- DIRECTOR:
Guy Hamilton
- ACTORS:
Fred Ward, Joel Grey, Wilford Brimley, J. A. Preston, George Coe, Charles Cioffi, Kate Mulgrew, Michael Pataki, Patrick Kilpatrick
- PLOT:
A cop (Ward) is conscripted into a clandestine black ops program that uses martial arts techniques to conduct political assassinations, which suddenly doesn't sound so heroic now that I see it written out.
- EVALUATION:
I find myself simultaneously adoring and pitying a film this James Bond franchise entry from a goofy parallel universe, in which a soap opera-loving martial arts master (Grey) teaches his protégé to dodge bullets and run without touching the ground because he regards his superior (Brimley) as some kind of emperor.
- WRITING:
The line "Bearing in mind that nature snubbed him cruelly by denying him Korean birth, I am not entirely dissatisfied" is hilarious both in and out of film considering that is spoken by Joel Grey, who won a Saturn award and a Golden Globe nomination for his role, despite definitely not being Korean.
- FILMING:
Guy Hamilton does his best work since Goldfinger in creating elaborate, expansive action setpieces.
- BEST PART:
The fight on the scaffolded Statue of Liberty is an outstanding action sequence.
- TRIVIA:
Based on the Destroyer book series and featuring Reginald VelJohnson, Jon Polito, and William Hickey in minor roles.
- STINGER:
"You move like a pregnant yak!"
