Unmasking the Idol

“Calling all guards, be on the lookout for trespassing ninjas!” It’s one thing that the independent B-movie production company E.O. Studios, which focused on cheap action flicks for drive-ins and the foreign video market, created a deliberately exaggerated paraphrase of Bond movies as its most ambitious production, but Jesus, did it turn out to be the ultimate 1980s action trash flick in which absolutely everything is naïvely over the top and played with a straight face. The hell with James Bond and Ethan Hunt and the rest, because none of them can measure up to Duncan Jax, who is not only a secret super-agent, but also a ninja! And he has a kung fu baboon! Of course, he also has his own M in the form of a prim major-domo and his own Q, who is an easy-going Asian smartass who keeps the protagonist on guard, much like Cato from The Pink Panther did for Inspector Clouseau. Needless to say, women fall into the hero’s arms, but he always finds time for teambuilding with his female comrades-in-arms in the hot tub. In Unmasking the Idol, the first of unfortunately only two films featuring Duncan Jax (the other being The Order of the Black Eagle), he and his army of black ninjas, with the substantial assistance of a baboon, must overcome an army of red ninjas on a remote island who serve the most evil villain of all time. How else to describe a masked villain whose exposition consists in throwing a couple of disabled pensioners shipwrecked on his island to the piranhas? And he has two henchmen with costumes straight out of Flash Gordon. There’s also a pile of gold and a submarine manned by a German with gold teeth. But the whole second half of the film is mainly composed of a fights, shootouts, explosions, helicopter rescues, an amphibious invasion and, finally, a spectacle involving hot air balloons. On top of all that, most of the action sequences are based on visibly physical and contact attractions, with masked stuntmen and athletes giving absolutely as much of themselves as the low budget would allow. I consider it a tremendous shame and a historical injustice that this franchise is not better known (which is due to the way the studio approached distribution in the interest of remaining independent), because the attractions here easily overshadow anything with Norris, Seagal and other overrated action heroes of the ’80s. And, in the mould of Arnold’s best movies, Unmasking the Idol doesn’t take itself seriously at all, conversely making fun of the whole genre. (16/07/2023)