The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1974)

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Just as he was to be 28 years later in The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges (or Jeffrey, in the credits) is cast as a sort of resourceful slacker trying to pick up a wad of money by playing at the edges of a game dominated by more dangerous people. They include some of the most watchable actors of the 20th century-- Burgess Meredith, James Mason, and Jack McGowran (the great interpreter of Beckett). Meredith manages some Chaplinesque moments, but for the most part these actors are wasted on embarrassingly heavy-handed material. The setting, in Hong Kong, is supposed to help keep our attention, but unfortunately it is unimaginatively photographed. Although the brightly harmonized music persistently hints that the film is a light-hearted put-on, only a few moments of the script are amusing. The story wends its confusing way to a feel-good ending that was perhaps old-fashioned peacenik Burgess Meredith's motivation for this rare excursion into writing and directing: it envisions a global defense against all airborne weapons for years to come.

Fools! Can't you see this is better than Austin Powers? This is James Bond Lite, for those who can't keep up with the intricacies of a regular James Bond storyline. It's got everything including lesbians, large Chinese men wielding large Chinese cleavers, a guy who just won't die and sexy action (various tastes appeased). And don't get me started on the soundtrack. I felt like I could Do It, whatever that It was.I am pray that this gem will be rediscovered and spawn a "Making Of" collectible DVD compilation (in widescreen). The acting is superb, but the screenplay needed a final revision. Perhaps M. Night Shaymalan can re-release it with Mr. Bridges playing the role of Mr. Go.11/10

This film is truly a sight to see. I've seen a lot of really odd films but never anything exactly like this movie. It has exploitation content, but not enough to play in the grind-house circuit. It has a lot of really great actors -- including Burgess Meredith (who also directed and contributed to the screenplay), Broderick Crawford, James Mason, and Jeff Bridges ("introducing Jeffrey Bridges"). It has a lot of action and plot twists, so it doesn't get dull -- but it also ultimately doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It has sci-fi elements -- a so-called "side-winder laser beam" which could neutralize all nuclear weapons -- but it is mostly a confused attempt at a James Bond-ish international suspense film, with a dash of Fu Manchu thrown in.The plot is so bizarre that I had to write this review today, the day after seeing it, or I would not remember it. But I don't think there were that many "holes" in the plot, it's just very complicated and intricate. The film moves very fast. Fast enough that if there are any holes we don't really have time to worry about them.James Mason plays Mr. Go, a ruthless international blackmailer who is interested in obtaining the laser beam for his own purposes. Meredith plays The Dolphin, an acupuncturist with underworld ties. In order to get the plans for the laser, Mr. Go hires a young American deserter who's hard up for cash, Finnighan (Bridges), to lure the American CIA agent, Professor Bannister (Peter Lind Hayes) into a gay sex encounter that is captured on film and used for blackmail. OK, hang on it's even stranger.... Finnighan believes himself to be a descendant of James Joyce and fancies himself a great up and coming writer, so the CIA sends in an agent who happens to be a self-described "James Joyce scholar", Zimmerman (Jack MacGowran). Zimmerman, posing as a literary agent, takes Finnighan out on the town, where they visit a whorehouse on a boat and get extremely drunk. Back in Finnighan's apartment, Zimmerman attempts to extract information about Mr. Go's identity from the drunken would-be writer. Upon learning that Finnighan is being investigated by the CIA, Mr. Go decides to have him and his girlfriend Tah Ling (Irene Tsu) kidnapped. However, after taking Finnighan into a helicopter and telling him he is about to be executed, Buddha decides to intervene on behalf of humanity, as he claims he can do in the 5th month of every 50th year. A beam of light comes out of Buddha's belly and illuminates Mr. Go, making him into a good man and causing him to abandon his plans of killing Finnighan and selling the weapon. For the rest of the film, Mr. Go and Finnighan rescue the girl and set about faking Go's death and releasing the information about the sidewinder laser beam to the public so that all the nations in the world will be safe from nuclear attack.On the whole, the directing is exceptionally poor. Some of the confusing passages had to be explained with the dubious device of Buddha-as-narrator. The actors are all overplaying their roles, across the board. The action scenes are just ridiculously slow and awkward. The Asian makeup for Meredith and Mason are extremely unconvincing -- at one point early in the film Mr. Go has to say something like "I came here many years ago as a young Mexican-Chinese boy...." just so that the audience will know what race he's supposed to be. He speaks with his normal rather stately British accent throughout, perhaps seeking to salvage some dignity.However I think there was a germ of a good movie in the screenplay -- from the very first scene with Mr. Go and the Dolphin discussing how Mr. Go might be assassinated, to the bizarre scene where Finnighan and Zimmerman are hanging out with naked prostitutes in his apartment while he angrily vents about the fact that his (kidnapped) girlfriend isn't there cooking for him and cleaning the house. Another example would be near the film's conclusion when Mr. Go tells Tah Ling that he wants to consider she and Finnighan as his children, but she interrupts and tells him that she's been thinking about him a lot and "a lot of it is very sexy". So just like that Mr. Go drops the father act and starts getting hot and heavy with Tah Ling from their hiding place inside the Buddha's belly.I think they either needed a bigger budget and another director to turn it into more of a fun espionage film, or they could have played it just a bit less seriously and it would have been camp fun. Instead there is the sense that the film is trying to be much more than it really is. Still, it's never boring, and that's not something you can say about every movie.

The only words that could possibly describe this movie are odd, demented, developmentally disabled, etc. I think this movie might make sense after a couple blotter papers, or a bong full of opium laced weed. I makes no sense, the music is horrible, the sound doesn't match the footage, in timing or mood.This movie is like a drug episode, but without the fun. The same effect can be gotten by getting crazy high and watching a movie that makes sense. I can't spoil it, I've watched it and I still have no idea why anything happens. I can't tell if it's originally done in Chinese and dubbed, or if it's just badly made. And the Buhdda thing makes no sense even in context of eastern religion.