Speaker 1: All right, Pete, welcome back to the Jay Burton Show.
How you doing, Man?
Speaker 2: Doing good? Man?
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be talking about anything other than
what's in the news today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've it's funny because the Current Events shows, and
I'm sure it's the same for you, they always do
really well. But anytime I say anytime the times that
I do talk about, you know, cars or gun autism
or a random movie, I get dozens of messages of
people saying, oh, thank god, something else, right, something to
keep me from going crazy. Like one of the local
OGC guys sent me a message about that. You know,
I did a recent episode with Bag Beyond on Hail Caesar,
and I feel like it's a common it's a common
feeling where a lot of us just sort of feel
not to say overwhelmed, but just depressed by the news. Right,
it's bad. It was bad two weeks ago, it's probably
gonna be bad two weeks from now, and so yeah,
it's good to get your head above the water. Davin.
I'll let you introduce our subject, because really, before you
recommended me this movie, I never heard anything about it.
I'd never seen it, and so yeah, man, I'll let
you start.
Speaker 3: So this movie is okay. So this is how I
found this movie. I'm old enough to have gone to
video stores, and you go to a video store. You've
seen everything already, and you're like, okay, what is They're
out there and there's this Mickey Rourke movie. And I
liked Mickey Rourke at the time, and it's and it
has all this like Asian stuff on it, and I'm like,
all right, this looks pretty good. Called Y're of the
Dragon came out in nineteen eighty five, and I look
at it and I see, oh, co written by Oliver Stone,
this should be this should be interesting. I liked Salvador
at the time. I thought that was maybe his best picture,
one of the best pictures you ever made. And then
I watch it and I'm like, everything in this movie
is over the top. The violence, the the women, the racism,
everything is just like I'm like, oh, this is this
is the kind of movie that I can watch over
and over again because there's great lines in it, the
actions insane. There are hit men dressed like new wave
artists for no reason whatsoever, and you're and You're like,
they could be they could be hit men. They could
also be in Kajha Googu. I have no clue what's
going on with with the like who did the costuming
on this movie? But the movie is just literally insane
from start to finish. So yeah, I went when I
saw that you and you and Andy talked about out
Angel Heart, which is another that's an insane, insane movie,
and I was like, hey, you know, if you if
you think Mickey Rourke was good in that, check this out.
Speaker 2: And Mickey Rourke is just way over.
Speaker 3: I mean, they just I think they just went to him.
I think Sumino went to him and just said, look,
you can do anything, you can say anything, and we're
going to keep it in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this movie is so like there's this kind of
meme idea of like the eighties B movie, right, you know,
the kind of stuff that's like parodied in like The
Simpsons and stuff like that. And if you actually go
and watch like the old Cannon films stuff like that,
they're not actually that good. They're really boring. The production
value was too low, so like you might see an
old junker, you know, blow up, but really like the
the actual real B movies of the era weren't that good.
This is what you want.
Speaker 2: It to be.
Speaker 1: As you've said, it's an insane movie. And that's part
of why I was so entertained by it. It's because
distantly through the whole thing, like, don't get me wrong,
there's a lot of those kind of classic detective cop
movie tropes in there, but things escalate so quickly and
kind of out of nowhere that for your first viewing,
you're just along for the ride. Like it's a long movie,
it's what two hours fifteen minutes plus or minus. It
does not feel like that it is from go You're
just on for the ride. And I mean you mentioned
Mickey Rourke, who I was talking to one of my
buddies about this movie. Uh, and they were They described
kind of the second Mickey Rourke, right after he went
back to boxing and then tried to get back to
acting as a man made out of oreo filling, which
is a pretty good description. But to see him, you know,
kind of when he was still in his heart throb
era and again just chewing the scenery like there is
no emotion he doesn't give to you. At you know,
an eleven out of ten, it's I mean, it's incredibly
entertaining and so like right off. Like the very beginning
of the movie, you get what you kind of expect from,
you know, a New York cop movie. Right, we're going
through it's it's a funeral, I believe, uh of a
you know, a figure in kind of in Chinatown and
you see one of these. It's kind of funny because
you're the cops in this are almost using the like
New York post euphemisms the whole time, right, the rowdy youths,
you know, break into this store, and the sort of
broader conflict of this is basically, uh, the the Chinese
triads have had a deal with both the Italian mafia
and NYPD to sort of keep crime under wraps. So
there's drugs, there's gambling, but it's kept within a certain range.
And there's a new up and comer, you know in
the Chinese mafia. You know, there's there's a new generation
who's who's going crazy. And to start to this again,
if we're talking about that escalation, it's right off the
rip because you know, you're you're going through this sort
of funeral scene. It's you know, very Chinese, or at
least I guess it's Chinese. And you see this kind
of like old timey New Yorker shopkeeper and you know
he's he's arguing with this kid like, oh, I pay
my protection money to the Italians, not to you, and
the kid just blasts his brains out all over the
store like the ninety second mark.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the whole idea behind it. First of all,
I mean, there's so much we can say about this
because there are Oliver Stone being one of the main
writers on this, and Michael Simino, the director who Michael
Simino directed The Jear Hunter, which was considered to be,
you know, one of the it's considered one of the
greatest movies of all time and I'm pretty sure he
won the Oscar for that.
Speaker 2: And he so he directs.
Speaker 3: This, and you have a Vietnam movie, and then you
have a movie where which I look at this movie
and I'm like, this movie is just like a guy
came home from Vietnam and he's still fighting the war,
but he's fighting it in New York City and he's
fighting it like not against the Vietnamese, but he's just like,
well they look alike, so let's go to war with
the Chinese. But yeah, right off the rip, I mean,
you get this you get a murder, and then you
get of a what looks like a Jewish shopkeeper, and
then like I think, what like half a minute and
a half later, you get another, you get like an assassination.
I mean, it's like it's one thing after another, and
you realize what this up and comer Joey Taye played
by John Loan is doing is is he's creating chaos
and he's doing the you know a lot of what
we see politicians doing. Now what we see a lot
of countries, a lot of regions, emes do where if
they want to take control of something, they think that
what they can do is they can create total chaos
of a situation. And then they and they actually are
directing the chaos or controlling the height of the flame
to use another term. And he thinks that, oh, if
I can do this, I'll be able to take over everything.
And I'll be able now Chinatown, Now this this heroin trade,
this opium trade, belongs to me. And you know, I
mean not to get too far into the movie, but
you know, you get to the point where you can
see in his eyes where he's like, oh, I've lost
control and I don't know what I'm gonna do to
get it back.
Speaker 1: And this is a sort of a background conflict you
see in the movie, is you know, our main villain
kind of butting up against the other crime bosses. There's
a moment we'll get too later where he you know,
has to sort of blow up with the you know, Italians,
which is one of the greatest scenes in the movie. Right,
the Italian mob boss. Uh, he's had a trachey ectomy,
so he's got a little voice box and so it's
like Stephen Hawking talking like a New York mobster U
which but in that uh, you know, earlier in the film,
he's talking to the other kind of Chinese triad leaders
and you know they are You're constantly talking about, you know, oh,
the need for harmony, the need to not rock the boat.
And this kid's just going and guns blazing. So this
assassination is honestly, it's it's such a great like set
piece action scene. So our our main character, Officer White's
just a little on that's like, all right, guys, come on,
like you deficit least something, you know, make him like
a Portoreo we called him Blanco or something.
Speaker 3: Well, and then we find out he's a pollock has
changed his name, so yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But so he's meeting with his love interest, this
Chinese American reporter who primarily reports on Chinese issues for
an English language magazine.
Speaker 3: By the way, by the way, let me in short
up for a second. Her acting is horrible. It's the
worst part of the movie is her acting. Yes, yes,
she's a madl she she was a model.
Speaker 2: They brought her in.
Speaker 1: We know why she's there, Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I get the feeling just from listening to her. She
didn't go to Juilliard. But this scene so and honestly,
it really kind of reminded me of the nightclub shootout
in Temple of Doom, Right, Obviously that's a different style
of movie, but it is similarly over the top. So
these two kids come in with Uzzi's, which, by the way,
eighties crime uzzi are the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 2: They really are. Man, That's why I always wanted one.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. It's the same thing with a mac ten,
where it's like, okay, obviously a mac ten is way
worse than an oozy, but it's the same like part
of my brain that's like, yeah, I want to look
like an eighties new wave Chinese hitman who's fourteen, I
don't know, whatever, it's cool. And they just os down
this entire restaurant with bullets to assassinate one guy. And
they're like blasting people in the restaurant, like would we
hear the like the gunshots. This random woman in the
background like rows up her arms in the air and
we just see the squibs like stitching across her body.
She almost gets cut in half. And so you know,
Mickey Rourke leaps into action, right he starts returning fire
in this restaurant. Uh shoots one of them and then
wrestles another one down the stairs. So they're wrestling down
the stairs the oozy it just a ripping off into
the ceiling and one of these kids ends up shooting
themselves in the foot, so you know, they escape. And
I can't care if it's right before right after, but
oh it's right after because we see another great Stock
character right the police chief, which I mean, this is
like something out of Lethal Weapon, which I realized, you know,
that was less of a kind of trope at the time.
This is like, this is the New York cop movie
of your dreams. The best way to describe.
Speaker 2: It, Yeah, the.
Speaker 3: Captain who does you have the captain who wants to
keep his cool, but he also has Mickey Rourke's like
childhood friend there who's not his not his boss.
Speaker 2: But a colleague.
Speaker 3: I think he never really makes it clear exactly what
they are other than like childhood friends. And it seems
like the captain is the one who is like, yeah,
I'm just I mean to us leath the web and
I'm too old for this shit. I don't want to
deal with this. We these people police themselves. We will
kick ass on the gangs if things get out of
hand down there, but we leave the gambling alone, we'll
leave the drugs alone, we leave everything alone, you know.
And it's one of those things that you can make
political because you look at it now and you're like, yeah,
this is just another example of importing another group of
people into your country who are going to start doing
things that their way and they're going to get power.
I mean, at one point they say, Joey Taye gives
one hundred Joonae's one hundred thousand dollars a year to
the mayor, and it's like, okay, well, you bring this
captain in who wants to kick ass on the Chinese
and isn't just kicking ass on the gangs but the
young kids. But he's kicking ass on gambling and every
and anything else they have. He's turn he's upsetting the
apple cart while Joey's upsetting the apple cart. So you
have two these two forces that are that are hitting
each other causing chaos, and it's like, okay, well that's
how you get King Squibbs. You know, you get people
cut in half by a fucking oozy in a restaurant.
Speaker 2: It's just I mean.
Speaker 3: It's but you're right, the the amount of tropes as
far as like NYPD, like the first Like in the
first scene when when Tracy is trying to interview the
captain on the on the the horse, that guy is
a cop in like every eighties movie there, I mean,
there's it's like they couldn't they couldn't like pick somebody else.
It had to be that one guy who was just
like gonna speak in euphemisms, no comment, We're you know,
we're just here to to keep the peace and help
whenever we can. And then you know, Stanley comes in
and it's just like yeah, we're just I'm I'm just
gonna blow this place up. And the great scene is
when he says, what does he say about He's addressing
all the cops, all the uniformed officers, and he said,
if you if I hear any of you on the take,
you know I'm gonna hit you. I'm gonna punge you
in the mouth. And and he says what if and
the woman say she's one of the female cops goes,
what if it's a woman.
Speaker 2: He goes, well, then she better bend over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just way over.
Speaker 3: I mean, everything in this movie is just like they
just told Mickey Rourke fucking act, Like, take the stereotype
New Yorker, times it by ten and make him a
New York police captain that wants to kill every Chinese
person he meets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's basically that's basically the movie. So another
one of the ongoing plots is that, uh, you know,
Mickey Rourke has his wife who is seemingly grew up
in the same neighborhood as him, and his childhood best
friend that becomes relevant later in the film. They're they're
trying for a baby. He's obsessed with the job. You know,
he missed he missed the window. She's real mad at him.
We also see some again this movie moves at like
one hundred miles an hour, so that we see that
he's not helping out around the house. Right, everything's run down.
When we meet her, his wife is like rebuilding a
washing machine, you know, on the kitchen floor, and so
they have a they have a fight. Of course, you know,
their relationship obviously goes south over the course of this film.
But uh, when we we sort of you know, get
back kind of into the action, right, Obviously, we have
this tension between you know, Mickey Rourke's character, Officer White,
who basically says, you know, this is all in the
Chinese triad. The higher ups are saying, like, what are
you talking about. This is just some youth gang you know,
going crazy, and you know, to sort of sort of
wage I guess you could say, kind of a gorilla
war campaign. He you know, pulls this reporter into it
to try and you know, expose this story. But as
part of this he realizes, well, I'm gonna need I'm
gonna need a Chinese guy to go in undercover, right
because they'll all know me. We need to find someone
who you know, isn't known as a cop. So they
go to the police academy and they pick out this kid.
This is his name, uh, Harry right, Harry Young. Isn't
that his name? I think yeah, uh or something like that.
It's it's a fake name. He even says, like, my
Chinese name's too complicated. And you know, they pick him up.
He's not even a full police officer yet. So one
of my and I figured you and I would have
an interesting conversation about this one. The scene where they
meet this kid is at the qualification range where you
see the greatest old timey Hollywood like pistol shooting. You
can imagine.
Speaker 3: It's just so it's so good when they're well. Another
thing is is I love how they they shot it
to go down the line and he's literally like a
head shorter than everyone else. And so you have all
these guys who are there and they're all, you know,
they're like, I guess proto tactical, because police weren't really
tactical back then.
Speaker 2: That that that came much later. And then they show
him shooting the target.
Speaker 3: He's nowhere near the nowhere near the center of the target.
It's like, oh, we're gonna throw this guy out of
the street. And it's just I mean, it's it was
at least the other movie they did this where they
went into the police academy was The Untouchables went at
Andy Garcia out of the police academy and everything.
Speaker 1: I meant, weapons got another one, right, very famous range scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah, and so Andy gah Andy Garcia comes in.
But at least he can shoot. I mean, you knew
that they were. And when they're driving in the car,
when they pick this kid up and they tell him
what he's gonna be doing, his reaction is just as bad.
He doesn't care that this guy is a police captain.
I mean, the way they're talking to each other is
just it's just like it's like Samino told them, oh,
just like talk to each other like, I mean, be
as belligerent to each other as possible.
Speaker 1: Well and to that point, like his objections are so
hilarious because he's like, all, I still have a part
time job that you want me to quit my job,
like I'm sending money back home, like you think I
could just quit And it's just like, yeah, quit your
job tomorrow. You work for us. But the sidebar and
It's kind of funny because this movie has a very
very slight big leaf where it's like, oh, Officer White
had to learn to not be racist a little bit.
But it's it's a really really little thick leaf because
when they're driving around, they've got this young kid driving
and he is a horrible driver in the middle of the.
Speaker 2: Left lane, stay in the left lane, and these guys.
Speaker 1: Are making fun of him for it the whole time,
and he's getting more and more mad. It's just like
genuinely a ridiculous situation. Uh So, in the background, while
all this is happening, the two shooters right, both of
whom have been been wounded in this assassination attempt, are
are kind of hold up in a safe house, and
we hear Officer White even say like, look, if they're wounded,
it's gonna be real hard to hide. You know, they'll
show up in hospital or something. And we see a
scene where are our main villain, right, Johnny Tye comes in,
you know, offers these guys cigarettes.
Speaker 2: Joey type be respectful.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'll be honest. This isn't me making a point.
Names and faces are tough in this movie. That's all
I'll say what you what.
Speaker 2: Is you sex me? Earlier? He sexed me.
Speaker 3: My biggest complaint with this movie is I can't tell
half the cast apart.
Speaker 1: What's true, because what would happen is there be a
dramatic reveal where like the camera wood pan and be like,
oh it's him, there's a sting and I'm sitting at it.
H'm like, we do we know who that is? Is
that him? Or just It doesn't help that even the
main romantic lead has a very androgynous haircut, so unless
it's a close up, you're kind of guessing based on
contact of who anyone is.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And obviously there are some characters who are much more
visually distinct than others. But also the fact that everyone's,
especially the criminals, are dressed like lunatics at all moments, right,
it's actually pretty hard to tell. So point is when
when Ty comes in, obviously he gives these guys cigarettes,
ask how they're doing, and then you know, brings in
a guy to shoot them. Is the guy who shot
them a notable person or is he just the guy
who pulled the trigger Because I couldn't remember if that
was or I couldn't tell if that was another character
or not.
Speaker 3: I think that the if I remember the original VCR
had subtitles on that point, and he was like a
new guy, and they were, okay, gotta, we gotta, you know,
break him in, so you're gonna kill these two guys,
and that's.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Very he's very hesitant when he's doing it. He doesn't
want to do what you can tell. He's not like
he's he hasn't killed anybody yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, subtitles are one hundred percent necessary for this movie
because there's probably like thirty percent of it that's in Chinese,
and hypothetically, if you watched the movie through an illegitimate source,
your subtitles might not have been great. Speaking from experience,
so there are several parts of this movie where I'm like,
I feel like I got what happened. But uh so, Yeah,
obviously we see the you know, just ties, absolute absolute
ruthlessness there, and later when we kind of pick up
with with Officer White, he's he's discovered their bodies and
their bodies have been dumped in like a noodle factory.
It's super gross.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a I think they said it was a
soybean that or something like that.
Speaker 2: Where Yeah, right ahead? Soybeans where yeah?
Speaker 3: So? And they said something like, oh, we wouldn't. I'm
surprised we discovered it. They could have gotten lost down
there forever. It's like, what the hell's going on in Shine?
It's like, what are you talking about? You're supposed to
be making food down there? How do you have bodies
in a that you're not gonna know that? It's like
they're good to the top. Well, this is one of
my favorite background characters, is the old Chinese guy who
discovered these He's just while the while they're doing the examination,
while you know, the police officers, like it was kind
of like examining these bodies. And again, as we mentioned before,
the violence is crazy over the top, Like these guys
have like bullet holes in their head. One of the
weird ones is a lot of people get shot through
the cheek in this movie, Yeah, which is yeah, it's
you know it, it.
Speaker 1: Is what it is. But he's just going on about
how young people these days don't have no respect and
how they don't think, like no interruption. He's just rattling
off like five minutes.
Speaker 3: It's hilarious, and Stanley finally goes, you're he says, you're
a good man. There should be more like you, and
he turns around and just goes bullshit, It's like what
And Stanley just looks at him, like what the hell
is going on here? He says he's been working down
there for forty years. I mean that is to bring
it back. You're talking about a fucking this is not
a civilization. This is not what what have you imported?
What have you allowed to come here?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And like one thing that Joey says at one point
is extortion and bribery when it comes to the Chinese
is a thousand years? Is a thousand years of business?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And yeah, so, oh, where do you want to go
from there? I mean there's a there's a whole lot more.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, in the kind of your secondary plot, our main
character has, you know, to sort of patch things up
with the misses h you know, says, you know what,
like we'll go out to a fancy restaurant, right and
this restaurant is seemingly owned by you, Joey Tye, or
at least he's in there, and so he basically sits down.
He's late for a date with his wife. Sees Joey
tye and just goes apihit. He just starts punching him
and as part of that, a pack of cigarettes is
I think he offers in a cigarette before the you know,
the fight breaks out and he realizes that's the same
brand that the guys in the soyvat had, you know,
so he's sort of starting to build the connection there,
and you know, that seems funny in its own right.
But when he comes back, you know, his wife is
stormed out, she's gone. He comes back to their place
and all these clothes are just out in the front yard.
She's done with him. So he basically gets drunk, drives
down the street, finds this reporter. It just starts sexually
harassing her from a moving car. She invites him back
to her place. He comes over. They like kiss for
a little bit, and she's like, yeah, I can't do this.
I've got my uh, you know, I always just you know,
making love with my boyfriend all day. He just looses it,
right because this fake boyfriend we later find out he's fake,
is a lawyer, and he starts going off about lawyers,
how there everything wrong with society. She gets mad, He
gets mad, He leaves, walks out the door, walks back
in the door, walks in, slaps her in the face
like four times, and then you know they go to
bed together. And again, this is what I'm talking about,
where this movie it never slows down and it's like
zero to sixty in no no time flat.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the that whole the whole dynamic with the uh
the Chinese reporter is is probably you know, if I
wasn't so immune to charges of racism and stuff like that,
I would just say that's almost over the top thing
in the whole movie, because it's like, I mean.
Speaker 2: She's she's literal. He's literally just.
Speaker 3: Treating her like a Vietnamese prostitute the whole time, the
whole movie. And it's like and I think even she
even says that at one point, she says, makes a
comment about him not still not being in Vietnam. You know,
I'm not I'm not a I'm not a hooker in
in Vietnam and everything, and it's just like you're looking
at this dynamic, and the dynamic is basically he's using her.
When she says anything that insults him, he just absolutely
loses it. And then what Leo like later he finds
out that she's been hurt. And he's not mad that
she got hurt. He's mad that like a piece of
my property you messed with, Like you messed with a
tool that I'm using for my job, and now it's
like I'm not gonna be able to use this tool anymore.
Speaker 2: He's so insane.
Speaker 3: It's just you realize, like you start to realize at
one point, I'll we'll talk about that that point. There's
a there's a marker in the movie that shows where
he like like where everything starts escalating in his mind. So, yeah,
the the Chinese Reporter is just honestly the most offensive
character in the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Well, and there's a there's a seed, which again is
so over the top. It's like the second time he
ends up in her place where she's like, you know,
oh you're you know, you're a racist, and he gets
like kind of offended for a little bit. But and
he's like, yeah, I hated you in Vietnam. I hated
And he's not talking about her, he is talking about Charlie.
We'll keep it at that, right, So and he goes
on this insane rant where he's like, yeah, I hated
you on TV. I hated the first time I heard you.
I hated the first time I saw you. It's the
most like insane, over the top rant possible, and she's
kind of bothered but also not really which you know,
if you've been around right wing people before, you will
have seen this dynamic right as a white man would
have said, never ask a white nationalist the race of
his girlfriend. Uh. But it is not only in that
dynamic over the top, but there are other moments will
get too, kind of closer to the end of the film,
where it's just for rating her constantly. Uh So there's
sort of a uh, the one time we really leave. Oh, actually,
I guess first we have to have this. This his uh,
the conversation with the Italian mobs guy with you know,
Joey Tie and basically what they're he is with, you know,
kind of the other members of the Chinese mafia. He
is on paper sort of a junior partner. But through
this conversation and his actions of the film, we realize
what's going on here. Right He wants to take over
and basically they're renegotiating a deal between these Italian guys
and an earlier generation of you know, kind of triad
guys and you know, tis strong arming them. The Italian guy.
So one of the kind of background henchmen is this
sort of like like, h he looks like a character
from a black exploitation film, right, he's just kind of
ties hired muscle, but he's got like an afro. He
dresses kind of like a pimp. He's got a bunch
of rings on. And uh, you'll have to watch it
for yourself. I can't say this on YouTube, but the
Italian guys refer to him is equally over the top.
But as I said earlier, the mobster he has the
voice box right the trachyectomy, and I think that's how
you say it.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But point is, it's just like the best gangster speech
ever delivered through a little like speak and spell. It's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The uh, the having to include the Italians is really
is really important if you're gonna talk about New York,
because maybe a lot of people don't understand the geography
of New York. But the Chinese are in Chinatown and
Canal Street runs across across Manhattan Island and Mott Street
and Chinatown are on the south side of the island,
just right over Mott Street. On the other side of
Mott Street is little Italy Carmine Street. Places like that.
I mean, they're right next to each other. There's just
one big avenue separating them. So they have to have
a if they're going to be able to do business,
there has to be some kind of truth. There has
to be some kind of some kind of understanding. And
if you're going to say, well, we had this, you know,
we've had this agreement with you talking to the Italian
mob for X amount of years and really X amount
of decades, and now I'm changing it, and you're going
to have the kind of attitude that Joey Tade has
that he knows more than them. He's the young guy.
He understands everything. You're going to expect to. You're going
to expect an Italian guy, even one who's had a
tracheotomy or something. I don't even know what that is, Yea,
even a guy with that, he's going to you're going
to hear it. And especially after that the assassination at
the beginning of that Jewish business store owner, You're you're
basically taking out that's one stream of income gone now
and you have to be they're going to see that
this is the Italians aren't stupid enough to think that
that was just gangs. They're going to know something's going on.
So that's how they went into that meeting. They went
into that meeting that knowing that someone's making a move.
And you know, it was when I think once he
starts seeing the way Joey Tie talks and speaks to them,
that yeah, this is uh, this is a guy who's
basically pulling the strings right now.
Speaker 1: So next we have kind of of a diversion right
where in order to secure his supply, Thy needs to
go back to Thailand, which is where this heroin is
coming from. There are you know, triad figures there who
he has, you know, deal with. And then there's also
this sort of like group of gorillas. It's never explicitly
said you know who they are. Apparently they were fighting
with the Burmese. Maybe we can ask Carl Dahl who
they're supposed to be. I don't know, jungle Asians who
hate the Burmese, right, But point is, so he goes
back to Thailand. He's got his hired muscle with him,
which again it's a very funny like it's never explicitly
drawn attention to. But seeing this sort of like stereotypical
New York pimp walking through like rice patties in the
middle of nowhere is really funny. So he goes back
and he meets with this guy called It's white Powder Tow.
Wh Yeah. Uh, look, man, I'm American enough that any
Asian name, I'm lucky to get half of it. But
he goes back right to sort of work on his
deal with with this guy, at least so we think.
So he's meeting with one of his associates, meets up
with Ma and then we see, you know, he says, hey,
you know, let's meet for dinner, and then the film
moves on. They're driving in this kind of like absurd
rickety four by four out to the middle of nowhere,
him and his kind of jive muscle like slumped in
the seat next to him. They're going around like like
water buffalo and stuff, and they get out to this
rebel camp out in the middle of nowhere. You later
find out it's like five hundred miles away from you know,
the airport, and you know, apparently these two guys have history.
They both served under the same general, right, the general
we see who is senile and just on a constant
drip of heroin, right, his mind is basically gone.
Speaker 2: And it disturbing too. Yeah, No, it's definitely. It was
very disturbed.
Speaker 3: Very That's when you start seeing the deer Hunter, like
the disturbing parts of the Deer Hunter and the jungle
kind of stuff come out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know if you notice, he as like
completely black teeth, like they're just rotted out of his head.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so you know, he sits down across from this
general and you know they're talking business. They're sort of negotiating,
you know, back and forth over the details of Obviously
the the general wants more money. He says, you know what,
will we'll refine it to an additional stage for you
ship you refined product. You're gonna have to pay for it. Uh,
you know, Tie disagrees, and again this kind of repeated
you know motif of basically you know, being for or
being kind of encouraged to kill someone to prove a point.
The General brings out you know that this mentor and
says like all right, like you know, you've got to
shoot him. He passes the gun down the desk and obviously,
you know tie Is has been shown to be completely
and totally ruthless, but we see a rare moment of
conscience where he basics say is like, no, I'm not
gonna do it, but I'll pay you five grand for him, right,
I'll buy him. And you know, after that the negotiations
kind of go south. He basically says like, look like
you're insignificant. I've got you know, white powder, mom, what
what do I need you? And he reaches into his back,
pulls out a box and pulls out white powder mods
ahead by the hair and like the rows it down
the table.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Actually, one other thing speaking to this movie, going from
from like zero to sixty. When he refuses to shoot him,
the General's like, okay, well we don't need to waste
a bullet on him. So they tie him to a
stick in the back and one of his goons has
like a tree branch and he's about ready to smash
his head in with a stick. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The it just goes to show that he.
Speaker 3: At that point, anyone who really knows anything about organized
crime government same thing, He's so out of control that
there's no way he's gonna be able to pull this
back in. He's trying to kill He's trying to consolidate
everything to himself, and he as smart as he is,
he just you can't do that with that culture. You know,
it's like people who it's like getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Okay,
Saddam Hussein kept that country basically from like evolving into
people could say whatever, Oh his kids went around doing
this and doing that. Okay, maybe I don't know ever
really seen any evidence of that. It could be legend,
it could be if they were I hope they're burned
in hell. If they were doing that, I hope they're
burn it in hell. But you have to have a
certain order in order for certain cultures to be able
to exist and to be to be prosperous. I mean,
look at Singapore. If Singapore wasn't the most totalitary, one
of the most totalitarian countries on the planet, they would
devolve into chaos overnight. You have Chinese and Japanese. I mean,
you have all these Asian groups that absolutely hate each other.
There is no better racism on the planet than the
racism between Asian groups. They absolutely cannot stand each other.
And you just see Joey is just devolving into this.
He thinks that he's going to be able to rule
this all by himself with a couple of gangs on
the street. He doesn't have any plans. He doesn't, there
is no It's very much like a lot of politicians
you see nowadays. They get things rolling, but they don't
have an end Like they think they have an endgame,
but the endgame is cannot be had the way they're
playing it. And yeah, I think that's why when Joey
gets back to New York, I think you see it
a sense of urgency there, a sense of.
Speaker 2: He's not the calm.
Speaker 3: Guy he is the first half of the movie before
he goes to Siloight.
Speaker 1: And one of the scenes that I forgot to mention
that is important is that when Joey is sitting down
with the Italians, our main character, right Mickey Rourke, has
successfully gotten the ability to wire tap it. So they're
listening it and the higher ups are like, there's nothing
in this conversation. They didn't say anything illegal. They're speaking
in code. There's nothing here, right, You're just making it up.
So you know, of course, when he gets back, the
pressure's mounted. You know, the higher ups are saying telling
him to drop it, he's unwilling to and so, as
you know, obviously he's been seeing this Chinese reporter even
though his wife kind of kicked him out. When they finally,
you know, meet back up right, she basically says, like,
I'm done. You know, you're running around with a woman
who's ten years younger. I don't have much time. I
can't afford to waste it on you. And lest you
think that this is going to be a scene where
two characters talk without something interesting happening, she goes into
the bathroom. He's talking to her through the door. She's crying,
and then all of a sudden more sort of random
New wave Asians kick down the door with the garroats
and grab Mickey Rourke, grab his wife, very brutally kill
his wife. He you know, fights one of them off,
shoots him, you know, goes into the drawer, picks out
a gun, chases him out the front door, and shoots
him through the rear glass. Like he sees brains all
over the front and his childhood best friend apparently lives
next door. He runs out with a shotgun, right and
as they're chasing down this little side street, the f body,
the f body Kmaro. I think hits the end of
the block. It just erupts into an explosion. He can
pull on eighties car explosion.
Speaker 3: And sorry well and Mackey Rourke like runs to the explosions.
It pulled the body out while his while his friend
is like Stanley, Stanley, stop, you can't what are you
doing because he's wasting what you can do. So he's evidence,
he's evidence.
Speaker 1: And again there are multiple parts like this movie's not
a comedy, like there's not a lot of jokes in
it per se, but it is really funny. And one
of the funniest shots is, you know, he's dragging the
body over and he's like bent over and picks himself
up out of the bottom of the shot. He's like smoking,
covered in soot, like his jackets on fire. It's just
like if the movie were like at a slightly different tone,
it would be like roll out of your seat hilarious.
Like it's a very funny movie.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: One thing I noticed about that scene where he goes
to talk to his wife and they both end up
getting attacked and she ends up getting friggin her throat slit.
He's wearing his he's wearing his military jacket and he
wears his military jacket for the rest of the movie.
It's almost like a signal that like he's going now
it's war. It's like you it's just gonna be a
battle from here on out. And I thought that was
something I picked up on just I mean, I've probably
seen the movie ten times. I just picked up on
that this last time because I was watching. You know,
we're gonna do this, So I was watching it for
little things to see if there was anything I could
pick up on. But another thing in this movie, and
I will say this because this movie was made in
It was released in nineteen eighty five, which means it
was made in eighty three or eighty four. The Chinese.
They keep mentioning their friends in Toronto. So if you
think Canada was just invaded by Chinese in the last
ten years, I think again, they're basically telling you in
this movie forty years ago that yeah, yeah, Chinese are
already taking over Canada. The Chinese are already in Canada.
Speaker 1: The next scene in the nightclub is probably the best
scene in the movie. It's such an awesome scene because obviously,
you know, as you've said, and I did pick out
that he was wearing his military jacket, because when he's
sitting down talking to his wife, you have a chance
to actually look at him, and obviously it's not you know,
it's not his police uniform, it's not his long kind
of detective's overcoat. So he's mad, right, he's going after
this guy. So he goes into this night club and again,
as we've said, this is full on new wave. We've
got like dyed hair, crazy makeup, people wearing like fishnets.
And he just walks in and starts beating the hell
out of him, and he drags him into a bathroom.
You know, there's bouncers behind him, there's other kind of
you know, criminals following him in there, and in a
very kind of what would be a stock action movie moment,
he's punching him through stall doors in the bathroom. But
every single stall has like four people in it, all
doing drugs. It's like every time he punches him through
a door, it's like some girl like snorting coke, and
there's like a guy in a suit like pulling his
pants up. Like the every it's there's like four stalls
and you know, eventually like more people come in. Someone
pulls out a gun. It's these two girls, I think,
you know his one of the other l I think
is running in to provide back up. He gets gutshot,
but you know, our main character basically chases them. They
start booking it out of there. At the club, everything's
going crazy, like the music's pounding. He's chasing them through
New York. They're you're trading bullets. And he just blasts
this woman like she gets basically like hit by a car,
spun around. She's lying out like on the on the pavement,
breathing her last and he just looks over at her
and I don't know the exact line, but he basically
is like tells her like you're gonna die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, You're gonna die, honey. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so incredibly like it's it's very cold. And I
think it's safe to say that Mickey Rooke's character is
not what we would define as a good person in
this movie, but it is super entertaining.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, the the whole thing with him is is
that it's just he's kind of if he's kind of
the idea of the cop that if you have like
a an area of the city that has been absolutely
taken over and is being run by a by a mob.
He's the kind of guy who you would want to
go in there and he could get the job done.
You know, the problem is is that it's just decades
and decades and decades of people not doing anything. So
nobody wants The police don't want to do anything, the
mayor doesn't want to do anything, the chief of police
doesn't want to do anything. So he's I mean, he's
making this up as he goes along. He doesn't really
have any idea what he's doing. He's he's basically doing
Like I said earlier, he's basically doing what Joey's doing
is he's trying to create as much chaos as he
possibly can, and he thinks if he creates enough chaos,
it will be able to bring him down. And yeah,
and I guess, uh. Shortly after this is the he
figures This is when Joey figures out that there's a
wire there, and he lines up everybody who works in
the UH, in the restaurant, in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, if you're wondering the exact moment
when I texted you, it was during this lineup, because
I'm like, I know it's like, obviously I know that,
like this kid they pulled out who isn't on screen, Munch,
he's one of the guys in the restaurant. But when
they're lining him up until the camera focuses, I was like,
I mean, it beats me. I don't know which one
of them ass the wire.
Speaker 3: Up, and you know it just you see at that
point that Harry cannot he's not ready for the street,
he's not ready for undercover. He can't keep as cool.
It's obvious who. It's obvious who the outsider is. It's
obvious who who was who the who's planted the bug?
And so after that you see Harry he's leaving the
restaurant that they're in and he's walking across the street
and you see someone run up behind him. Now I
know you're not really good with Chinese faces, but did
you notice who the who ran up and shot Harry was? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't, of course not.
Speaker 2: It was that kid who they paige the two kids
in the beginning.
Speaker 3: Now he's like, now he's like a full floor. I've
killed two people. Now I can now I can go
kill a cop basically, and he shoots him in the
I mean he shoots him in the face like a
couple of times. He shoots him like it might be
a through and through through the cheeks, both cheeks, but
I mean, it's just fucked up. And like we find
out that Stanley is just like right down the street
because that's where they're running the wire from and everything,
and he runs up to get the UH to get
the information from him because it turns out that Harry's
UH found out where how the uh the opium the
heroine's coming in well.
Speaker 1: And this is and I forgot to mention this, one
of the best background characters in this whole film is
the person translating what they're hearing over the wire. It's
two nuns, one of whom is Chinese. The other one's
like a ninety year old woman, and the way we're
introduced to her is she's just harassing Mickey Rourke for
eating meat and then he's like, like, what you're old,
You're gonna die soon, and she just rattles off like
all of her like her blood pressure, her hemoglobin, like
all this stuff. Just a very funny background character. And
every time they're on the and it's you know, like
you've seen this scene before where it's the hard boiled detectives.
The signal cuts in there like gosh, shit, and then
he looks over to the sorry sister but she obviously
the very dragic moment, but she is there reading last rites. Well,
he's trying to get you know, from this from this
guy with the wire, you know, basically you know the
information like what boat is the heroine coming in on?
So in between I should have mentioned this. I saw
this movie like I finished it, you know, a couple
hours ago, so to be fair, I have a few
things out of order. But we find out that again
you know, White has been using this Chinese reporter, and
the moment where she's finally done with him is she
comes back to her place after he's invited himself over
and realizes that he has set up a full like
investigation in her house, Like there's other people she doesn't know,
including this kid who is you know, killed for wearing
the wire another kind of like old timey New York
cop and they have a massive blowout where she kicks
him out. But one of the funniest interactions is an
interaction between you know him and the kid where he's
basically you can't treat her like that, Like she's her
family were aristocrats, Like she's not gonna put up with that.
Then he decides to quit. He's like, you you can't
just keep calling me like Harry the Chinaman. Apparently that
doesn't like Rourke kind of gets him back on side again.
This movie is just constant racism throughout the whole thing.
The point is so for in his his dying words,
he understands like, Okay, this is where you know, this
is the ship that it's coming in on. And his
Chinese girlfriend has kicked him out. But because she is
in on the investigation, she goes after, she goes after Johnny, right,
she knows extra information, and so she's bugging him. He's
trying to get into this, you know Mercedes, and she's like,
why were you in Thailand? Do you know anything about
white powder? Ma? And he basically says like, oh, I
know your sources. I'll speak to legal. And what he
actually does is send a bunch of thugs over to
you know, rough her up, right, And that goes back
to what we were talking about earlier, right where you know,
White is more upset that his ability to use her
as part of this investigation has been harmed than the
fact that this woman has been like, you know, pretty
savagely abused, which again, right, like Mickey, he's playing a
psycho in this. Actually one thing we forgot speaking of
Mickey Rourke chewing the scenery, is his ex wife's funeral.
Speaker 3: It was so that part is so over the top, Okay,
So I don't know, it's one of the parts of
the movie that like bothers me, not like it's like
I wouldn't have done it. Where he's there trying to
grieve and the Chinese reporter is like there at the door,
like trying to report on what's happening, but also looking
at him grieving and having being sort of upset that
he's grieving over someone that he's you know, over his
wife and someone he's known since they were like little kids.
And she yeah that, like I said, she's like my
least favorite character in the movie, and at that point
she is exceptionally annoying, and it's just like, yeah, can
we just please Joey kill her any please, let's get
her out of the way.
Speaker 1: So we're building to write this big crescendo, write the showdown,
and he goes and talks to the port authority. They're
having none of it, not interested. They're like, what do
you want me to do? You're search an entire containership.
We don't have the time, you don't have a living
witness to attest to this. So, you know, pound sand
and so basically with no real support, Mickey Rourke goes
in and this is not he is not looking to
a rest anyone here. He is looking to kill Joey
and so again more over the top like craziness. Joey's
driving in right, you know, we see him talking to
some other guys.
Speaker 2: When he gets in the car, pimp with his pimp buddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And as he goes to like circle of
block or something, me Rourke gets into like a sixty
mile an hour head on collision, comes out with a gun,
tells the you know, the pimp to beat it, and
then they get into a fight. Someone's hand gets blown open,
like right through the middle of the pall the gore
in this. If you're the kind of psycho that you
know is into that is really good. Like they're doing
good practical effects in this. And they just start he
just starts chasing him. They're going down train tracks and
I don't want to say it's the most over the
top moment in the movie, but it's gotta be pretty
close the climax the way that this fight concludes. Do
you want to describe it, Pete.
Speaker 3: Well, first they start, Joey starts trying to drive across
a train bridge, of course, and Mickey Rourke is chasing
behind him, and of course the train starts coming so
that he has to back all the way up, and
then he jumps out of the car. They jump out
of the car, and now Joey starts running across the bridge.
Mickey Rourke is shooting now with his left hand because
he just had his right hand shot all the way through.
And they're just shooting at each other, and they're screaming
at each other, and they're like they're com like they've
gone fucking native. They're just like they're not even human anymore,
the way they're screaming at each other. And you know,
finally he gets the better of Joey even though he's
been shot. And then I mean, did you expect Joey
to do exactly what he did? Oh, by the way,
Mickey Rourke of course has a desert eagle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, of course it's it's like, were you carrying that?
Speaker 2: What are you doing here?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, me very serious green berets. When they plan
a bombing of Trump Tower and a tesla full of fireworks,
they use Desert eagles. So I'll have, you know, a
very serious gun because he must have got that from
Joey tie. Because that's when they're standing, they're like on
their knees looking at each other, and Joey asked for
his gun because he's had a bullet, and Joey just
puts it under his chin and blows the top of
his fucking head off. And yeah, and then you we
see that they're doing the same thing that they always
do in Shinatown. They're having a walking they're having their
kind of funeral thing where they have his sort right
back to the beginning of the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just exactly the way the film started. And
the reporter is they are covering it and fucking Stanley
shows up, runs into the fucking crowd of people and
just we have to arrest these people.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's just losing.
Speaker 3: His shit, and they just start beating the living hell
out of.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like the freaking reporter like finally I think she we
were supposed to believe that she tore everybody off of
him while he's on the ground, and you know they
they walk away together off into the rising sunset.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: And another thing is like her last line is Stanley,
you're really cracked. It's just such a terrible, like B
movie kind of eighties line, which is another reason why, God,
I hate her character so much. But I mean, her
character is important buld plot. But do you have something
on the ending there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, obviously this is this is a really
fun movie, and we talked about a lot of what
happened there. It's things that we didn't just for the
sake of time. And also, like you know, if you
wanted to understand the plot of the movie in over
an hour, watch the movie, you know, don't listen to
two guys talking about it. But obviously you have the
element that this is this is cyclical, right, Chinatown is
still there. You know that the forces that created you know,
this whole situation are still there. Yeah, this this guy,
you know, Ty, he burned out. But it's just like that,
like it is cyclical. You know, despite all of Mickey
Rourke's efforts, nothing systemic.
Speaker 3: Somebody's saying somebody's taking over the hope that the opium
is still going to be coming in, the girls are
still going to be prostituted, and the gambling is going
to continue.
Speaker 1: Nothing is going to change, And apparently there is no
stronger bond between a mentally unhinged racist and his non
white girlfriend.