Queen's Ransom, A (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Jul 17, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
-
Director
Ting Shan-hsiRelease Date(s)
1976 (June 11, 2024)Studio(s)
Golden Harvest (Eureka Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: C
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
(Note: It’s impossible to discuss A Queen’s Ransom without more than the usual share of spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched the film, you might want to wait and read this review after you’ve seen the picture...)
All all-star Hong Kong thriller about a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, A Queen’s Ransom (1976) is a film of considerable promise thwarted by a substandard screenplay by its director, Ting Shan-hsi, a script featuring cardboard characters and nonsensical plot twists. Movies of this type—including prototypes like The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Rififi (1955), and The Day of the Jackal (1973), to name three—require intricate plotting: establishing each character’s role in the mission, details of their “fool-proof” plan, always with ingenious components and split-second timing, seeing each step meticulously being implemented, unanticipated setbacks, etc. A Queen’s Ransom is consistent only in that it does all of these things badly.
A state visit by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to Hong Kong coincides with the arrival of an improbable international team of terrorists including IRA member George Morgan (George Lazenby), Viet Cong guerrilla and scuba diver Jimmy the Shark (Jimmy Wang Yu), Japanese Red Army sharpshooter Miyamoto (Chan Pei-shan), Thai bodybuilder Ram (Bolo Yeung), Morgan’s cheerfully slutty girlfriend Black Rose (Judith Brown), and others.
Police Chief Gao (Ko Chun-hsiung) assigns Detective Chiang (Charles Heung Wah-Keung) to look into a tip by Vietnamese bar hostess/prostitute Jenny (Tanny Tien Lie) who has learned of the plot while servicing a careless member of Morgan’s team, a Filipino who reveals all while dead drunk.
Further, shoehorned rather inexplicably into the story is the addition of the Princess of Cambodia (Angela Mao), a refugee hiding out in the same area where the assassination team is storing their equipment. (She’s definitely Cambodian in the English-dubbed version I watched, but apparently in Mandarin she’s Burmese.) I never did figure out whether she had any direct link with the terrorists or if it was just some wild coincidence. In any case, she becomes involved with Duck Egg (Dean Shek), the nephew of the old Chinese man unknowingly renting the shacks the terrorists are using.
To paraphrase the late Bill Warren, logic doesn’t go out the window; it never entered the room. Precious little of what happens in A Queen’s Ransom makes any sense. The eight-man team assembled by Morgan all hate one another, fight among themselves constantly, and half the team (apparently) kill one another before or just as their mission commences. Just how they plan to assassinate the Queen is unclear: early scenes involve some kind of ambush in a tunnel, but that’s abandoned and a new plan is put in its place by planting 3,000lbs. of TNT beneath a floating restaurant the Queen plans to visit. But where are they going to get all that TNT on such short notice and how are they going to plant it amid all that top security? The audience never sees any of this. Why is the Princess of Cambodia hiding out where the would-be assassins are storing their supplies? What the deal with the scar on Jimmy’s forehead? Why did George bring his promiscuous girlfriend along? (Spoilers) Why does Duck Egg, later revealed as an undercover security agent, take the Princess to see the Queen’s procession, when that would only put her in harm’s way? Why include the outrageous coincidence of having Jimmy turn out to be Jenny’s lost-lost brother when this surprise has no impact on the story?
The film can’t decide where its focus should be: on the assassination team? The Hong Kong police? Jenny? The Cambodian Princess? Nor can it decide whether to be a martial arts movie or a semi-credible modern assassination story. Neither fish nor fowl, martial arts fans are invariably disappointed by the dearth of chop-socky action, while the intermittent martial arts fighting isn’t credible in a story like this.
(More Spoilers) The sloppy script’s biggest offense is the ambiguity of the fate of several major characters. The last time we see the Princess, a likable character, Morgan has hit her on the head with a big rock, then brutally punches her several times in the face. From there, she’s never heard from again. Was she killed? Did she survive? And what about Jenny? She’s shot by Morgan but perhaps not fatally, as Jimmy is last seen trying to rush her to a hospital. Her fate is likewise left unresolved. Yet, conversely (Major Spoiler), the evil, ruthless Morgan is simply arrested without incident at an airport duty-free gift shop. Talk about your unsatisfying anti-climax!
What makes A Queen’s Ransom so frustrating is that, with a bit more care, the film could’ve been so much more entertaining. Rather than stock news footage, the filmmakers clearly shot (in ‘scope) much original footage of an actual state visit by the Queen, to the point where she almost becomes a major if unwitting character—contrast this with the unnamed extra wearing a rubbery Jimmy Carter mask cameoing in Black Sunday (1977).
Licensed from Fortune Star, Eureka Entertainment’s Region “A” encoded Blu-ray of A Queen’s Ransom is perhaps the best-looking video transfer I’ve ever seen of a ‘70s Hong Kong title. The image is bright, impressively sharp throughout with no ‘scope distortion, the colors are spot-it, and there’s no sign of damage at all. It almost looks like a new film. Included are two versions of the film: a 96-minute original Hong Kong theatrical cut offered in both Mandarin with optional English subtitles and an English dub, and an “export cut” that runs about six minutes shorter, which is in English only. Alas, even former 007 George Lazenby’s voice has been dubbed by somebody else in both versions, an unnamed Australian affecting what may be the phoniest Irish accent in movie history.
Each cut features its own commentary track. The theatrical version has one by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth, while the export cut offers Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. Worth returns on a short documentary called Furious George. A trailer is also included and a nice booklet essay by James Oliver rounds out the extras.
Viewers with low expectations might find A Queen’s Ransom reasonably entertaining. But it could have, should have been so much better.
- Stuart Galbraith IV