Pay or Die

MEAN BUSINESS (aka: DEVIL'S THREE aka: PAY OR DIE) is about a drug lord named Lucifer Devlin (Johnny Wilson), the abduction of his daughter, and the team that is assembled to find her.

Said team includes kung fu expert, Cleopatra Wong (Marrie Lee), Tony Del Rio (Chito Guerrero) -who acts and dresses like Liberace but fights like Bruce Lee!, and a 300 lb. Psychic named Rotunda.

Ample excuses for karate battles take place.

Hilarity happens. Sort of.

While most of the jokes hit the floor harder than lead underwear, there's plenty of unintentional humor to keep one watching agog! Ms. Lee is the best thing about the movie, which really doesn't approach being interesting until the last 30 minutes. That's when the karate quotient goes through the stratosphere, before bogging down again until the preposterous finale.

Yes, this is indeed the sequel to CLEOPATRA WONG...

Filipino Mob boss Lucifer Devlin (Wilson) hires sexy female Interpol agent Cleopatra Wong (Lee) to find his daughter Debbie (Rodrigo) who has been taken prisoner by one of Devlin's ex-friends Manny (Adair). Cleopatra gets the assistance of a gay ex-cop named Tony Del Rio (Guerrero) and a 300+ pound female fortune teller named Rotunda (Carvajal) who eats an awful lot, all of the time.

And that is it for plot I'm afraid.

I've seen many bad films in my life. I've sat through Headless Eyes and Oasis of the Zombies, I've even made it all the way through an Andy Milligan movie and even Ed Wood's worst (Plan Nine From Outer Space being his best), but I have to admit that Devil's Three tested even my patience for bad movies.

It's just lousy in every way. It tries hard to be funny but fails. It tries hard to be serious but fails. We have the worst characters ever in a film. A bad martial artist female agent teamed with a fat fortune teller and a gay cop is not good combination in my book, and never will be.

What possessed them to even make this. Who said yes to the script ?

I want to know this, I need to know this and I need to know now.

I blame Bobby Suarez for delivering this film to me. If you ever read this Bobby...........

Because you have wasted 83 minutes of my life!

Cleopatra Wong, Terry and Rotunda are sitting in Devlin's house when the kidnappers call to make their demands. Devlin asks to speak to his daughter, as any loving father would. His daughter comes to the phone and only speaks for a moment as our three crappy heroes watch on. Devlin puts the phone down and turns to his helpers.

Devlin "That was the kidnappers"

Cleo "Did they say anything ?"

Devlin "They want the money"

Cleo "Any ideas where they could be ?"

Devlin "No!"

Cleo "Debbie ?"

Deviln "They only let her speak for a moment"

Cleo "What did she say ?"

Devlin "Nothing!"

Cleo "She must have said something!"

Devlin "She said that if their demands are not agreed to she will be put on ice!"

Rotunda "That's it, she's at the local Ice plant!"

And off they go...And there she is. They even hitchhike to get there.

Crap!!! (And that's generous)

Watch your back Bob!

...and run. I usually like bad movies... because they make me laugh. That one didn't come close. So far I thought that Blood Legacy was the worst movie I had ever seen... Well I was wrong, at least the later made me laugh twice, let's say three times. If you notice that this one is playing on the tube...do something else...like go to the dentist... it'll be less painful believe me.

This is a throwback to a more innocent era / type of action movies, where the bad guys are loud and moronic, guns are rarely used, and the action is mixed with lots of broad slapstick. In fact, this would be perfect kids' fare in the Bud Spencer - Terence Hill tradition, except that I'm not sure how most parents would feel about the heroine's flamboyantly gay sidekick! It's hard to say if the portrayal of this character is regressive or progressive: on one hand, he is a ridiculous (yet sometimes funny) comic caricature of a gay man; on the other hand, he is a highly competent martial artist who has no problem handling multiple opponents on his own. Cleopatra Wong's other sidekick is an overweight female psychic, who is used mostly for comic relief (she gobbles up anything in sight!), but she has her uses too: prediction powers and enough strength to lift up a car. As for Cleopatra herself, the super-cute Marrie Lee is no Bruce Lee, or even Moon Lee, but she is still the best thing in the movie, and I appreciate how her fight scenes are shot from just the right distance to let you see that she's doing practically all the fighting herself. Good work, Cleo. **1/2 out of 4.