In
1975, Hong Kong was a Crown Colony that wanted to stay that way. Therefore, do
not expect them to have much sympathy for an Irish assassin. The HK police will
do everything in their power to protect the Queen during her royal visit, but
they are already stretched thin dealing with the massive influx of immigrants
from Vietnam and Cambodia. There is also some business about a gold shipment in
Ting Shang-hsi’s A Queen’s Ransom, which is
included in The Angela Mao Ying Collection now available from Shout Factory.
Poor
police chief Gao already has more than he can handle, but when Jenny the
bargirl’s tip regarding a Filipino client pans out, he assigns Det. Chiang to
watch over her. She is relentlessly cute, but also ethically flexible, so it is
not just for her protection. It turns out her thuggish customer is part of a
team recruited by IRA splinter-group leader George Morgan to assassinate the
Queen during her state visit.
Meanwhile,
in what seems like an entirely different film, a former Cambodian princess has
arrived in a refugee camp, where she stoically accepts her fate. She hardly
ever speaks, but she still has her dignity and martial arts skills. The latter
will come as quite a surprise to Ducky, the working class HK laborer who befriends
her.
Ransom was clearly
conceived as a HK version of the 1970s Alistair MacLean film adaptations that
usually featured dozens of tiny little boxes of cast photos running across the
bottom of their one-sheets. True to form, Ting compulsively introduces new
characters throughout the film. Yet, somehow he successfully ties up all his
rangy subplots, but not exactly with an elegant knot a salty seafarer would
admire.
Frankly,
the first two acts are somewhat slow and the interconnectedness of many scenes is
not readily apparent. However, it provides an intriguing time capsule of
mid-1970s Hong Kong. As go-go as times then were, it probably still seems quaint
to residents of today’s mega-mega HK. Ting also cleverly integrates archival
footage of both the Queen and the real life refugee camps.
Just
as notable is the assembled rogues’ gallery of evil, which one would not even
see in American films of the era. In addition to his IRA roots, Morgan hires
Jimmy, an HK expat who had become a specialist in guerilla warfare with the
North Vietnamese. Like a good Viet Cong, he is only interested in money. Morgan
also recruits an African American clearly inspired by the Black Panthers. To
create sexual tension Judith Brown (a women-in-prison cult movie favorite) duly
taunts him into some rough sex as Black Rose. However, the most ideologically
driven members of the gang are unquestionably are the Japanese Red Army terrorists,
who also turn out to be the dumbest.
At
least Ransom finally delivers a
showdown between George Lazenby and Angela Mao. Without question, it is the
best choreographed fight of the film. Mao still brings all kinds of grace and
presence as the Princess, but Ting criminally under-employs her. During Stoner, his previous Golden Harvest
film, George Lazenby was clearly inspired to hold up his end by Mao and their
fight choreographer-co-star Sammo Hung. In contrast, here he mostly just seems
to be playing out the string as Morgan. Even legend-in-the-making Jimmy Wang Yu’s
namesake seems a bit lost in the convoluted backstories and digressions. Still,
there is no denying future HK horror maven (Tanny) Ni Tien lights up the screen
as Jenny.
