KUNG FU KORNER: Marco Polo (1975)

I used to love playing Marco Polo in my neighbour's above-ground pool.

Submitted by Rajorajorajo, 02/10/10 2:32 PM

If you've never heard of 'B' and 'Z'-movie superstar Richard Harrison, you're probably not alone. In fact, until recently, I was like you as well. Don't worry though, it just means that you haven't seen some of the worst movies ever made. Me? Not so lucky, actually, thanks to having recently seen the Shaw Brothers' 1975 dud Marco Polo - which I can't unsee, no matter how hard I try. I am now not only aware of who this person is, but because of mental problems I'm also kinda obsessed with finding out as much about him and his career as I can. I've already got a bunch of his other 'hits' on order, like Secret Agent Fireball and Achtung! The Desert Tigers, and his other Shaw Brothers film, The Boxer Rebellion. It's messed up.

What a life this dude has had, though! He started working in the 60s by traveling the world and appearing in some of the lowest-budgeted foreign films ever made. Harrison was tall, muscular, blond, blue-eyed and seemingly willing to go anywhere anybody might be shooting a B-movie, capitalizing on the desire of foreign filmmakers to broaden the appeal of their films by casting Westerners. That was his niche, and he knew how to work it, enjoying steady employment as an actor over the course of his 30 year career in forgettable, non-English speaking roles. The drawback, I guess, would have been not being recognized in his own country, but hey, I'm sure he had a blast just the same. And he probably doesn't regret a single decision he's made, either, except for maybe passing on Leone's A Fist Full of Dollars and suggesting they cast his buddy Clint Eastwood instead - waaaah, waaah.

But is he any good in Marco Polo? Hmmmm... define 'good' for me and I'll get back to you. I mean, intentional or not, he's entertaining to watch, especially considering how little screen-time he's actually got. As the title character in a movie about the dude who invented spaghetti, he doesn't really impact the plot very much. In fact, the film's original title, The Four Assassins is a closer representation of what you might see on screen, but even then you're left with a sub-standard Kung Fu movie with a confused looking B-movie gringo jammed in. Harrison, as Marco Polo, Kublai Khan's appointed 'Special Investigator' seems uncomfortable in every scene, always looking off somewhere at who-knows-what. Piles of noodles I guess. There's a weird beat that precedes every line of his dialogue, implying perhaps that he was waiting for an off-screen translator to cue him. He's completely disconnected from his co-stars in a way reminiscent of modern actors struggling to appear natural in front of a green screen, except... he was standing right next to them dudes. They're not droids, they're Chinese people. And, funniest of all, you can see him mouthing his dialogue in English while an unnamed actor's voice delivers the lines in Mandarin, which only makes him stick out like a sore thumb even more. It really is like watching a guy trapped in some weird parallel dimension, where everybody eats doughy buns and knows Kung Fu. Funny what can result from an on-set language barrier...

But hey, none of that really has any bearing on the story, as Harrison is only really there to look handsome and (barely) facilitate the advancement of the plot, which is this: Kublai Khan, under constant threat of assassination by some Kung Fu superheroes from the Yangzhou province, gets Marco Polo to smoke them out. But the closer Polo gets to these radicals the more he becomes - big surprise - sympathetic to their cause. Half the movie is one big training montage, focusing on the 4 blood brothers (the assassins) throwing rocks around a field and jumping in and out of puddles while trying to learn the "Bell Cover" move, which makes them invincible to swords. Oh, and they're charged with protecting the widow of their fifth slain brother who was really good at doing the "Bell Cover". Not good enough to not get killed by a sword though I guess.

The Kung Fu fight scenes are pretty poor - kinda uninspired, and often so slow you can predict each subsequent move. This doesn't come as a surprise, really, as director Chang Cheh and legendary Shaw Bros. choreographer Lau Kar Leung famously had a falling out during production, which probably messed everything up. The film does however feature the incredible talents of Alexander Fu Sheng (always awesome), Gordon Liu (Mr. "36 Chambers" himself) and Kuo Chui (the Lizard Venom in an early role), and they stand out in an otherwise long, drawn-out, often boring film that could easily have done without the inclusion of Marco Polo at all. But then again, having Richard Harrison's porn moustache and smug grin on the cover of the DVD is what made me pick it up in the first place, which is why they hired him, I guess. Here's hoping he's a little more relaxed and, you know, actually impacts the story more in his 2nd Shaw Brothers outing, The Boxer Rebellion.

1 Comment (click to view)