Shatter

Stuart Whitman is an international assassin with an evocative name. After performing a hit on a corrupt African leader, he takes refuge in Hong Kong. There he soons begins an affair with Lily Li and an alliance with her brother, martial arts master Lung Ti. But Whitman does not seem to be popular, and several distinct and disparate forces, like the international crime syndicate, the dead dictator's brother, and the British government in the person of Peter Cushing (in his last role for Hammer). And other shadowy forces that want the money he collected for his work, as well as some significant photographs he holds.

This co-production between Hammer and the Shaw Brothers was a troubled production. Monte Hellman shot most of it, but there were delays because Hellman and the cameraman were ill. So Michael Carreras fired Hellman, directed what was left, and took sole credit. Like many martial arts movies in this period, there's just enough of a story to set up the fight scenes. Whitman is stalwart, Miss Li is pretty, and Cushing, as usual, gives value for money.

Hammer helped define the gothic vampire genre, for which we should be thankful, but they also found need to dabble in other fields with mixed results. Shatter did not have the most inspired mixture and doesn't stand the test of time very well. Perpetually grouchy killer for hire Stuart Whitman fails goes to Hong Kong where he fails to collect from disreputable banker Anton Diffring. Corrupt government official Peter Cushing has his men beat the pulp out of Whitman, who stumbles off to a massage parlor where kung fu master Lung Ti treats him to a freebie from adorable Li-Li Li (whose name sounds like the refrain to a doo-wop song). Whitman finds his apartment blown up so he takes refuge at his new friends' dojo. He slips underground for a while but gets attacked at a martial arts invitational won by understated Ti. Without questioning the moral validity of his instincts, they help him in his quest to extort a mil from Diffring. International affairs gets somewhat sticky from here, and the bullets fly freely until the predictable climax. Carreras tries his best to present Whitman as a then-prevalent philosopher killer, but the weak introspective sequences that show Whitman roaming around his apartment fail to do the trick. The apparently sensitive regret he feels for his victims comes off as a brooding doom with little real emotion backing it up. Shatter's intolerance for international culture makes a few unexpected peeps from its veneer of acceptance. Snooty references to eating snakes evidence a discomfort with the behavior of a foreign country. The background story sets this attitude in stone: Whitman's being tracked down for getting involved with political affairs in Badawi, a corrupt puppet country in Africa in which brothers contentedly murder brothers for money and power. Such situations may perhaps at time truly occur, but the same can be found in Shakespeare with less disapproval asked of the audience. The degree of acceptance present can be seen as a sense of tragedy, completely disconnected with the random slaying of evil black or Asian characters. I don't mean to push the point, but I found it odd that both major black characters were played no-name Yemi Ajibade in an otherwise internationally well-known cast. Cult director Monte Hellman apparently assisted Carreras, far more experienced as a producer, but did not receive credit. Writer Don Houghton produced the other Shaw/Hammer co-production, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires and also takes credit for the awful but amusing Dracula AD 1972. Scenes allegedly shot in Badawi, a country that does not exist, were probably done in Hong Kong.

Long unavailable on home vid, this was just one of the many projects that cult maestro Monte Hellman ghost-directed. So when the good folks at Roan decided to release this on LD, I jumped at the chance to get a copy. At forty bucks, it was worth it. But I had to order off the Dollar Menu for the rest of the week.

It was a long-held belief that Hellman only directed a small portion of the film before being sacked and replaced by producer Michael Carreras. But in the running commentary, Hellman, upon seeing the movie for the very first time, was surprised to see that at least 80% of the final cut is his.

Though no "Background to Danger," this is a very passable B-adventure, with Whitman a fine hero/foil. Whitman's Shatter is another in the long line of Hellman loner-man-on-the-outside-looking-in protagonists. The film also bears striking similarities with the long forgotten "Karate-the Hand of Death" (1961)about an American Karate expert returning to Japan after the war and runs afoul of some mob types. "Shatter" is a decent way to spend an hour and a half on a rainy afternoon, and a find for Monte Hellman completeists.

Stuart Whitman was a good choice to play the burly and rough-edged hitman of the movie, but it's a pity that he doesn't get much of substance to do. The main fault is a slow-moving screenplay; after the first 20 minutes, it takes about half an hour before things really start to move again, and even after that point things don't really move that much faster. The various action scenes are only okay at best. Though the behind-the-scenes problems the movie suffered from don't make for any real glaring problems, there are still some notable holes here and there. However, the movie does give us a really scenic tour of early 1970s Hong Kong; if you are curious about what it was like to live there back then, the movie may be worth a look.

Kicking, shooting and beating aplenty in this Hammer/Shaw Brothers co-production starring Whitman as a hitman with a conscience. Not much here you haven't seen before, but Whitman is OK, the music is kinda funky and, while he doesn't have much screen time, it's always great to see Peter Cushing.