“Chiun, you’re incredible. “No, I am better than that.”
Sam Makin (Fred Ward) is a hard-nosed cop working in New York City. One night Sam comes up against some hoodlums and ends up unconscious, in his car, underwater. When he wakes up, he is in the hospital. Standing over his bed is Con “Mac” MacCleary (J.A. Preston). Sam recognizes him as the driver of the truck that pushed him into the East River.
Mac tells him that he technically died and had a funeral. They gave him plastic surgery to change his facial features, and his new name is Remo Williams. (A name Mac made up based on the name and address of the company that manufactured Sam’s bedpan.) He then tells “Remo” that he has been recruited by an organization that doesn’t exist. They work somewhere between the FBI and the CIA, as most secret government organizations do. The organization consists of Mac and the mastermind of the organization, Harold Smith (Wilford Brimley). They needed someone to do the hard physical work. Remo’s background as a decorated cop and ex-marine with no family to worry about fit the bill.
Mac tells Remo that he was picked to be an assassin for this secret organization because of the blatant corruption going on in the government. Their primary concern is an arms dealer, George Grove (Charles Cioffi), who is in league with General Scott Watson (George Coe) in providing the U.S. Army with flawed weapons. To combat the corruption, they need him to work outside the law. To do that, Remo must be trained as a killer. Remo is given to Master Chiun (Joel Grey), an ageless Korean martial arts expert who puts him through a vigorous and speeded-up training program. Remo’s lessons are put on hold when Grove finds out about and targets Remo.
“Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins” AKA “Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous” was released in 1985 and was directed by Guy Hamilton. It is an American action-adventure thriller comedy. It is the first of two Remo Williams’ movies. The second was a made for TV movie, “Remo Williams: The Prophecy” (1988). A TV pilot was also made and aired, however, an actual series never materialized.
The Remo Williams and Chiun characters were based on the pulp paperback series called “The Destroyer” written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir.
One of the highlights of the film is the iconic scene where Remo is being chased by some goons on the Statue of Liberty scaffolding. During filming, the Statue of Liberty was undergoing renovation. This was in preparation for its centennial. The filmmakers shot on and around the actual statue and its scaffolding as well as on a full-sized replica of the top half of the statue. Another interesting aspect of the movie is the bullet dodging sequences, which were re-imagined in the “Matrix” movie series.
It’s not the first film where the hero’s death is faked and he comes back as a vigilante, but it is an entertaining and amusing little adventure film. It’s a bit campy but in a good way. It’s just plain fun.
Ward did most of his own stunts.