Memorable, crazy movie

good back-story, and good acting

Excellent but underrated film

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

On paper, The Yin And The Yang Of Mr Go looks potentially interesting. A good cast including James Mason, Jack MacGowran and debutant Jeff Bridges (billed here as 'Jeffrey'); interesting Far East locations; and writing/directing credits for none other than well-known actor Burgess Meredith (yes, he who played Penguin in the Batman TV show and Rocky's trainer Micky in the first three Rocky movies). Within a few minutes of the film starting, however, one can only try to pick one's jaw from the floor because it becomes apparent almost straight away that this is a monumentally awful film. For anyone who struggles on gamely, thinking perhaps that the start is merely a blip and that the film will soon pick up, it doesn't. The actors presumably thanked their lucky stars afterwards that their careers survived this unholy mess of a movie (Bridges especially, considering that it was his first film). It's no exaggeration to say that The Yin And The Yang Of Mr Go would look right at home on a list of the worst 100 films ever made.Mr Go (James Mason, sorely miscast) is an Oriental villain. He wants the blueprints for a weapon-neutralising device which he plans to sell to the highest bidder. In order to get them, he hires a young American army draft dodger named Nero Finnegan (Jeff Bridges) and persuades him to get some gay sex footage with a CIA contact named Professor Bannister (Peter Lind Hayes)… upon seeing the sordid video, Bannister is easily blackmailed into surrendering the blueprints. Things take a strange turn when the spirit of Buddha intervenes and uses his mystical powers to change Mr Go's personality, transforming him from fiendish Fu Manchu-style bad guy into an unlikely good guy. (This is presumably the Yin and the Yang of the character, as described in the title). Suddenly, Mr Go is no longer a master-criminal but a saintly hero, intent on protecting Nero and ensuring the weapon-neutralising plans fall into the right hands rather than those intent on evil.The Yin And The Yang Of Mr Go is so choppily edited that one wonders if the original negative was cut with a pair of heavily worn false teeth. More likely is that the studio were so dismayed with the film they made hasty and unsuccessful attempts to cut it into some sort of releasable print. Either way, it doesn't work – the film is dreadful. Mason looks totally embarrassed beneath his crudely slanted eye make-up and goofy teeth, while Bridges demonstrates all the boyish enthusiasm of a newcomer without really managing to make sense of his character. Snippets of needless nudity are thrown in at regular intervals, plus occasional bursts of lacklustre action, but it's all to no avail. No amount of trimmings could hide the fact that this is a turkey of the highest order. Weird-but-most-definitely-NOT-wonderful, The Yin And The Yang Of Mr Go is easily one of the worst movies ever made.

The movie "The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go", works on many levels. Here's mine barely on one level. James Joyce was as little understood in 1970 as Buddhism, the Far East (including Vietnam)and MKULTRA. Only MKULTRA notionally survived unscathed because CIA Director Richard Helms destroyed all agency records shortly after this film was made. It alone has escaped the brutal epiphany of the last 40+ years. "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) did not publish "Remember, Be Here Now" until the year after the movie's release. Had he seen it? The Hong Kong Tourist Bureau which contributed greatly and nearly lost its soul to this film knew more about all of the above including James Joyce than anyone in or around the movie. Here are the facts: James Mason wears oral prosthetics and allows his then almost 2d wife (Clarissa Kaye-Mason) to administer a lesbian rape scene. Peter Lind Hayes (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T)plays himself and appears in a violent homo erotic scene with a very young Jeff Bridges. Irene Tsu gives her acting and substantive all to everyone involved apparently including some Hong Kong hookers replete with excellent Number One Hong Kongs. Broderick Crawford plays the head of the CIA in what appears to be an unintended?, spliced-in unrelated Ed Wood production. He's Broderick Crawford, for Christ sakes! And he's wonderful! You will recognize Jay Adler and Jack MacGowran reprising themselves in roles that they had accomplished many times, but not this time. Buddha appears typecast as himself in Hong Kong tourist stills voiced over by Christopher Lee? as narrator. Oh yeah, Burgess Meredith stars and directed it if Buddha didn't. Rags Ragland composed the soundtrack and songs and I am sure Peter Lind Hayes influenced same with his immortal 1950s Chevrolet jingle. The music at times however, fractures into rather both authentic and thought provoking accompaniment including a brief oriental theme played with a bowed lute Ragland was an arranger for the Dorsey's and provided music for many 40s movies and then this one. There, I wrote it. For YOU!!!! James Joyce was writing--like Bridges says,"For the next 1,000 years." You can watch this prescient epistle throughout the next millennium if you need to. In 1970, the world needed to...

What is wrong with people? Only two reviewers here at IMDb appear to have 'got' this film - etna3 and crankscorner, and I thank them for their insight.The Yin & Yang of Mr Go is probably the kinetic masterpiece of the cold war. It's a film so stoked in symbolism, meditation and nudity that Strindberg himself could have called it a wrap. In the end Burgess Meredith settles for Joyce in his script, which is almost the same thing.Following a voice-over by Christopher 'Bhudda' Lee, we meet James Mason as Mr Yin Yang Go, criminal, murderer, drug-addict and seducer, making ready to move into the big nuclear league. He tricks broke writer Jeff Bridges into a compromising love scene with a male American scientist, then blackmails the scientist to get plans for a new nuclear defence system. But Christopher Lee has other plans for Yin Yang Go - the nuclear plot turns to meditative karma and Go becomes the focal point of all human history, past, present and future. In short, Go goes nuts and becomes a kind of karmic superhero, saves the world etc, you know the score. If this is the effect radiation has on karma we could all use a shot.Throw in Mason's real life wife, Clarrisa Kay, as a butch sort of lesbian, Jack McGowran as nominal CIA, a script that will not come into its own for another 500 years, and you have a classic.This film really needs to be restored directly from the negative, in its true colour and original aspect ratio. If I were a monastic or Bhuddist monk, or alternatively, the leader of the People's Republic of China, I would make the restoration of The Yin & Yang of Mr Go my life's work.A classic.

It's impossible to tell what Burgess Meredith was thinking when he directed (and co-wrote) this idiotic mix of intrigue, comedy, zen, action, and whatever else you can think of. NONE of it works...it's sloppy, deadly dull and full of the most bizarre directorial touches imaginable (and not in a good way!) Slow motion, endless dissolves, jerky editing...and unbelievably intrusive music conspire to make this one of the worst films ever made. James Mason is a Chinese espionage broker who gets student Jeff Bridges mixed up in some blackmailing shenanigans in Hong Kong. Meredith appears as Mason's acupuncturist and the great Jack MacGowran appears as a CIA operative. There's a lot of fighting, a lot of smoking of one thing or another and a really nasty lesbian. It adds up to nothing. Broderick Crawford is in it too, but aside from appearing toothless, offers nothing.