Stoner

 
 
Director: Wong Fung
Year: 1974
Rating: 7.5
George Lazenby is Stoner. Which is certainly better than Stuart Whitman as Shatter. They both came out in the same year as Golden Harvest and the Shaw Brothers tried going international. GH wins this one - though I am a bigger fan of Shatter than most people and should revisit that too. This is a revisit for Stoner and it's a bit strange. A review I wrote 20 years back makes mention of things that never occur in this film. Curious to see if I was once on drugs, I read a couple of other reviews and they both make mention of drugs and sleaze - neither of which are in this version (the Fortune Star vcd). I would guess that there was an International version that we all watched from a rental in our video store. Or at times Hong Kong made different versions for different regions. No orgies here. No fiancée dying of a drug overdose. This is the clean Hong Kong version. And its pretty good. IMDB also describes the drug version. The film also has more Aka's than a wanted man. The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss. A Man Called Stoner. Hong Kong Hitman. There is no hitman in this film, so perhaps that is even a different version.






This may all be because of how the film came about which is in truth more interesting than the film. The long version is on Wikipedia. Here is the short version. Golden Harvest came up with the idea to pair Bruce Lee and Lazenby in this film - titled at that time The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss. Warners was on board with financing as they had done for Enter the Dragon. GH gave it a huge budget for the time and had dreams of a big international hit. Sonny Chiba was going to be in it too. Lazenby and Lee were going to have dinner the night Lee died and GH decided to cut the budget to 10% of what it was. Chiba opted out and Angela Mao came on. This would have been Bruce Lee's film after The Game of Death. I think his role would have been the one that Angela has. How cool would that have been? Not that Angela isn't great. And she is billed before Lazenby.









The film is pretty solid with a lot of martial arts action - everyone politely leaves their guns at home - and though tilted to Lazenby, Angela gets some good time and one great fight. There are some extreme edits a few times which may be because of what a hybrid production this was. And they keep calling Stoner an American though it is obvious that he begins in Sydney and works for the Australian police. Sammo Hung who choreographs this said he had seen Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and thought he could work with him. He didn't know martial arts but he was athletic. And Lazenby is more than serviceable as a fighter - some complicated choreographed routines against multiple fighters - and though his stiff armed attacks look very Western, his kicks are excellent. Sammo takes Stoner on three times with some good hits in there. Stoner wins the match 2-1. Sammo in punishment, I guess, decides to wear a huge mole at the end of his nose.




It begins with a simple auction of a frigate that is heading for the junkyard. When someone bids very high for it, it raises suspicions that something isn't right. So Taiwan asks their best officer to go to HK undercover and investigate, This is of course Angela Mao. Meanwhile in Australia Stoner is beating the crap out of everyone who is involved with these miniature bombs that are being made - not drugs - and used. He thinks it begins in Hong Kong and so he goes. His first step of course is to go to a sleazy Wanchai bar and pick up a prostitute. She leads him into a trap (as he expects) where Sammo and others beat the hell out of him in an alley and Betty Ting Pei plays the good Samaritan and takes him to bed. And has photos taken. She is the boss's girlfriend. The photos never enter the story again after the Boss laughs at them and tells his men to kill Stoner. It was also of course her apartment in which Bruce Lee died.








Mr. Chin is played by a Japanese actor, Takagi Joji, who has a very cool office/lair that is decked out in red carpeting, red shag on the walls, a giant map of the world on the wall, a laboratory next door where they are making these bombs (seems a little dangerous). a cocktail waitress who has her blouse cut to expose her breasts and his desk goes around in circles. Stoner keeps getting into fights and Angela gets closer to the gang - disguising herself as a flower girl in pigtails and a boy wearing a cap. She has a few smaller fights but they save the best for the end when she and Stoner finally meet in the dark - hit each other a few times - realize they are on the same side and then have a great fight against the whole gang. Angela goes one on one against the vicious kicks of Whang In-ski and its a great hard hitting fight. Worth the price of admission. Far better than I remember but then I clearly saw a different version. A friend tells me that the Joy/Legendary dvd has the dirt. Probably not available any more.




Add-On

A friend was able to send me the other version of Stoner. The one I previously saw had cleaned up most of the sleaze that this one has and this seems to be the best known version. I have no idea who the other version was made for - maybe Malaysia and Indonesia? This version is about 20 minutes longer and most of that differential is devoted to a weird orgy scene that takes place in the Lazenby segment in Australia. The other main difference is one of just switching around a few words in the dubbing. The other one was about these mini bombs being produced while this was about Happy Pills. The bad guys have manufactured a pill that is stronger than marijuana and more addictive than LSD. And it makes people very horny. In other words they invented Viagra. But since they are not a giant pharmaceutical company what they are doing is illegal! In the orgy scene a busty topless blonde is being carried on stretcher into the orgy room where a cult leader calls out to all the scruffy white men who could only get laid in an orgy to stop their suffering and join him and throws out the pills. The blonde crawls towards him and they join together. Turns out she is Lazenby's fiancé and dies. Once it moves back to Hong Kong it is basically the same film with a little more nudity thrown it. The action seems to be the same in both films.