Queen's Ransom (HK 1976)

Rating: *
Review Date: 11/24/00
Cast: George Lazenby, Jimmy Wang Yu, Angela Mao, Bolo Yeung

Boring... Another odd Hong Kong film starring Aussie George Lazenby - how strange. It's 1975 and Cambodian refugees from the French Indo-China war are flooding into Hong Kong. Also, Queen Elizabeth is coming to Hong Kong for a visit and the Royal Hong Kong Police force have their hands full trying to keep the peace. With all of the chaos, a group of terrorists lead by IRA extremist George Lazenby decide that it's a perfect time to assassinate the queen. However, it turns out that the assassination attempt is just a diversion from their real goal, which is to steal some Cambodian gold that's in the custody of princess Angela Mao. Good grief.

First of all, why is Angela Mao in this film?!? She literally has nothing to do except look pretty, and only towards the end does she pick up a gun and exchange a few unconvincing blows with George Lazenby. What a sad waste of talent. It's not an awful movie - it's just dreadfully dull. And about every five minutes, for no reason at all a loud electronic alarm sound goes off in the film. Huh?!? Even Angela Mao fans should pass this one up.