Jackie Chan finds himself in a supporting role where he had roughly 12 minutes of screentime!
Fantasy Mission Force is a 1983 Genre Mashup military, horror, drama, comedy and parody film (all rolled in one!) directed by Kevin Chu, with an ensemble cast including Brigitte Lin (from The Bride With White Hair and Swordsman), Jimmy Wang Yu (One-Armed Swordsman), and Jackie Chan in a supporting role.
Allegedly set during World War II (apparently in an alternate reality where the war lasts all the way to the 80s, judging by the 70s and 80s pop-culture icons and references that pops out during the film), a covert rescue force is organized to retrieve four Allied Generals (one of whom appears to be Abraham Lincoln) captured by Japanese soldiers. The team consists of two kilt-wearing soldiers, an old hobo named Old Sun, female fatale Lily (Brigitte Lin), her boyfriend Greased Lightning, and are led by General Don Wen (Jimmy Wang-yu). Coming along for the ride is a pair of crooks, Sammy (Jackie Chan) and Emily, who intends to join the mission for their own reasons.
What follows is a ridiculous sequence of events where the team encounters Amazonians, fight cannibals, battle zombies and cultists in a haunted house, and fight an army of rejects from the last Mad Max movie... wait a minute, isn't this movie supposed to be set in World War II?
This movie is notably the first part of a Thematic Series of schlocky, military-themed Genre Mashup screwball action film trilogy, followed by Golden Queens Commando and Pink Force Commando. All three movies notably have the same director and stars Brigitte Lin in a key role.
Contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Brigitte Lin's Lily, who walks around the place with a bazooka.
- Action Prologue: Right in the opening scene, we see General Don Wen battling a horde of enemy rebels, killing several and capturing the survivors single-handedly.
- Amazon Brigade: One of the many Wacky Wayside Tribe encountered by the titular force.
- Anachronism Stew: Dear god, where to start?
- See The Cameo. All these are 70s and 80s pop-culture icons that wouldn't have existed during World War II.
- One of the Allied Generals is Abraham Lincoln. In the 1940s.
- One of the gags from the movie is lifted from The Benny Hill Show, which wouldn't exist until at least 10 years later.
- The cannibal gang of Mad Max rejects drives around in Muscle Cars from the 1970s.
- Artistic License – History: According to the map in the introduction, the Japanese somehow invaded northern Canada during World War II, which is also somehow inhabited by a group of Amazons and Nazis.
- Ass Shove: A fatal one - Stone gets a sword up the ass from the floor below courtesy of one of the mooks in the final battle.
- Big Eater: Old Sun, in the opening scene, having the time of his life at a banquet apparently just for him.
- Bound and Gagged: Lily is shown gagged and all tied up after her one-night stand with Greased Lightning.
- The Cameo: Right in the opening briefing scene, we get to see the rejected candidates of the mission, including Snake Plissken, Rocky Balboa, the Roger Moore incarnation of James Bond and Karl Maka from Aces Go Places.
- Characters Dropping Like Flies: Most of the cast gets massacred within the space of a minute in the final battle, and shockingly easy considering what else they had survived so far.
- Chinese Vampire: The titular force had to spend a night in a haunted mansion, where they encounter a bunch of jiangshis amongst other weird stuff.
- Cool Helmet: Billy, who wears a Pickelhaube everywhere he goes for some unexplained reason.
- Covers Always Lie: Most DVD copies of this movie would hype up Jackie Chan's role in the movie. He's actually the Sixth Ranger who had roughly a dozen minutes of screentime.
- Dead Star Walking: Subverted with Jimmy Wang-yu's General Don Wen, who's hyped up to be this ultimate badass millitary leader and war hero. He seemingly gets killed during a chase scene with some cannibals... but shows up in the end of the movie, having faked his death, before revealing himself to be The Mole the whole time.
- Dwindling Party: The story takes a sudden dramatic turn at the climax when characters are unexpectedly getting killed off one-by-one, until Sammy and Emily are the only ones left alive.
- Evil All Along: General Don Wen, who wants the reward for the rescue mission all for himself and systematically arranged for the entire Force to be killed off in the end.
- Exploding Cigar: Baldy gives Billy one of these to "express his thanks."
- Fake a Fight: In Sammy's first scene, he and an accomplice stage a fight to rake in bet money. This goes awry when the guy Sammy's supposed to be fighting shows up.
- Faking the Dead: Lieutenant Don is thought to have been killed during the escape from the Amazon village, but later reappears to fight Sammy in the final battle.
- Food Porn: Right in the opening scene. The credits are superimposed over an insanely-delicious looking banquet where Old Sun is gorging himself silly.
- Genre Mashup: It’s a military-horror-action mo lei tau film. That’s not even scraping the tip of the iceberg of insanity contained within this movie…
- Haunted House: After fleeing from the Amazon tribe, the crew ends up in an old dark house where they have to deal with jiangshi, ghosts, and Satanists.
- How Dare You Die on Me!: Baldy says this to Stone after the latter is mortally wounded.
- Knife-Throwing Act: In Lily's first scene she is shown using throwing knives to undress a bar girl tied to a dart board by aiming for the straps on her clothing.
- Loveable Rogue: Most of the main characters, but especially Greased Lightning, "the top break-away expert."
- More Dakka: Heavy machine-guns shows up a lot in the movie. Right in the last few minutes of the climax, there is Sammy - one of the last surviving characters - hijacking a heavy machine-gun and using it to continuously mow down around 40 mooks in seconds.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Several members of the titular force, including Grease Lighting, Old Sun, and Captain Don Wen (not his real name, see Red Baron below).
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The titular Force, a rather poorly-trained bunch of con artists, mercenaries, military rejects and assorted extras slapped together in the last minute.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Tracks from Logan's Run and Halloween are used in a few scenes.
- Red Baron: Jimmy Wang-yu’s character, Captain Don Wen. In the Chinese language it means “Ender of Souls”.
- Sixth Ranger: Sammy and Emily, who's tagging along for the rescue mission. They end up being the two only survivors by the end of the movie.
- Stuff Blowing Up: All over the place. Especially in the Amazonian camp where buildings goes BOOM once every few seconds for almost a whole minute straight, and the final scene (see following trope).
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Suspiciously Similar Song: Musical cues "borrowed" from Hollywood films popular at the time shows up every now and then, most definitely without permission.- The theme tune from Halloween can be heard during the haunted house sequence.
- During the Amazonian camp fight, the score from Planet of the Apes (1968) turns up.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Sammy eventually defeats Don Wen, by detonating ALL the leftover explosives in the Japanese base, turning the entire camp into a blazing inferno with Don in its very center.
- Those Wacky Nazis: The final battle takes place in a Nazi stronghold with swastikas all over the place. At least some of the army that attacks the FMF at the end are Nazis, though there are also Roman gladiators, aliens, and a fat samurai riding a bulldozer, all played by Chinese actors.
- Together in Death: Lily and Billy in the final battle. She dies first in front of him, then he follows shortly after.
- Whip Sword: A variation, but in the finale General Don Wen uses a belt sword to fight with Sammy. Could be an Actor Allusion, since an earlier Jimmy Wang-yu film (The Brave and the Evil) also features him using a belt sword.
- Working on the Chain Gang: Greased Lightning is introduced to the audience working in this setting, splitting rocks with a pick while chained up.
- Zerg Rush: The horde of Mad Max-rejects in the end of the film. They arrive in a group of a hundred or so, and while the Force manage to kill off the first few waves they were eventually overwhelmed by numbers.
