I just watched the episode again. I liked it. Some good riffs. I like the Mads watching in triumphant glee. I’ve always loved the closing bit where the Mads attempt to riff a bit of the movie.
I’m not as fond of the host segments showing J&tB breaking down in tears. I just don’t like watching people suffer in general, and three host segments in a row of them just being overwhelmed with despair is a bit much. Still, we did get Crow calling out mediocre white actors playing terrible Asian characters.
The movie itself is dull and plodding. And the print is terrible. Often you can barely see what’s going on. There are also places where key bits of dialog are so garbled and/or muted as to be inaudible.
But there is actually a mostly coherent plot:
We open on an action sequence as Fu sinks a cruise ship with an iceberg. In the middle of the Caribbean. (Joel riffs about the footage being blatantly stolen from a movie about the Titanic, and I think he’s right.) There’s some dramatic tension as his daughter and one of his henchmen believe the system will overload and kill them all. The henchman tries to stop it, and Fu shoots him on the spot. The henchman’s collapsing body throws the overdrive switch just in time.
Agents Smith and Petri, enjoying a little vacation together, are summoned to London, where an Interpol conference hears Fu’s threat to strike again unless world governments surrender.
In Istanbul, Fu’s daughter comes to Omar Pasha (the crime lord who controls most of the opium trade in the region) with a plan to seize the governor’s palace and thereby take control of the large opium stockpile there. They’ll work together and split the take. But once the palace is seized and the governor executed, Fu’s men slaughter Pasha’s men and capture his faithful lieutenant, Lisa. Fu announces to the public that the attack failed and the governor is still in power, so that he can operate in secret a little longer.
Petri finds and old book which explains a theory of how, with further research, it would be possible to instantly freeze water using crystals made from opium. Smith wants to interview the author, Prof. Heracles, but Petri has already called the university and discovered that Petri is traveling abroad on his way to Istanbul.
Fu has the professor locked in the dungeon, but he’s suffering from heart failure. He’ll be dead within a week. Fu injects him with medication to keep him going, which gets Heracles to admit that doctor Kessler in London is the cardiologist who can cure him.
Smith and Petri visit Kessler. For some reason, despite already knowing the fact, they’re utterly shocked when Kessler tells them that Heracles has gone to Istanbul. Kessler agrees to go with them to Istanbul. He steps out of the room to tell his colleague, Dr. Ingrid Cox, but Fu’s men kidnap both doctors from the waiting room while our heroes are waiting in the exam room.
Word of Fu’s agent returning with two prisoners leaks to Pasha.
Kessler and Ingrid awaken in coffins in the dungeon of Fu’s castle, just outside Heracles’s cell. Heracles, barely able to speak, explains that Fu used a small dose of the crystals to put them in suspended animation, before passing out again.
Smith and Petri arrive in Istanbul, but the police inspector who greets them informs them that Pasha has disappeared, presumably to rescue Lisa from the castle.
Fu, to dramatic music, informs Kessler that he’s there to save the life of… dramatic pause Prof Heracles, whom they just saw two scenes ago when they arrived. He takes them down to the dungeon, which is also equipped with a fully functional operating room hidden behind a secret door. Fu has one of his own men anesthetized and strapped to a gurney, in order to have his heart transplanted into Kessler. Fu says if Kessler refuses to operate he’ll kill Ingrid. He leaves the doctors to ponder this while he goes to preside over a demonstration. He destroys a dam, drowning the workers below. There is no ice involved, no reason given for the destruction, and no further effect on the plot. Likely, it’s more reused footage from a disaster movie. Kessler, realizing he has feelings for Ingrid, agrees to undertake the world’s first heart transplant operation.
The operation takes hours. There is no artificial pump to keep Kessler’s blood going. There is no blood transfusion or even IV fluid. Other than the initial incision, there is no blood to be seen. Even their scrubs are immaculately white at the end of the operation. But it’s successful.
Smith arrives at Pasha’s base of operations just as Pasha’s mortally wounded scout returns to report that the castle is heavily guarded, but he can confirm that Lisa is being held prisoner there. Smith proposes an alliance.
Pasha goes to Fu, alone and unarmed. Fu has him roughed up and brings the similarly beaten and bleeding Lisa out. Pasha tells Fu that his men have Smith prisoner and he’ll trade Smith for Lisa. Fu is interested enough to have his men let Pasha go. Pasha pulls out a hidden knife and throws it at Fu, but misses. Lisa uses the distraction to make a run for it. Fu takes Pasha down to the lab, where he explains that with a single switch he can open the floodgates, and the rush of water will combine with the crystals to freeze the entire ocean solid. Pasha gives up Smith’s location in exchange for a promise of freedom for himself and Lisa. Lisa watches from the shadows as Fu’s daughter kills Pasha.
Fu’s men storm Pasha’s base, and his daughter reports that all of Pasha’s men, as well as Smith, have been killed.
In Istanbul police HQ, Petri hears Fu broadcast that he’s about to destroy the city and Smith is dead. (If there is a point to this, it was cut, possibly due to MST3K time constraints.)
Heracles refuses to give Fu the formula. This is confusing, since Fu already used the crystals to sink the ship, transport Kessler, and possibly blow up the dam. Not to mention that he’s already announced his plan to release the crystals and destroy the city at midnight, and presumably he needs time to actually make the crystals (and be sure his lab has all the necessary ingredients in the proper quantities). But in the next scene one of Fu’s men gives him a paper with the formula. Presumably Heracles was tortured for it or some such, but that scene was also apparently cut for time.
Kessler uses a small vial of acid (which he secretly collected during the operation) to escape from the cell with Ingrid. Fu is unconcerned about this development, since they’ll both die when the crystals are released into the tunnels.
Smith breaks into the castle and runs into Lisa as she tries to make her escape. Lisa leads him to the radio room, but Fu, hearing Smith begin to broadcast a warning to London, remotely destroys the equipment. Lisa finds the hidden switch to open the door as the room fills with smoke. Lisa and Smith find Heracles, Smith beats up the guards (with some help from Lisa), and the trio escape. Somehow the tunnels lead to an exit well above ground. As Smith and Heracles go down the stairs in front of the castle, Lisa turns back to look for Pasha, apparently forgetting that she just saw him murdered ten minutes ago. The tunnels flood, Lisa drowns, and chunks of ice begin to form in the waters around her.
Kessler and Ingrid also escape and also find themselves above ground. Along the way, they encounter several of Fu’s armed mercenaries, but the wiry doctor defeats them all with his bare hands.
Above ground, parts of the building begin to explode. Fu, standing in the lab that should be the source of the explosions, reasons that Kessler must have “reversed the system.” It is not explained when and how he did so (apparently that scene was also cut for time) or how this is different from Fu’s own plan to flood the lab. Nor why the lab is the last thing to explode. Fu and his daughter flee just in the nick of time. The end.
It’s odd. Smith is supposed to be Our Hero. The brave British Interpol agent who is Fu’s most hated and feared nemesis. But he doesn’t actually really do anything significant? He and Petri figure out that Fu is in Turkey. They figure out that Heracles is the one who invented the crystals. They figure out that Heracles was under Dr. Kessler’s care. They figure out that Kessler has just been kidnapped while they were waiting in the next room. They’re told about Pasha, find him, and convince him to speak to Fu. Which Pasha would have already done because Fu double crossed him, took Lisa prisoner, and tried to kill him. Smith goes in to Fu’s castle alone, fails to broadcast a message, and then escapes with Heracles. But it’s Kessler who apparently foils the whole plot, and he had to escape on his own. The only thing Smith seems to be good for is exposition, and he doesn’t even actually explain anything much. We already know that Fu is in Istanbul. We already know that Heracles needs Dr. Kessler, and that Heracles’s crystals are the key to Fu’s plan. We already know that Fu’s plot involves seizing the opium. So, basically, Smith repeats what we already know, follows the trail of clues, breaks into Fu’s HQ, and then runs away. Some hero.