Ordered, Not Delivered

The other day, I said to a friend that we had to watch "Chinese Hercules". To explain, that's a martial arts film featuring Bolo Yeung, who is a kung fu artist of some regard. Here's how it came up: There was a movie-watching group I was a part of, and the rule was that each movie had to connect to its predecessor by one of the people involved in its production, be it an actor, a crew member or even a caterer.

One of the films we watched was "Shootfighter", a rather risible film which happened to feature Bolo Yeung. I think we may have watched another of his films to get to that one, but I'm not sure. At any rate, I attempted either before "Shootfighter" or after to get "Chinese Hercules" in there, but it was not to be. The voting members of the group decided on something else, and so I would have to hold out hopes of seeing it some other time.

All this time later, I had said that my friend (the driving force of the aforementioned group) and I should watch "Chinese Hercules. Instead, he was into it and volunteered his place for watching it. Grateful, I pressed further to see if we could do this right away. Alas, "Chinese Hercules" would have to wait, but only until that evening. I set myself to more immediate endeavors, but with an eye on the clock. The day moved at a decent pace.

When we got down to it, my friend and his wife welcomed me warmly, but I was nonetheless reminded of what an embarrassing chemical state I had been in when last all three of us were together. It is well to be so humbled. Anyway, the urgent matter of watching "Chinese Hercules" got underway. I don't know if many people watch movies on a big screen TV via Youtube, but that's what we did that day, and it worked all right.

We learned, much to our chagrin, that the trailer which so prominently showed our beloved Bolo Yeung overstated his involvement. Far from being the protagonist or even the antagonist, he was instead the bad guy's henchman, and given few lines. He only appeared at all in the film's latter half. It was not an entirely forgettable affair, but they would have been well served to have forgotten about the frequently morose hero, the less than memorable villain or any of the others and given us more of the misleadingly titular "Chinese Hercules".