Alas, Remo’s adventure ended as quickly as it began.
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) is notable for what it wanted to be as much as what it actually was.
You’ve got an attempted franchise-starter based on the Destroyer pulp novels, which shakes and stirs equal parts Doc Savage and James Bond. It’s got Fred Ward, who’s always game, playing a New York cop who gets “killed” and reborn as a government assassin with a new face and no identity.
But what starts as a gritty Men’s Adventure veers hard into camp, it then ricochets off a Korean martial arts montage and lands somewhere near the semblance of a spy thriller.
And it takes this whole wonderful mess very seriously, even as it serves up Joel Grey in yellowface playing Chiun – Remo’s wizened Korean mentor who can dodge bullets and quote Confucius. The thing drips with yuppy executive overconfidence in creating the next Indiana Jones.
All this to say, Remo tried really hard to be the next big thing, or at least, it tried really hard to convince you it is. -Pop