Lawbolisted Powerful

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

rdoyle29 Fred Ward stars as a cop who's death is faked by a super-secret government agency run by Wilford Brimley. He is given a new identity and told he's now an assassin who kills people the justice system cannot deal with. He's trained by a Korean martial arts master played by Joel Grey ... yes, Joel Grey. This movie is based on the popular "Destroyer" series of pulp novels. It was meant to kick off a series of james Bond-esque movies. It didn't. Did it deserve to fail? Yeah ... kind of. What works works very well. It's funny at times, the cast is good and some sequences, particularly the Statue of Liberty sequence, are amazing. What doesn't work is that it's 85% set up and training montage and almost no real story. Most of the plot is established through scenes of Brimley sitting at a desk and looking at a computer screen. If it had got the setup and training sequences out of the way in the first 3rd and focused the rest on story and action ... the adventure may have continued.

A_Different_Drummer Step in the WayBack machine, Sherman, and come with me to the 1970s. Before computers. People used to get their entertainment from something called "books" and these were sold in something called "bookstores." Also drugstores, variety stores, airports. Within the realm of books, there were two main classes. Mainstream. And speciality. Specialty did not get a lot of a attention, it was in effect, the "dirty little secret" of the industry but it was massively profitable if a title or series took off. Which brings us to the Destroyer series, originally started by Warren Murphy (in this case NOT writing with his wife, but a third party). It arrived without much fanfare and was intended for the same audience that made, for example, the Executioner series a hit. But, as Murphy himself would later reveal, he just couldn't do it, he could write it "straight." So, this tale of an American ex-cop, presumed dead, trained by the last surviving Master of Sinanju (a Korean martial arts dynasty that claimed to have originated all the martial arts, that claimed to have consistently served the greatest rulers of the world back into pre-history) was written somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It was at the same time a fun and manly action series, and also social satire. (For example, Chuin, the current Master, refuses to dispense his services for free, unless someone accidentally commits the sin of interfering with his greatest passion, which is watching daytime soap operas, in which case the bodies start to pile up very quickly. Considered the deadliest man alive, to him "all mankind is merely targets in motion.") The series appears to have become the bestselling "man's series" of all time. Numbers are hard to get, but we are talking tens of millions sold. The phenomenon rivalled the success of the Mickey Spillane series in the 1950s, another "dirty little secret" in publishing. The record will show that, wisely, no Hollywood producer ever tried to make a film of the Executioner series. But hubris is hubris and Dick Clark ("the" Dick Clark) ventured where angels feared to tread. It would have been hard to do for a top-flight producer like for example Sam Raimi. For these clowns it was impossible. This is a truly horrible film that captures none of the fun of the books. Audiences (ie, male audiences who recognized what was being attempted) got the message real fast and told their friends. This film verily defines the word flop. And it did not help that Clark was so taken by his own brilliance that the film was released in theatres (no kidding) with the title REMO WILLIAMS THE ADVENTURE BEGINS. No, Dick, it didn't. It ended. And deservedly so.FOR FILM HISTORIANS: Interesting factoid, in spite of many attempts there has never been a successful film version of Mickey Spillaine's character EITHER!

intelearts I was just the right age when this came out to really enjoy it. Watching it again loses some of the wonder but none of the fun.A brilliant mix of espionage and Karate Kid with the master / pupil relationship played for both laughs and oriental mystique, this is a film to kick back to and simply enjoy.The Eighties were the decade for action comedies and this was one of the best (It was nominated for an Oscar, for goodness sakes)- watching it now brings back lots of great memories.Always liked Fred Ward - he's the actor Chuck Norris should have been here - and he and the others make this a winner.Fun movie and one that deserves a remake.

disdressed12 i can only speak for myself,but i enjoyed this movie.i thought it moved along at a good clip.Fred Ward was good as the title character,but Joel Grey was a real hoot as his Korean mentor Chiun.Wifred Brimley plays the head of the organisation that recruits Remo.Kate Mulgrew(Captain Janeway in Star Trek Voyager)is also in the movie.even though i liked the movie,i didn't fell it was very substantial,and after watching it,it felt incomplete.i suspect they were hoping to do a franchise,but the movie wasn't a commercial success,so they abandoned the idea.too bad,because it would have been good to see Remo progress in his training and take on new adventures.for me,Remo Williams:The Adventure Begins is an 8/10