The Ghost (2001) User Reviews

I knew I should have gone for Once Upon A Time In China II

[lucifer · 5/10 · 6 February 2002]

Dear, oh dear.

Quite an awful film. Michael Madsen and Brad Dourif have trouble keeping straight faces at the preposterous lines, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa resurrects his role from Showdown in Little Tokyo, Richard Hatch from Battlestar Galactica makes a fool of himself, and lots of the fights look stunt-doubled.

On the other hand, Madsen's two assistants make an entertaining double act, and the guy in the wheelchair kicked some ass, despite not having any legs. Nice!

I really should have known better than to rent this, but the cast looked good. Ah well, better luck next time.

it was OK

[missycool12 · 5/10 · 19 November 2006]

this film was OK but it wasn't the greatest thing ever made.They didn't cover up the stunt double that well but the scene with the black dude with no legs that was the best part even though some of his lines were corny it was still funny.but overall its watchable.I wondering about the black guy his martial arts was good i think i heard that he was coin out it another film if that is so i would probably watch that instead of this one he seems like he is a good actor only if they would of given him better lines i think he will go far.but don't take it from me go check out some other films he was in like "ESCAPE FROM ATLANTIS" "IN GODS HANDS" he is also seen on ripley's believe it or not. check him out

Cheap and nasty – don't be fooled by the reasonably well known cast

[bob the moo · 1 February 2003]

Jing is one of the deadly Tong assassins called `Ghosts'. When one of the heads of the Tong is acting out of character for the family Jing is selected to send him a warning. When Chang takes revenge on Jing by killing her father and the rest of the Tongs. Jing flees to America posing as a mail-order bride to businessman Edward, however Chang is hot on her heels and tells the LA police that she is a girl who has run away from home. Detective Dan Olinghouse is put on the case but begins to realise that the story he has been told is not the whole story.

Always up for a bit of martial arts action I taped this late night movie with reasonable, if not high, hopes that it would be enjoyable. Sadly, aside from a few enjoyable moments this is one poor pile of s***. The plot is silly (internet bride!) from the basics straight up to the top and is pretty laughable. It never really grips and nothing in it is convincing at any point.

The very cheap production values don't help of course, with many of the sets looking like cardboard TV sets at best. This is clearly seen to even the casual observer in the laughable flaws in continuity – even someone half watching (as I was) could easily pick out 4 or 5 things that just don't run together. These and other flaws run through everything and even some of the fight scenes are just rubbish. This is not to say all as some of them are quite good even if they haven't been very clumsily sped up to make them look more exciting than they actually are. However the climatic shoot out/fight is very dumb and is nothing like tense or exciting.

The actors are lumbered with poor dialogue and suffer as a result – even if some of them deserve poor lines in poor films. Madsen should really know better than this – he may not be an A-list star but he is better than bottom shelf stuff like this – he isn't even the lead here! His character is difficult cause he is a bad guy in a form and I never got into him. Madsen just plays him half asleep and it's a waste of a good screen presence. Tagawa is a B-movie star but even this is below some of his stuff. He over-acts like a good ‘un and has a cartoon villain for a character – I suspect he took it cause he gets to frolic with lots of sexy girls in underwear!

Lai herself is pretty handy with her hands but is not `pretty' anything else. She looks old at the start but looks better later on. However her deep voice and slow delivery of lines makes it feel like she's reading off an autocue somewhere. She can fight and she does make the odd fight scene worth watching but no more than that. Hatch is awful and the chemistry between him and Lai is absent for much of the film and pasted on like a whore's lipstick in the final scenes to the point that I never bought it. Dourif is wasted – what in God's name was he thinking when he signed onto this?

Overall this film is silly but could have risen above it to be a trashy martial arts B-movie that was enjoyable despite everything. However the range of faults and lack of effort put into it just make it unenjoyable from start to finish. Cheap production values, rubbish dialogue, absurd plotting and a real lack of attention to detail just shows this film to be a cheap thing they knocked out in a few weeks at most. Cheap and nasty and with no redeeming features the only thing that amazed me about it was how they got so many famous faces to appear in it!

Don't be fooled by the cast!

[benjamin-ryan · 1/10 · 4 May 2005]

I have one thing to start off my review: THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER! when I was at the DVD store I saw this DVD for only three dollars and i looked at the cover and thought it would be like Kill Bill but i was too wrong. First of all the main character was an old lady suppose to be an assassin, a guy with no legs in a wheelchair kicking ass and doing all this kung fu, Michael Madsen and Brad Douriff couldn't keep a straight face and looked like they were going to laugh the whole way through. these are only a few of things that made is movie terrible. I am lucky I picked this movie up for three dollars. Overall I don't recommend this movie and no one should see it go watch something better like Kill Bill.

This film is bad even for an action film

[Karneda92 · 1/10 · 6 September 2008]

Now this is one of the worst films I have ever seen,its one of the worst martial arts films i've ever seen.Everything about this film sucks the acting the plot the dialogue even the martial arts choreography sucks and thats terrible for a martial arts film.Now i no what your going to say,"jackass, story isn't a big deal in a martial arts movie or any action movie its about the action and fight choreography."Yeah but thats my point the fight choreography sucks and seeing as action is a big part of a martial arts movie that is really pathetic, the entire film is unwatchable.The story isn't that bad its an excuse to just beat up hundreds of opponents, but the thing is its put together with bad acting and awful dialogue you just cant take the story seriously.The best actor in the entire film is Michael Madison (reservoir dogs,kill bill)and i cant even take him seriously,yes the actor known as the tough guy in films and i cant take him seriously.Back to the fight choreography, it sucks.Some of it doesn't even make sense,There's a part when a crippled guy with no legs on wheel chair is taken from behind by a bad guy he then just flips him over him,that doesn't make sense the guy he flipped over must have been twice his weight and with no balance on the chair seeing as hes missing his legs in theory-he should have buckled over. Look the point is this film is bad,bad for an action movie bad for a B-movie just don't bother watching this crap excuse for a martial arts movie.

Why bother?

[megapad2 · 2/10 · 31 March 2006]

I watched the first 20 minutes. It was atrocious.

The action scenes were similar to something I could have done with a bunch of friends and a video camera.

Even if you like bad films, this film is not worth watching. The only thing more pointless and time wasting is writing comments on the film which took over 20 minutes of my life.

I could have had an epiphany in that time and I will never know what might have been had I not watched that incredibly poor film.

I should say the female lead is very unattractive for a femme fatale. The acting, writing & directorship seem to be from the field of made for TV movies except this should never have been made for TV. It should never have been made unless it was used as an example of what not to do when making a film.

Not that bad...

[Jake-46 · 6/10 · 2 January 2006]

OK, this is not the best movie ever made, and the start was really horrible, when Julie Lee was playing this cleaning lady... I more or less compared it to "Out For A Kill", which is truly awful, and expected a similar movie. But somehow it actually got a lot better after that. The fighting scenes are great, and Julie Lee does a decent job. She sounds like a man, and, yes, she reads her lines slowly, but so??? Of course its very predictable, and I didn't quite buy that guy with no legs, but it is quite funny at times. Sometimes without trying. I think you just have to be in the right mood when you watch this. It is not Oscar-material, but for what it is, it's OK...

Sort of cool.

[alertnote · 8/10 · 20 February 2006]

Okay, the weakest part of the film is actress Chung Lai! Her character, Jing, has all the charisma of a sour grapefruit and her acting is dull at best. Granted, this may or may not be because of a language barrier. In spite of that, I must admit there is something sensual and erotic about her. However, I found the story about unwanted baby girls, left in the river to drown, then rescued by the Tongs and trained from infancy to be assassins, to be very cool. The surrounding cast is quite good. Madsen-the-mumbler, his sleaze factor in hyper-drive, is totally believable as the crooked Dan Olinghouse, Brad Dourif, Richard Hatch and Michael Chan are all very strong. Cary Tagawa is a bit over the top as he chews up the scenery, but it's Louis Herthum and Brad Hunt that really stand out as Browner and Sink, Madsen's dim witted sidekicks. The action sequences rise above a lot of the low budget martial arts films and a few of the stunts are downright spectacular! Production values are about what you'd expect from a direct to video film but overall I did enjoy it.

Silly and fun the whole time!

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 11 June 2021]

Jing (Lee) is an assassin for the Tongs who is so elusive, she's known as "The Ghost". After she gets on the wrong side of evil baddie Chang (Tagawa), he vows to hunt her down and kill her. She makes that much harder for him by flying from Hong Kong to Los Angeles so she can pose as the Asian mail-order bride to a man named Edward Cosgrove (Hatch). While initially the relationship between the two is just for her cover, she gradually begins to genuinely fall for the good-natured Edward.

Meanwhile, an underling for Chang, Inspector Wu (Chan), and a bunch of his heavies, follow Jing to L. A. But because they don't know where she is, they end up at the doorstep of one Daniel Olinghouse (Madsen), of Olinghouse Bail Bonds. Olinghouse and a Lt. Garland (Dourif) of the LAPD have a working relationship despite some past troubles, and the men are tasked by Chang and Wu to find Jing.

But it comes at an ever-increasing price. Olinghouse's bail bondsmen Browner (Herthum) and Sink (Hunt) may be masters of disguise, but it's going to take all the ingenuity of Olinghouse to finally track down the crafty Jing. Will anyone finally bust THE GHOST?

Yes, The Ghost is stupid and dumb and all that, but thankfully it's the GOOD kind of stupid and dumb. It's all very enjoyable and entertaining - far more so than you'd think it might be. Of course, there are the standard low-budget pitfalls: a cheap overall look, rough edits, amateurish acting, questionable fight choreography, and the like, but somehow, against all odds, it manages to win you over. You have to love it. It only adds to the viewing experience.

If you like awkward dialogue delivered awkwardly amidst awkward stagings, The Ghost is the movie for you. It easily could have been another dud like Double Deception (2001), but it manages to sidestep that by having a silly charm all its own.

The solid cast and 85-minute running time also help a lot. First off, we have Julie Lee as The Ghost. Her character does go through an important arc: she starts off as an Asian Minnie Driver, but she ends up as an Asian Anjelica Huston. We really grew to love her flat-as-a-board line readings in her husky (some wags might say "mannish") voice. Especially in her "beating up MAP's (Middle-Aged Punks)" scene, she was reminiscent of Tiana Alexandra going undercover as "Cinderella Pu" in Catch the Heat (1987). She was good in her Martial Arts fight scenes, but it's hard not to be upstaged by Henry Smalls as Henry.

The Ghost, as a film in total, needed more Henry! His character was unquestionably the movie's highlight. Any time he was on screen, we shouted "Yes!" We loved him, and we should have seen more of him.

Of course, there's plenty of Michael Madsen here for us all to enjoy. He brings his classic charisma, gravelly voice, and fantastic fashion choices to the fore. He's sort of the nucleus of the film and what we see revolves around him. The scenes between Madsen and Brad Dourif showcase an "odd couple" vibe that's fun to watch. Tagawa plays - you guessed it - a bad guy, just as he's done in every role in his career. We'd love to see something where he plays the good guy. But it seems he was typecast just because he looks evil. It's a shame.

On the other end of that spectrum, Richard Hatch plays the innocent guy caught up in all this, not to mention the romantic male lead, and honestly it's probably the best Hatch we've seen to date.

B-Movie mainstays such as Al Leong, George Cheung, and James Hong, among others, round out the cast. The whole outing is amusing and funny. Maybe you have to have a sense of humor to enjoy The Ghost, which it seems not everybody does.

The early 00's were not the best time for movies, so that means that The Ghost is probably the best movie of 2001 by default. For B-Movie DTV denizens such as ourselves, it's well worth seeking out.

My DVD must have been in the wrong box...........

[merklekranz · 10/10 · 30 November 2008]

This is either the worst case of marketing, or my DVD was in the wrong box. The case says "The Ghost" is "a provocative action thriller". I say this is one of the best action black comedies ever. Everything, the acting, the action, the over the top dialog, all confirm that nothing is to be taken seriously, and if you go in expecting "Enter the Dragon", you will be vastly disappointed. If on the other hand, you think you might enjoy a film with Brad Dourif and Michael Madsen surrounded by quirky characters, with a clever script, with nicely done fight scenes, and a very intriguing leading lady assassin, then seek this one out. It is fast paced, deserving a much higher IMDb rating (thus my 10) and was a very pleasant surprise. Highly recommended. - MERK

Wow! What A Bad Film!

[caspian1978 · 1 May 2002]

Thank God for foreign distribution, without it, this film would not have made any money. This movie had to look good on paper, because it looked terrible on film. Bad direction, followed by terrible editing. I caught this film at 1 am on Cinemax of all places. Not that it fit the Cinemax mild porn style flick. This was a Kung Fu wanna be low budget midnight movie that only members of the cast's family would sit down and watch. All kidding aside, why was this movie made? If not for some of the B-Movie acting names that starred in this piece of garbage, I can't see any investor wanting to throw 2 cents to this film. Thank God for the foreign market, at least they had a billion Chinese people they could sell this flick to. Long story short, bad movie, except for the fighting sequences, the direction in this film was God awful. Except for Michael Madsen's average bad guy attitude, the acting was unbearable. Save you money and just buy the popcorn.

Unintentionally hilarious -

[mandy-125 · 31 March 2006]

Against all odds, this movie was shown on the BBC again tonight. Terrible editing, wooden acting and continuity errors make this film hard to watch. However, My husband and I laughed out loud at Madsen choking through his ridiculous lines, awkward pauses between dialogue and to top it all off the ass-kicking black man with no legs who takes on a gang of triads.

The premise sounds good - the Tong are a mafia group that control China, they rescue abandoned baby girls and train them to be "Ghosts" - the perfect deadly assassins. Jing (Julie Lee) is one such ghost. her father is murdered so she is sent to LA in hiding, where she poses as a Chinese internet bride and is hunted by Chang (as Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa)- a corrupt Hong Kong police official and Dan Olinghouse ( Madsen) and his group of fumbling henchmen.

This movie fails to live up to the premise, it looks cheap, is decorated by many young beautiful 'actresses' flaunting about, which is the only reason I can think of that Madsen and Dourif may have signed onto this.

The main actress speaks in a low monotone and it feels like she's being fed her lines sentence by sentence. The Honk Kong cast ridiculously overacts, and the scenes there feel like an episode of a "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" - over the top villain and all.

Overall, it was funny - and painfully awkward - You feel sorry for the cast.

Pitiful!

[robertaveryuk · 14 March 2002]

I was going to write a full review of this film but, thinking about it, I don't know whether I can bring myself to do so.

It's crap.

Not the most inspired critique but, unfortunately, devastingly accurate.

The acting is wooden, the martial arts is sub-standard seventies terrible, and the whole thing made me want to weep.

I beg you not to watch, rent or buy this movie: it will only make them want to make another.

Probably the worst film I have ever seen.

[Andy Price · 1 February 2003]

This pile of garbage was actually shown on BBC1 in the UK last night. I can't believe they had the temerity to even show it. Crap direction, some of the worste dialogue ever recorded, dreadful editing and atrocious acting. What the f*** were Michael Madsen and Brad Dourif doing in this film??????? The only saving grace was the wheelchair bound black guy with no legs, his fight scenes were just downright hilarious.