The George Lazenby Golden Harvest Trilogy [Stoner 鐵金剛大破紫陽觀, The Man from Hong Kong 直搗黃龍, & A Queen's Ransom 鱷潭群英會]

KonCategoryIII

Stoner , A Man Called Stoner , and Hong Kong Hitman ( Chinese : 鐵金剛大破紫陽觀 ) is a 1974 Hong Kong action film which was produced by Raymond Chow and directed by Huang Feng . [ 1 ] The film was originally scheduled to be Bruce Lee 's next film after Game of Death . However Lee died while filming Game of Death in 1973 and that film's release date was delayed by five years. It was the first of three films George Lazenby made for Golden Harvest, the others being The Man from Hong Kong (1975) and A Queen's Ransom (1976). [ 2 ] Plot When a tough Australian cop named Stoner ( George Lazenby ) discovers that his sister has overdosed on a deadly new drug called "The Happy Pill" (an aphrodisiac/hallucinogen mixture), he travels to Hong Kong to track down its creators. Along the way, he meets up with a beautiful secret agent ( Angela Mao ) who's on her own mission to investigate the same drug ring. Cast and roles George Lazenby as Joseph Stoner Angela Mao as Angela Li Shou-hua Betty Ting as Agnes Wong Yen-yen Hwang In-shik as Mr. Big Joji Takagi as Mr. Chin Sammo Hung as Chen-Chin Samuel J. Peake as Cult leader Lu Chin as Helen Romanolee Rose as Melanie Hung Sing-chung as Inspector Feng Su Chiang as Kuan Te-jen Chin Chi-chu Chin Lu as Club girl Yi Feng Nick Lam Ching Siu-tung as Gang member Andre Morgan Ren Hao as Fake priest Suen Lam as Gangster Roger Ward as Biker Yuen Biao as Thug at temple Eric Tsang as Thug at temple Yuen Wah as Thug The Man from Hong Kong ( Chinese : 直搗黃龍 ), originally released in the US as The Dragon Flies , is a 1975 action film written and directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith in his directorial debut and starring Jimmy Wang Yu and George Lazenby , with Hugh Keays-Byrne , Roger Ward , Rosalind Speirs , Rebecca Gilling , Sammo Hung , Grant Page and Frank Thring in supporting roles. The first film to be made as an international coproduction between Australia and Hong Kong, it serves as a satire of the James Bond and Dirty Harry franchises, combined with tropes of the concurrent chopsocky craze. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Its plot follows Inspector Fang Sing Leng (Wang) of the RHKPF 's Special Branch , who travels to Sydney to perform an extradition, only to find himself locked in battle with Jack Wilton (Lazenby), the city's most powerful crime lord. Having gained experience as an editor of film trailers and director of television documentaries , Trenchard-Smith established a connection with Golden Harvest producers Raymond Chow and Andre Morgan while making two TV specials, The World of Kung Fu (1973) and Kung Fu Killers (1974). Originally conceived as a Bruce Lee vehicle, the film was reconfigured as Wang's English-language debut following Lee's death; much of the remaining cast and crew had previously worked on Trenchard-Smith's documentary films and on Sandy Harbutt 's outlaw biker film Stone (1974). Its budget was jointly funded by Golden Harvest, Greater Union and the Australian Film Development Commission . [ 6 ] The Man from Hong Kong features multiple large-scale action scenes with elaborate, dangerous stunts . It includes a fight scene between Hung and Ward atop Uluru/Ayers Rock as the film's opening setpiece, several car chases devised by Stone' s Peter Armstrong, hang-gliding sequences performed over Hong Kong and Sydney Harbour by Page — who would achieve further recognition as the stunt coordinator for Mad Max (1979) — and a climactic battle between Wang and Lazenby in which the latter is briefly set on fire, which caused injury to the actor's hand. [ 6 ] The film's theme song , " Sky High " by Jigsaw , became a one-hit wonder during the latter half of 1975. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Although the film was released in a wide array of markets and turned a profit, The Man from Hong Kong was not the blockbuster Trenchard-Smith and the film's producers had hoped it would be upon its initial release; in Australia, its box office performance was limited as a result of its R rating . [ 6 ] Later restored by the Australian National Film and Sound Archive , [ 9 ] it has since garnered a cult following as one of the key films of the Ozploitation cycle and Trenchard-Smith's career, [ 5 ] and was prominently featured in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008). [ 10 ] Plot While working undercover at Ayers Rock , Inspector Bob Taylor of the Australian Federal Narcotics Bureau confronts Win Chan, a Chinese drug courier, and his partner; Chan gives chase, leading to a fight on top of the site during which Taylor eventually bests him, while his partner is killed when his car crashes and explodes after being pursued by a police helicopter. Due to Chan's refusal to cooperate and inability to speak English, the Royal Hong Kong Police Force assigns one of its Special Branch 's finest officers, Inspector Fang Sing Leng — who is not only a polyglot but also a deadly master of kung fu and sharpshooting — to assist Taylor and his partner, Sergeant Morrie Grosse, in extraditing him. Prior to leavin