(There Are Some Spoilers) In all the world you couldn't find a more unscrupulous unprincipled and sleazy individual as the "Evil" Mr. Go, James Mason, an international power broker working out of his home base in Hong Kong.
Mr.Go works in concert with the equally "Evil" and corrupt Japanese banker Ito Suzki, King Hu, who both would even sell their own mothers out, if the price was right, to the highest bidder. Having US weapons expert Robert Bannister,Peter Lyn Hayes, rescued from a plane that was shot down and crashed in Communist China Mr. Go wants to get information on the Side-Winder Laser Beam that the USA has perfected that would not only make nuclear war obsolete but impossible. This Side-Winder Laser would render nuclear weapons useless by destroying their ability to detonate and thus cause them to fall harmlessly to the ground like a coconut falling off a coconut tree.
Knowing that Bannister wouldn't talk and that if he has him killed he'll never get the secret of the Side-Winder Laser Mr.Go lets him go free and then gets in touch with Tah Ling, Irene Tsu, his former lover and her obnoxious boyfriend Nero Finnighan, Jeff Bridges, a deserter from the US Army in Vietnam, and frustrated James Joyce wannabe writer. Mr.Go wants to get to get the uncooperative Bannister into a compromising position so that he can blackmail him into giving him that important information about the Side-Winder laser beam.
Nero getting Bannister drunk and then taking him to a whorehouse he get him with his pants down as well as having Bannsiter do some very kinky and crazy stuff ,together with himself, on film. When later confronted with the evidence of him being a sexual pervert Bannister gives in and give Mr. Go all the information about the Side-Winder Laser Beam so that his bosses from CIA Chief Parker, Brodrick Crawford, on down so they don't find out about his sick and sleazy secret life.
Living up to his reputation as a two-timing lowlife and first class sleaze-ball Mr. Go, with the help of Suzuki, has both Nero & Tah Ling kidnapped and later to be killed so that they'll never be able to spill the beans on what the two did to Bannister in getting him to open up and talk. It's just then when a miracle happened and the "Evil" Mr.Go is made to do a complete 180 degree turnaround and became a good kind and unselfish person saving both Nero and Tah Ling from the fate that he and Suzuki had in store for them. In the end Mr. Go even gives away the blueprint of the Side-Winder laser beam, to every nation on earth, making the horrors of a nuclear war impossible and thus truly bringing "Peace in our Time".
The Budda who during the cycle of the fifth month every fifty years emits a beam, if world conditions warrants, from his third eye that hits a chosen individual and cause him or her to change the course of history. This time the wise Budda choose the "Evil" Mr. Go and made him the person who would end the fear of nuclear destruction and bring peace to all Mankind.
You just don't know what to make of this movie since it's about a very serious subject but comes across, especially with it's goody-goody bubble gum music soundtrack, like a cross between a 1960's Frankie Avalon Annette Funicello beach party movie and a late 1950's and early 1960's teenage Rock&Roll musical.
The action chase scenes shoot-outs and fights are hilarious but it doesn't seem to me that they were made to be that way but were so badly done that they came off looking ridicules and silly. The US government gets the British M16 to try and bring in both Dr. Go and Nero together with Tha ling as well as Bannister by having their top spy Mr. Leo Zimmerman, Jack MagGowran,put on the case. Zimmerman ends up screwing things up even more by first getting smashed over the head with a coffee pot by Nero then later getting himself shot, by what looked like Ito Suzuki's thugs. Thus allowing not only Nero Mr. Go and Tah Ling to escape but having them release the secret blueprint about the Side-Winder Laser Beam to the world! This puts Zimmerman and his spy organization the British M16, as well as the CIA & KGB, out of business.
Directed by veteran actor Burgess Meredith who also had a role in the movie as Dolphin a weirdo Chinese acupuncture druggist wise man and what looks like some kind of a high priest as well as and undercover sleazy power broker, much like Mr.Go, all rolled into one. The movie "The Yin Yang of Mr. Go" is worth seeing not only to see for yourself that a movie like it was actually made but even more surprising just how the makers of the film were able to get top actors, back in 1970, like James Mason Broderick Crawford Jack MagGowan as well as Burgess Meredith to be in it? That has to be without a doubt the ultimate $64,000.00 question.
