From Beijing with Love
A theft has occurred at the air force base in Shenyang, the skull of China’s largest dinosaur fossil missing and a matter of the highest importance with national pride at stake, but investigating agent Double-Oh-Too who has tracked down those believed responsible is ambushed, killed by a man in armour wielding a golden gun which fires explosive bullets, his supervisor Commander Yuen forced to accept a reserve agent considered mentally and physically deficient to take up the case.
A market stall pork butcher with a taste for dry martinis ten years out of the loop, agent Double-Oh-Sevin is reactivated, sent to Hong Kong where after a mixup with accommodation he is contacted by Lee Heung-kam who, after becoming acquainted with his array of dual purpose gadgets and counter-intuitive weaponry and he her own extensive gun collection, she conveys him to a party where gatecrashers are welcomed with a hail of bullets.
The unavoidable truth being that a spoof ages fast than that which it mocks, it was in 1994 that directors Stephen Chow and Lee Lik-chi unleashed their spy comedy From Beijing with Love (國產凌凌漆, Gwok chaan Ling Ling Chat, more literally translated as “Homegrown 007”), starring Shaolin Soccer’s Chow as the titular reactivated secret agent and Anita Yuen as Kam with Wong Kam-kong as Yuen and Law Kar-ying as hapless Quartermaster Da Vinci.
Opening with a winking disavowal that the film has “absolutely no relation to James Bond 007” even as it warms up the recurring leitmotif which can only be regarded as a homage to Monty Norman’s iconic fanfare, while the handover from Timothy Dalton to Piece Brosnan was already occurring at Eon in Hong Kong the target was the late Sean Connery to mid Roger Moore era, the trappings and the jokes stale before shooting even began and veering more towards Power Rangers as it progresses.
The mock Maurice Binder culminating in the summary execution of the requisite silhouetted dancing woman, From Beijing with Love is distasteful from the outset, an awkward Hong Kong action film where the frequent knockabout violence is punctuated by profligate blood packs unnecessary in a comedy, leaving it instead standing or falling on the plot which almost immediately reveals Kam as a double agent assigned to kill her contact and Golden Gun to be Yuen in disguise while Double-Oh-Sevin is more concerned with his grooming.
Operating strictly as a vehicle for Chow’s ego, irresistible to women, saviour of children and prepared to knock out a tune on the piano if circumstances require, From Beijing with Love makes its UK Blu-ray debut as part of the Eureka Classics range featuring both original Cantonese and dubbed English audio and supported by an archive interview with Lee Lik-chi, a new interview with Wong Kam-kong and a commentary from Asian film expert Frank Djeng.
From Beijing with Love is available on Blu-ray from Eureka now
