“It’s astonishing how one so pitiful is yet so proud.”

Justin’s rating: The world needs Remo Williams now more than ever

Justin’s review: One of the earlier movies that ever went up on Mutant Reviewers was Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. It was a perfect fit for our site’s profile: A largely obscure and forgotten action-adventure spy flick with great quotes, Fred Ward, and an “in the know” fanbase. For the longest time, I thought this odd genre blend was a one-of-a-kind product of the popular 1970s Destroyer novels. But it turns out that there is was a sequel — and it’s even more obscure than its predecessor.

In 1988, a 48-minute pilot was made for a potential Remo Williams series, despite the movie itself only making $14.4 million. It starred Jeffrey Meeks as Remo and Roddy McDowall as the not-quite-Chinese Chiun picking the story up one year after the film (even incorporating movie footage into the opening), making this much more of an actual sequel than you might expect.

If you never saw the movie or it’s been a long time, here’s a quick refresher. Remo was a cop recruited by a mysterious organization to be trained as an assassin for the U.S. He was given a new face and name, followed by unorthodox training by a sarcastic Chinese soap opera fanatic named Chiun who basically taught him how to harness superpowers with “Sinanju.”

One year after the movie, and Remo’s has graduated from his training period… or so he thinks. He is looking forward to a break, but his master has other plans. Chiun decides that Remo must be taught one more lesson to cure him of his over-confidence — by hiring an assassin to kill him. Or at least try.

(As an aside, I loved that the assassin wasn’t evil — in fact, he had a genuine respect for Sinanju and was hoping to be taken on as a future student himself.)

Meanwhile, Remo is sent on assignment to burn down a bio-security lab that’s trying to crank out something suspicious. So he’s going to have to handle that while avoiding the assassin and proving his worth to Chiun. Oh, and he’ll need to face off against a robot tank, because what bio-security firm doesn’t have one or two of those patrolling the premises?

There’s a weird elephant in the room we have to acknowledge, which is the fact that McDowall is Scottish-Irish but is playing an Asian character in what could be called “yellowface.” While actors playing across racial lines used to be more accepted than it is today, it does lend this production an odd tint.

That said, McDowall is just as hilarious as Joel Grey was playing the same character in the movie. Remo may be the action star with good looks, but Chiun steals the spotlight in every scene with his deadpan delivery of bizarre analogies, constant disapproval of Remo, wide array of mystical powers, and reverent love of Barbara Streisand.

You know what’s crazy? This is both a good episode of action-adventure TV and is quite worthy of the Remo Williams name. Half of it is Chiun being a gleeful jerk to Remo in the name of “training,” and the other half is Remo showing off super powers by fighting robots and assassins and bikers trying to enjoy a nice Sunday picnic in the park (the bikers, not the robots).

It’s not every day that you see your lead character pick a fight with bikers while wearing roller skates, take out a giant robot tank, run down the water of a gushing fire hose, get gunned to death, and then be resurrected by his master. But on this day, you do see it, because you’ve seen Remo Williams: The Prophecy.

Intermission!

• Chiun warning the viewer to change the channel
• “See how he climb the wall like drunken gorilla. Pathetic!”
• “Complaining is your best exercise, see how you excel!”
• I do like this theme song! It’s quite peppy.
• A cup of dried eel in the fridge
• The President is not an emperor
• The 47 steps to bring a woman to ecstasy could be dangerous in the wrong hands
• Chiun’s goodbye poem
• 15 more years of training
• The ring injector
• “I’m sort of a domestic commando.”
• Juice of fermented grain! “That’s light beer.”
• Chiun knocking down all the bikes with his pinky
• Fighting is easy on roller skates
• I love this whole biker fight, as Remo keeps running around a picnic area to get to the next guy who wants to beat him up
• Chiun crushing a golf ball with two fingers like an egg
• Hole in one with a putter
• Chiun is a Barbara Streisand megafan: “A voice of such perfection, and she has no monument?”
• “It would be nice to hear a word of encouragement from you once in a while.” “Very well. Break a leg! Hehehehe.”
• These are the least conspicuous cameras ever
• ROBOT TANK ATTACK!
• Walk down on a fire hose that’s been abandoned for some reason
• A yak with style!
• Chiun really likes to cuddle with dead students for a weirdly long time
• Chiun just yanking out all of those medical tubes