some idea of the type of film he's trying to emulate here: a hard-boiled heroic bloodshed flick a la John Woo.

This film is listed as a Taiwanese/UK production and features ageing martial artist Joe Lewis in the tacked-on scenes. Sadly these aren't as much fun as the cheesy Richard Harrison segments of Ho's seminal ninja movies although the sight of Lewis tussling with the massive muscle-man baldie is a cheesy delight, but you have to wait until the end for that. As with other cut and paste movies made by Ho, the original film being ripped off looks pretty good, featuring real-life Triad Chan Wai-Man battling against various Triad and Yakuza gang members in a massive street war between the two sides.

It's incomprehensible stuff indeed, even though I saw the original language version. There seem to be at least three different sub-plots jostling for attention: Ho's ludicrous newly-shot scenes in which a hefty Lewis isn't even trying (although Ho himself has a hilarious cameo); the bits with Chan Wai-Man kicking ass; and a third sub-plot in which Alex Man survives the opening wedding massacre and shoots a load of people. These action bits are low rent but fun, even if you don't know what's going on, and there's a nice little role for Dick Wei as a police chief too. A shame the rest is so incredibly obscure.

Strangely compelling.

[gingerpete · 3/10 · 7 March 2007]

Remember the US cinema versions of the early Godzilla films? The one's where they'd carve out the character driven elements of the plot and substitute unconvincing shots of American actors gasping, talking technicalities and giving running commentaries on Big G's moves? This is that kind of deal but instead of Raymond Burr we have ex-karate champ and stunt dude Joe Lewis inserted into an over the top Godfrey Ho directed Hong Kong b-movie that desperately wants to be 'A Better Tomorrow 2' but fails due to lack of class or talent. Apparently someone thought that the addition of cardboard cut-out Joe and friends through the medium of shot-on-video extra scenes (that stand out wildly from the grainy HK film stock) would enhance the experience and lend the film wider appeal. They were wrong, instead it becomes the kind of bizarre experience that only I and a handful of other enlightened individuals on the entire planet would sit through in its entirety. As it's unintentionally funny and, for 80 minutes at least, made me forget I have no life between mondays and fridays I have awarded 'Mr. X' a bizarre 3 out of 10.

Astonishingly this is now available on DVD in the UK.

Disappointingly Mediocre Opus from the Z-Movie Master

[KingFilmsCo · 4/10 · 13 October 2013]

NOTE: there are slight spoilers, but this movie has so little plot that you will not care in the slightest.

If you are watching a Godfrey Ho film after having seen a few, you come into the viewing with certain expectations in mind. Conversely, it is a sweet thing indeed to discover Ho's insane cinema worlds for the first time. Just make sure that first time is not Mr. X.

Godfrey Ho is famous for his beyond-bad Ninja movies of the 80s, often starring washed-up B-movie stars like Richard Harrison, alongside random tourists or ex-pats like Stuart Smith, Grant Temple, and Mike Abbot (God love 'em all). What makes these movies ultimately watchable is that for all their badness, they ultimately exude a contagious, manic glee about them, as you witness these nonsensical, hypertensive crime yarns concerning evil Hong Kong-based Ninjas (or NINJERS, as they are often pronounced), with heaping scoops of clueless acting, pacing, editing, and choreography. It's all good fun.

However, Mr. X is one of those films Ho made after breaking up with the Yin to his Yang, Joseph Lai, of Imperial Films Division. Ho alleges that Lai was refusing to pay him for his work, or something along those lines. All the same, it was a great loss because as sleazy as Joseph Lai was, he provided Ho with the budget and material to make some true movie magic. It is funny to note that as Ho got technically better at film-making (shots here are slightly more adventurous and competent than his 80s output), his movies got worse.

The titular Mr. X is played by Joe Lewis, and he is so inconsequential to the plot he is hardly worth mentioning. The movie opens promisingly with some competent shots of a Reservoir Dogs-style gang staking out a wedding which incidentally happens to take place in another decade and another movie, with completely different film quality. I have to hand it to Ho for making the two completely non-fitting clips work so well together.

After a massacre leaves the entire family dead aside from the groom, his bride (who is written out of the script as 'kidnapped'), and his brother, and the two begin a John Woo-style slaughter-fest against the syndicates that set them up. Another promising scene has the groom gun down all of Godfrey Ho's white-person army in a hilariously extended sequence - they continue to barrel into the room only to be gunned down by the dozens for what seems like three minutes, if not more. This is easily the best scene in the entire film.

Unfortunately, things turn sour precisely as Mr. X enters the scene. A hard-boiled mercenary with a penchant for shooting at people in completely different films, he is contracted by his friend, some dumpy schmo in New York, to work for a mafia group in Hong Kong to settle the dispute between the Triad, the brothers, and the newly-arrived Yakuza. Mr. X's liaison will be a kindly monk named Chaplin Chang, whom we are told is played as himself. I mention this because his character can barely speak English, barely act, and mumbles "Ok" every time something is said to him. It's funny at first, but you dread every scene between Mr. X and Chaplin Chang because they are so ad-libbed and boring.

In fact, every single scene not from the Asian stock-footage Ho used to pad out his movie does not seem to have a script at all. It's hilarious to watch these non-actors try to fill the time with dialog with only the vaguest direction.

E.G.: "Look at this guy. He makes me sick to my stomach. There's something about him, this Asian toad-looking guy. I want you to, uh, get rid of him. He makes me sick and I can feel it." -Schmo talking about some guy on TV

Chang: "I uh got you uhhhh present" Mr. X: "Oh, the Art of War. Yeah I have this book." Chang: "Oh uhhhh OK." ^Note, the movie essentially ends on this winner of a scene

Riveting.

The only other part worth mentioning, and the only reason this movie would be of interest to Godfrey Ho fans, is that the master himself has a small bit part in the film, as... "Godfather Ho." His scene is a real treat, from his goofy sweater, his belabored attempts at English (we can glimpse what it was like to be directed by such a man), and the ultimately pointless, amateur nature of the scene. It's wonderful, and easily the second-best scene in the movie.

There's little else to say. The Asian sub-plot is sort of fun to watch, and you can tell Ho was so cheap at this point that he couldn't even dub the movie, so it is subtitled (Ho's dubs were half the fun). Mr. X is randomly inserted into the plot, basically to shoot a few people off-screen, and then we're back to the action.

The film-quality between the sub-plot and the "Mr. X" scenes is so jarring, so cheap, and so bad, you'd swear Joe Lewis was taped fighting random thugs at the end using a home-video camera. One of the thugs, whom I assume is credited as "Bobo", is particularly funny for his bald shaved head, sans two strips running along the side, and his farmer overalls. It's a brief spark of lunacy in an otherwise dull tread through the twilight of Ho's career.

The passing of a pioneer...

[poe426 · 1/10 · 19 April 2013]

One of the things I disliked most about the Americanized version of GOJIRA was the totally unnecessary inclusion of Raymond Burr, in scenes that were clearly NOT part of the original film. MR. X takes that same tack, and even goes so far as to insert VIDEO TAPE footage of Joe Lewis into a John Woo ripoff. Joe Lewis was one of the pioneers of full contact karate; he deserved better. Not long ago, I happened to be hammering away on the heavy bag at the gym when a karate man came in. I struck up a conversation with him and asked him if he'd been to Joe Lewis's gym. He replied that he had, indeed, but that the man himself hadn't been there. He told me that he'd heard that Lewis had moved to Florida when he'd learned that he had brain cancer. I was stunned. As soon as I could, I checked the IMDb- and, sure enough, Joe Lewis has died. I met him twice (and shook his hand like a fanboy both times) and there's some interesting footage on the MR. X DVD extras (Lewis giving self-defense instructions), but the movie itself is awful- with or without the shoe-horned scenes of Lewis. The man deserved better.