I’ve seen a fair amount of footage from this film already, since I’ve already seen the film that used a lot of footage from this film: Fire Dragon*. These two were in the same Jackie Chan DVD set that I had found at a thrift store for five bucks ages ago. For this review, I was originally going to do the inverse of what Fire Dragon* did: borrow heavily from that review for this review, since a lot of my thoughts on both films overlap a bit like their footage does. However, my original review doesn’t lend to that easily (unlike this film), so here are some original words from my thumbs on this.

Fantasy Mission Force is kind of like the 1980s Taiwanese equivalent to The Expendables; a bunch of people well equipped in their talents get together to solve a problem for a higher power that will grant them leniency for the crimes they committed with their talents. Sylvester Stallone even pops up here, albeit in picture form as Rocky Balboa. But unlike The Expendables this is more comedic, and like Fire Dragon this is incoherent. There’s a guy here who looks like Elvis. Jackie Chan, made to do this because he owed the director a favor, pops up from time to time for shenanigans. It’s all so strange and yet so engrossing, even if the main way to see this film is muddy VHS rips on discount DVD sets. I can’t hate it, but maybe better picture would help me understand a little more.

I’ve seen a fair amount of footage from this film already, since I’ve already seen the film that used a lot of footage from this film: Fire Dragon*. These two were in the same Jackie Chan DVD set that I had found at a thrift store for five bucks ages ago. For this review, I was originally going to do the inverse of what Fire Dragon* did: borrow heavily from that review for this review, since a lot of my thoughts on both films overlap a bit like their footage does. However, my original review doesn’t lend to that easily (unlike this film), so here are some original words from my thumbs on this.

Fantasy Mission Force is kind of like the 1980s Taiwanese equivalent to The Expendables; a bunch of people well equipped in their talents get together to solve a problem for a higher power that will grant them leniency for the crimes they committed with their talents. Sylvester Stallone even pops up here, albeit in picture form as Rocky Balboa. But unlike The Expendables this is more comedic, and like Fire Dragon this is incoherent. There’s a guy here who looks like Elvis. Jackie Chan, made to do this because he owed the director a favor, pops up from time to time for shenanigans. It’s all so strange and yet so engrossing, even if the main way to see this film is muddy VHS rips on discount DVD sets. I can’t hate it, but maybe better picture would help me understand a little more.

A lot of really awesome stuff in this one. A lot of other stuff too unfortunately.

A lot of really awesome stuff in this one. A lot of other stuff too unfortunately.

really respect that they showed up to work every day and just filmed whatever the fuck they wanted. one guy watched the dirty dozen the night before filming so they shot a riff on that for a day. another guy saw someone fast forward through 5 minutes of the road warrior climax and then they shot something like that for the climax but it’s with nazis instead. they just didn’t give a fuck and I appreciate that very much.

really respect that they showed up to work every day and just filmed whatever the fuck they wanted. one guy watched the dirty dozen the night before filming so they shot a riff on that for a day. another guy saw someone fast forward through 5 minutes of the road warrior climax and then they shot something like that for the climax but it’s with nazis instead. they just didn’t give a fuck and I appreciate that very much.