Shanghai Surprise (1986)

Hello. If you are new to the blog, if for some reason you are only now stumbling across this sizeable archive of movie reviews on titles you've never heard of there is... well, A) probably a good reason for that. And B) a slight disclaimer that you should know: I generally tend to only watch and review bad movies. More specifically movies that for the most part are universally considered to be amongst the Worst Movies Ever Made. And boy I have covered some pretty bad movies. I think so far The Creeping Terror and The Beast of Yucca Flats both stand out as two of the worst movies I've ever watched, but not the worst. However for all the terrible garbage I've subjected myself to since 2021, I don't think any of my prior watches have really sucked so hard as this weeks subject: Shanghai Surprise - a Sean Penn & fucking Madonna movie that I feel mostly got green lighted because the pair had just gotten married at the time. Although by the end of it, they hated it so much they tried to disassociate themselves from it and it eventually lead to them getting divorced! Probably... Maybe... I might have made that last bit up. But what I haven't made up is that it blew chunks so badly that the official movie soundtrack didn't even get released! Yeah they just didn't bother. And it recouped a measly $2.3 Mill against a budget of $15,000,000! Most of that probably went on Madonna's hair stylist. One of the few movies I think I've covered so far to be nominated for the unholy sextuplet of Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director and Worst Original Song at the 7th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards (side note: Howard the Duck won Worst Picture which is total bollocks and complete bullshit. It's great.). I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to this, hence the excitable opening paragraph, but I also have a feeling it's gonna be a real slog of a watch to get through so uh, yeah, let's see how I get on.

The movie opens with the Japanese occupation of China in 1937 and one Walter Faraday (Paul Freeman) who, after trying to smuggle a fuck ton of opium out of the country, is obstructed by Chinese soldiers and eventually shot to death as he tries to swim for safety. Fast forward one year later and sleazy drifter Glendon Wasey (Sean Penn) is recruited on the street by Gloria Tatlock (Madonna), a Missionary Nurse, initially for his proficiency in speaking Chinese to track down: Wu Ch'en She, the father of one of Gloria's soldier patients. They cross paths with Justin Kronk (Philip Sayer) who offers to connect them with somebody who can tell them where Wu Ch'en She is, for a small fee... however he ultimately delivers them to a dead end, only to return on the scene and explain that Wu Ch'en She has no children... When Glendon confronts Gloria about it, she explains that Wu Ch'en She betrayed one Mr Walter Faraday a year ago, making off with his opium stash with Gloria hoping to track it down in order to make morphine for her hospital. Learning that they are seeking the almost mythical "Faraday Flowers" Glendon initially wants nothing to do with it, but he is talked round / blackmailed by Gloria after she takes him to a fancy restaurant and introduces him, alongside Justin Kronk, to Mr. Willie Tuttle (Richard Griffiths), a former associate of Walter Faraday. Willie directs Glendon and Gloria to pay a visit to "China Doll" - Mr. Faraday's former Mistress, and after Glendon spends the night there presumably having one of the best nights of his life with a woman versed in - I think I counted this right - over 30 different sexual performances... he returns to his hotel to find Gloria waiting for him before promptly getting arrested by the local Police. At the station he is tortured by the Police chief, a man with no hands who appears to be the leader of the Chinese soldiers that shot Mr. Faraday at the beginning of the movie, into confessing that he visited China Doll to track down information on Faraday's flowers. After passing out, and then coming to staring into the eyes of Gloria, Glendon decides that nearly dying is probably quite enough to be honest and is prepared to board the next boat out of Shanghai when Gloria uses... other methods a bit more... carnal... to convince Glendon to continue helping her. That out of the way, Glendon reveals that he did get a bit of information from China Doll after all, in that she arranged for a buyer for Wu Ch'en She's newly acquired opium in the form of a man named Joe Go. She gives Glendon the location to find Mr Go and after Glendon and Gloria pay him a visit, Joe Go reveals that when the opium was delivered it had been switched for a decoy with Joe believing Mr. Faraday had made the switch before it was confiscated by Wu Ch'en She. In return for teaching Joe Go a fancy baseball pitch, no really, Joe Go gives Glendon and Gloria the location of Wu Ch'en She. After tracking down Wu Ch'en She he reveals nothing except that he too was tortured by a group he calls The Last Phoenix when he recognizes the same wounds on Glendon's neck. When catching up later with Willie Tuttle, and explaining that the man who tortured him had no hands, Willie reveals that the man's name is Mei Gan (Kim Kay Tong) and that he thought the dispute between him and Mr. Faraday had nothing to do with the opium at all and probably ran deeper. When leaving the meal, Glendon and Gloria are... persuaded to converse with Joe Go again and they tell him they have learned the name The Last Phoenix but it means nothing to Joe and he lets them go. Realising they have hit a dead end, Gloria and Glendon part company with a romance having blossomed between them, Gloria promises to see Glendon leave the following morning. Glendon returns to find Willie and Justin waiting for him who, at gunpoint, explain that Mei Gan was once suspected of grave robbing royal tombs and is photographed dining with Mr. Walter Faraday. Connecting the dots, Glendon returns to visit China Doll and asks her what treasures Mei Gan would have plundered from the tomb of the Empress (it's a long story but she half way references herself to it earlier in the movie). When China Doll reveals that she was once in possession of what was believed to be opium but is in fact royal treasures: jewels and that they were stolen away from her by Mei Gan, Walter was persuaded to steal them back and alludes to the fact that they are now back in her possession. Mei Gan has been trying to retrieve them ever since but has been unable to track them down. After leaving, Glendon is ambushed by Mei Gan who blackmails Glendon into retrieving the treasure for him and, not disclosing that to Gloria, he takes her to meet China Doll, believing she may be able to convince her to give up the treasure in exchange for the knowledge that it will be used to help save soldiers. China Doll concedes and passes on the treasure; jewels to the pair however returning to land they are ambushed by Mei Gan's men - as had been planned - but are rescued when Joe Go bursts on the scene and bundles the pair into the back of his car. After an incredibly brief car chase, Glendon runs almost face first into Mei Gan where, after revealing to the others that they made a deal he discovers that he can't find where he stashed the jewels and he allows himself to be searched. After handing over his belt to Mei Gan - a trick that at the beginning cost Mei Gan his hands, he forces Glendon to open it up, and after revealing it to be safe, hands it back only for it to explode in Mei Gan's face as the others flee to safety. Revealing that he had hidden the jewels the whole time, Glendon and Gloria return to the Missionary with the jewels only for Willie and Justin to follow in shortly afterwards and steal the jewels themselves, at gunpoint. Attempting to retrieve the jewels, the leader of the Missionary, "Mr Burns" quickly dispatches of the pair and sends them packing, only to remove his wig and false moustache to reveal he was in fact Mr. Faraday all along. He convinces Glendon and Gloria into climbing into a pair of wicker baskets, at gunpoint, before locking them in and disappearing. Managing to break free, the pair race to the boat Mr. Faraday boarded to make his escape and making their way into his cabin discover from Mr. Faraday that the jewels aren't even real after all. Defeated, the trio contemplate what to do next before Gloria and Glendon part company, but unable to leave her behind, Glendon rushes after her and the pair reunite back on land, but unbeknownst to the pair until Glendon takes one last look, Mr. Faraday had just so happened to sneak millions of pounds of opium inside his luggage...

I... I don't know about this one. I mean part of me really enjoyed this. I thought the story was good and interesting, and I enjoyed following it along. And I thought Sean Penn as Glendon was a pretty decent lead. Hell! Madonna as support wasn't really that bad either to be honest! I mean she was a bit vanilla in spots but I thought she did well. But then I stopped for a minute before I started fingering out a paragraph full of praise for this movie and then really thought about it and was a bit like... "well yeah, but was it really that good? What about this plot hole, and that plot hole and..." and then it all sort of began to unravel in front of me. But I feel, really, if I'm being honest that this wasn't that bad a movie really. I think the foundations of a good movie were there and I think there was some questionable choices and questionable plot developments but I can't in good faith call this a bad movie.

I think we'll start with the negatives for a change, and as I alluded to just now there was a fair few plot holes that you kind of had to gloss over a bit really, and I won't list all of them but you do have to take some of the decisions of the characters in this movie with a good pinch of salt. How did Gloria not figure out that Mr Burns wasn't who he said he was. How did Glendon's luggage end up on a boat he wasn't supposed to be getting? How did the explosives in his belt be set on a timer? There was a few others but you had to take some of the moments in this movie with a bit of suspension of disbelief and I don't think it's necessarily down to sloppy writing, it's just that it felt like the movie had written itself into a corner to a degree and often needed a bit of a reach in order to get itself out of the problem it had created.

And then there's the soundtrack. For a movie executively produced by One of the Beatles the musical numbers scattered throughout the thing felt so effortless - in a bad way - and so lifeless. They were just listless romantic numbers with crooning lyrics and I figure the reception was not great at the time but they certainly haven't aged any better over time either. They didn't necessarily drag the movie down but they just felt out of place and didn't really match the overall adventure-style tone of the rest of the movie. Obviously intended to emphasize the developing romance between Gloria and Glendon, they didn't really do it any favours and more upbeat, uptempo music I feel would have worked better.

Aside from that though there was more that I liked about this one than that what I didn't like. As aforementioned I enjoyed Sean Penn as the lead and I thought his likeable jack-of-a-lad kind of character was quite endearing. Maybe it was unstylish at the time and it's something that's more appreciated retrospectively but I liked it and I thought it gave the movie a different feel rather than the suave, sophisticated central focused man who is always one step ahead of the bad guys e.t.c.

Similarly Madonna was also mostly just fine, and actually not just cast for sex appeal! I felt like Gloria Tatlock had a bit more character in her own right than just being a pretty face and a love interest for Glendon. And Madonna in the role did just fine. There was a few moments where she came across a bit vanilla and a bit one dimensional but I feel like she more than made up for it in other moments and was fine. Again, maybe something appreciated more retrospectively but she wasn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination.

And I also really enjoyed the plot. I do like a movie that has a good narrative and takes you on a kind of journey telling a series of events from start to finish and that's exactly what you got with Shanghai Surprise and it kept the story developing as it went along bringing in new elements and fleshing out the central thread of the story until it reached it's conclusion and I thought it did all of that very well. It wasn't really anything new or fresh - it was essentially your main protagonists trying to track down some missing treasure which even by '86 had been done a bunch of times before, but it at least still felt entertaining and interesting to watch. I feel like if a few of the plot holes had been tweaked and the story developed a little bit further it could have genuinely been something really special. Although absolutely in no way comparable to say Indiana Jones or something similar because it was just far too goofy from the beginning. But not taken too seriously, it was decent.

And in terms of production, apart from some lacklustre music, the cinematography and production was mostly just fine, overlooking the silly and slightly un-necessary car chase stuff at the end that felt a bit like the movie was just running out of ideas at that point. But I'm prepared to give it a pass because other elements of the film made up for it, so I won't let it ruin the whole experience for me.

Yeah so... this was just fine really. I've certainly seen worse movies masquerading as successful ones, and I'm not sure how this was considered so terrible at the time that it found itself so heavily criticized. I think if they were aiming for a super serious adventure movie akin to Indiana Jones then they missed the mark dreadfully... It was a little bit goofy, a little bit silly, and in places it got a bit sloppy and it wasn't perfect but it was an entertaining and enjoyable enough movie. I think I'd genuinely watch it again to be honest! I don't know if time has been more kinder to it than maybe the audience back in '86 was. But yeah this was fine. Strong 2 out of 5.