THE MAGIC CRYSTAL [1986]

The Magic Crystal (1986)
Directed by: Wong Jing
Written by: Wong Jing
Starring: Andy Lau, Cynthia Rothrock, Max Mok, Richard Norton

AKA MO FIE CUI 

HONG KONG

AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL

RUNNING TIME: 95 mins

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera

After retrieving an important document from a Triad boss, Hong Kong Special Forces operative Andy Lo Li decides to take a well-earned holiday to Greece when he receives a letter from his archaeologist friend Shum Kwam who’s discovered something and wants Li to come and take a look. He mentions Interpol agents following him, but Li still decides to bring along not just his sidekick Snooker but also his young nephew Bin Bin. Andy runs into Shen just in time to rescue him from a pair of thugs posing as Interpol agents who want the artifact, as do two genuine Interpol agents and some far deadlier villains. Then Bin Bin discovers in his suitcase a large emerald-colored crystal that’s not just able to speak to him telepathically but can control the actions of weak men….

When Richard Norton, a legend in the world of martial arts movies, not to mention a personal bodyguard for the likes of The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and ABBA, died in March this year, I intended to review one of his films, in addition to the five that Eureka Entertainment have brought out, but business of all sorts prevented me from doing so. But now I have time to finally check out The Magic Crystal, which had been sitting in my area of unwatched discs for absolutely ages. I never saw this back in the day, that period when a friend and I would buy loads of Hong Kong movies on bootleg video because that was the only way that we could see a lot of them. There were times when I was watching this and wondered to myself why this isn’t widely heralded as a fight classic, because there are a lot of very fine brawls in it. Maybe it’s because not enough of them feature the two major martial arts movie talents in the film? But then again, maybe it’s because it seems that writer / director Wong Jing [not for the first time] thought up the film’s story whilst drunk, cobbling together some things that he thought would work at the box office that also allowed for the insertion of a fight scene every ten minutes or so, but not bothering very much with things like cohesion and logic? The goofy humour level is mighty with this one, only sometimes crude, but crude enough, in a film that’s not really for young kids even though they’d probably love it, to make one wonder why on earth there’s also an E. T. -style subplot about a little boy befriending an alien. But dull it certainly isn’t, and at times it does display some of the manic energy that helped make so many of us fans of this type of cinema in the first place.

After the credits, we immediately join our hero on what’s probably a typical mission for him, after an emergency meeting tells us that a document containing vital evidence against a crime boss has been taken and six officers “severely injured”, and Sergeant Shek of the Special Duty Unit opens a file to select Andy Lo Lik, aka the “Eagle Hunter”, to retrieve it. Cut to Andy Lau [a huge popstar just breaking into movies] in the gym, replete with closeups of his muscles, receiving “the” phone call. At the crime boss’s mansion, an arrow from a crossbow smashes through a window, followed by Andy, one leg forward so he kicks one of the boss’s two aides. He defeats them, but is he then defeated himself by the document having been put into a safe that can only be opened by voice recognition? Of course not, his helper Snooker recorded the password being spoken earlier so all he needs to do is play the tape back. You’ll know instantly that Snooker is intended as the main [somebody else joins him for a while later] source of comic relief. Andy is next seen relaxing beside a hotel pool full of bikinied lovelies until Shek turns up and we realise that Andy operates secretly outside the law and sometimes needs to keep Shek at bay even though Shek pays him. Andy then gets this letter from his mate Shum about this thing he’s unearthed that others seem to want, and he’s going to bring along his son, but Bin Bin is having a bad time of it at school, getting bullied and his only friend asking him “why don’t you ever fight back”? “A gentleman never resorts to violence” is his response. The jokey climax to this seen is funny, Snooker telling off and mocking the bully – who’s dad is standing right behind him!

Aerial stock shots tell us that we’re now in Greece, followed by one of those “traveling around and having fun” montage. But they’re being followed by these three KGB agents posing as Interpol ones, who are in turn being followed by two genuine ones Cindy Morgan and Billy – and if you already know that Cynthia Rothrock is also in this, then I’m sure you’ll guess that she’s Cindy. While Andy is sightseeing at the Parthenon with Ban Ban and Snooker, he sees Shum, but Shum is ambushed and chased down by the fake Interpol agents, Cindy and Bill run and fight them with Andy eventually joining in, and Shum escapes. Cindy and Bill persuade Andy to cooperate with them to help his friend, who arrives at the hotel Andy was residing in but gets shot by a KGB thug posing as Andy’s assistant, though he manages to subdue him before escaping again – firstly into a bath tub to scare Snooker who moves from his toilet to the bidet right beside the bath [he think it’s just another toilet] and is disturbed by a bloody arm in what’s an actual shock! Shum leaves the artifact in Ban Ban’s suitcase in the room before being captured by Karov, head of the KGB, though he won’t tell him where the MacGuffin is. Believing that Shum fled to Hong Kong, Andy, Snooker, and Bin Bin return home, where Bin Bin finds the crystal, which is able to speak to him telepathically and can make people do things, but only if they are less than three feet away and weak-minded. Comedy becomes more the order of the day, even if a brawl is still often around the corner, with Bin Bin standing up to his bully, swapping Snooker’s hands and feet over, and an obnoxious guy named Lo Tai, who’s after Shum’s sister Winnie, trying to rob a bank but failing miserably.

Humour is subjective, but I laughed often, while having all the main characters involved in scrapes, even those who can’t fight, allows comedy to be sometimes mixed in with the fighting. As the lead, Lau gets the most action, often pitted against multiple attackers and, while not a “proper” martial artist, good choreographers are often able to make him look like one, unless you’re really picky and notice that he’s not doing many actual techniques and is doubled a lot – though I kinda like his rough, “make do” style. Rothrock, who did most of her scenes with a blown out knee and injured two others as a result, gets her first fight early, pulling out [from somewhere] the three-sectioned staff, then the spear to battle a couple of guys by the Parthenon which might have been intended to make up for that similar scene which was cut out of Yes, Madam. It’s then mainly tiny bits for her until a solid warehouse fight with a group, then battling Norton in their second film together, who’s already shown his own expertise by quickly besting Lau, then Wong Mei-mei as Winnie’s older sister [“you’re a good fighter but you’re still a woman”], though she gives a good account of herself when she fights a few henchmen just before, and both women briefly fight Norton together too. The second fight between Norton and Rothrock is a truly terrific display of the skills of both, with a lot of proper stances and moves in addition to the “done just for the movies” stuff. It’s pure martial arts movie heaven. It’s a shame that Lau has to help Rothrock, especially when it’s obvious that her skills are being reined in to enable Lau to shine more. Norton shows off his skill with the Seis, coolly brings tea to a confrontation to share with his opponent, asks someone “you know, being my enemy is worse than catching AIDS”, and yes, he gets to ask an opponent “painful”?

Jing himself plays Snooker, and he mugs like hell, though a lot of his material is funny and never goes on for too long [Lucky Stars cough cough]. An early gag where he spray paints a heart on a wall and can’t move because of cops is priceless, and he even gets to do a Bruce Lee-inspired bit with Nunchuku. Shih Kien does some Wong Fei Hung poses because he’d both played him and his opponent loads of times. Pak-Cheung Chan as Lo Tai is enjoyably obnoxious and leaves the film too early. Even though the premise is essentially simple, there’s perhaps too much plot, seeing as some of it’s pointless and Jing is just throwing in stuff and seeing what sticks. At one point Andy is framed and put in prison. He’s injured in a fight in the yard, then transferred to another area which must have really lax security because the next cut show us Andy free outside the place! Such a cavalier, not to mention messy, attitude to storytelling can often irritate, though The Magic Crystal boasts some charm which makes up a bit for this. The scenes of the boy and his alien do probably belong in another film, or at least a film that doesn’t a have a character who peeps on the woman he lusts after and because of the “artifact” imagines her pealing off one side of her face”. One can understand why this hasn’t quite found the audience it probably deserves despite the quality of its action. The plotline involving the “artifact” , which soon develops six tiny legs and a big tongue, gets truly bonkers [just wait until you learn of it’s true identity], though, after things have got already a bit Indiana Jones, one can’t help but wonder if Steven Spielberg and George Lucas saw this, seeing as the final act of their weakest Indy adventure [the fifth film never happened] has considerable similarities.

Some typical ’80s visual effects are rather good though a certain prop at the end – well, it just looks like they didn’t even bother. There’s also a boring musical score from Joseph Yapp, who except for the opening and closing music resorts to replaying, with no variation whatsoever, the same action theme over and over again. That’s literally all you hear. Yet it doesn’t stop things from still being considerably fun – in fact, you might even feel that it adds to it. The Magic Crystal is sometimes thrilling, sometimes amusing, and sometimes stupid. For martial arts movie fans, Rothrock and Norton have certainly been in better films, and together, but have possibly never been better.