Vietnam-vets-turned-mercenaries Sugar (James Mitchum, looking in his paunch-fitting fishing vest like the typical shotgun-wielding tourist) and Mark (Chris Ahrens, looking so unremarkable that I couldn't tell you how he looks five minutes after watching the film) are hired by a certain Li Cheng to retrieve an ivory tablet (that won't look like ivory, but rather like plastic it is) from a temple (or, as we call it, cave) in a part of the jungle on the Vietnamese-Cambodian jungle. I don't think it's cause for alarm that it's called "The Hell From Which No One Returns". But the mission is a little more difficult than expected. Firstly, there is the local military who don't like heavily armed Americans in their jungle, but have never heard much about the concept of "taking cover", so that works out just fine for our heroes. Secondly, there is the group of black magician monks and their white-bearded leader guarding the tablet. These guys not only look swell in their sacks and the white painted Halloween gorilla masks, they are also slightly more difficult to kill thanks to their tendency to get up again...and again...and again...and again. White-beard also has some tricks up his sleeve, like waving his arms menacingly, teleporting to safety and superimposing flying Halloween devil masks on the picture that...do nothing (or to quote our heroes: "Some kind of bullshit man, come on." - "Yeah.").
But even when Sugar and Mark have reached their goal, there might be a little surprise waiting for them. Is someone here who likes to bet if Li Cheng betrays them to use the ivory tablet to RULE THE WORLD?
First things first: Raiders of the Magic Ivory is a pretty bad movie. It also is a damn entertaining one. It's what happens when you give a filmmaker like Tonino Ricci fivethousand dollar, fly him (not first class, of course) and the handful of people this sum can buy out into a jungle somewhere and wait what he'll do. After cursing quite a bit, he'll grab a scrip out of Dardano Sacchetti's trash (no, I don't know why Sacchetti's trash lies around in the jungle; just roll with me here), add a "hell", "shit" or "bastard" to every line of dialogue and just film the damn thing. Fortunately for us, everyone else will be very amused by Ricci's moment of cursing ecstasy and try to do him one better by trotting through the film with facial expressions that tell us that even James Mitchum can find things that are way too silly to not move a muscle.
One would think that a few stupidly silly ideas, lots of green, a few firefights mostly consisting of faceless and nameless henchmen lining up to be shot, bemused acting and lots and lots of curses aren't enough to keep one awake for ninety minutes. One would be underestimating the entertainment value of real undiluted Z-filmmaking quite a lot.
And just wait for the moment when James "Sugar" Mitchum is declared "Sacred Keeper of the Celestial Peace"! I mean, it's not completely wrong. It will be very peaceful after he has killed everyone, but what's with the cursing?
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2 comments:
For some reason this sounds pretty good. Maybe I've watched too many good films recently.
I suppose it's the magic of James "Keeper of the Celestial Peace" Mitchum.
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