Strangely boring action film about a mumbling stone faced assassin touring Hong Kong after being betrayed by his employers.
Completely unaware of it's own nonsense (the camera gun?) Shatter takes on the bad guys with some particularly gory head shots and a camp as buttons falling-out-of-a-window finale. In the meantime his new pals; a kung fu wizard takes out the trash and a hooker with a heart of gold....oh dear. Who could have predicted that?
The story is basic but there's no hope of following it as plot elements are explained only using exposition heavy dialogue and things happen for no real reason and make less sense. (The missile? Severing his vocal chords won't stop him writing things down? Surely there were easier solutions to the syndicate's woes than double crossing a third party?) But at least there are no secret underground layers and no one goes into space. There's misfiring dialogue like "(Shatter)'s not just a name. It's a way of life" Eh?
(In what way? I'm Scottish and I if I was "shattered" I'd be exhausted.
"I'm not just tired. I'm really tired" Tired like this movie.)
He doesn't know who he was working for, does no investigation and makes terrible decisions, his plans are awful and he gets lucky in the end. Just what you need from the world's top hitman. Why try harder?
Apparently the original director got fired after Michael Carreras didn't like the early footage but still lays claim that it's 80% his original cut, it's easy to see why he was replaced; a city as exciting and cultural, exotic even, as Hong Kong should make excellent eye candy but looks dull and impoverished, the action sequences are adequate but introduced far too late after nearly 60 minutes of one-dimension Shatter wandering around and getting beaten up a few times. It's as if they thought "we're in Hong Kong and we need to make a movie but we haven't got a script or any time or money but we've got some actors." And then cobbled together some spy/ hitman shenanigans from the cliche mill, just so long as it goes all the way to the top...
A back alley, a harbour and a hilltop. And some cable cars. It's desperate stuff.
The only good bit is the fight scene in the club full of tension and kinetic drama, but ironically is of no consequence plot-wise and seems to come from a different film. Second unit?
As a Hammer film; it's near the end. The studio had more or less lost its identity and was attempting to break new ground in order to continue but duffers like this only served to accelerate its collapse. Tellingly it also ended the brief friendship with Shaw Brothers.
