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Pay or Die
Devil's Three / Devil's Angels / Mean Business
Philippines 1979
produced by Bobby A. Suarez for BAS Film Productions
directed by Bobby A. Suarez
starring Marrie Lee, Chito Guerrero (= Franco Guerrero), Florence Carvajal, Johnny Wilson, Dick Adair, Cynthia Rodrigo, Ted Deelman, Lauro Flores, Jennie Perez, Joe Cunanan, Nesty Mercado, Ken Metcalfe, Jim Babb, Cheryl Oberg, Margarita Gonzalez, Jim Rosales, Robert Miller, Georgie Quizon, Aldo Cruz, Ave Sollano, Romy Nario, Andy Andico
written by Bobby A. Suarez, Dick Adair, Joseph Zucchero, music by Gene Kauer, Douglas M. Lackey
Cleopatra Wong
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Lucifer Devlin (Johnny Wilson) runs his East Asian drugrunning
organisation with an iron fist, much to the dismay of his employees, who
eventually decide to just take over themselves. To that end, they hit
Devlin at his Achilles' heel: They kidnap his daughter Debbie (Cynthia
Rodrigo) and ask for 2 million in cash and Devlin's whole organisation in
return. Devlin is so enraged that he does the unfathomable, just to get
back at his former men: He calls Interpol agent Cleopatra Wong (Marrie
Lee) to free his daughter and shatter the organisation that was once his.
To make sure Cleopatra takes the assignment, Devlin even promises to give
himself up once his daughter is returned. Cleopatra soon arrives on the
scene with the two most unlikely of sidekicks, a gay caricature (Chito
Guerrero) who likes to dress in drag and an overweight psychic (Florence
Carvajal), and even thought he three seem to experience setback after
setback, they manage to get closer and closer to the baddies' hideout
where Debbie is kept. Devlin however eventually loses faith in Cleo and
friends and decides to give in to his adversarioes' demands and pay up -
but that only ends in him being made their captive and Debbie being dug
into the sand up to her neck on the beach, with the tide supposed to do
the rest. Then though Cleo and friends appear, and they take apart the
whole organisation and kill pretty much everyone in sight to save Debbie
and reunite her with her father. On a story level, this third
and last Cleopatra Wong film has once again little to offer,
basically the little plot it has is just a slim buildup for an extended
action finale that lasts for about half the movie. And on a directorial
level, the movie hasn't got too much to offer, either, the direction is
functional for the most part, with the low budget showing a bit too much,
and the action scenes are not exactly elaborately staged (they still work
fine though). However, Pay or Die is still watchable because on one
hand Marrie Lee is cute, likeable and really effective in action scenes,
on the other the film is just so whacky - thanks mainly to Cleo's unlikely
sidekicks - that it adds something to an otherwise tired affair. Sure,
most of the humour might not exactly feel high-brow, but still it works in
the context of the film as a whole. Be adviced though, this is not a
masterpiece no matter which way you put it, not by a longshot, just an
enjoyable piece of action-silliness.
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