aka The Silent Flute
- Directed by Richard Moore
- Written by Stanley Mann and Stirling Silliphant, from a story conceived by Bruce Lee
- Starring
- David Carradine
- Christopher Lee
- Jeff Cooper
- Roddy McDowall
It’s a hard movie to review, because I know I’m going to step on somebody’s toes. There’s tons of Zen philosophy in here — so much that the plot seems like a tiny bit of cookie dough trying to hold all the chocolate chips together. If you’re a student or admirer of Zen, remember that this review is written by an unenlightened Westerner, and go back to your quiet place.
But dang, this movie got goofy.
We start at a martial arts tournament in an outdoor ampitheater, where Roddy McDowall presides. There are two notables among the combatants: the moustachioed Morthond (Anthony DeLongis), and the long-clothed, shaggy blond Cord (Jeff Cooper). Cord’s the rebel of the outfit, since he refuses to wear the minimalist battle gear: a little chest harness that holds a metal plate about the size of a saucer over the bare chest, and a square one the size of a sheet of typing paper over the back. It doesn’t hold him back, though; in the end he defeats Morthond, but his victory is taken away because he fights dirty. Morthond is the official champion, and we find out what they were fighting for: The right to undertake a quest for Zetan, the notorious sorcerer who a) has a magic book about Life, the Universe, and Everything, and b) has the power to make everyone pronouce his name differently. Honestly, by the end of the movie I had heard every possible variation, often from a single character in the course of a conversation: “ZEE-tahn”, “ZEE-tan,” “ZAY-tahn,” “ZAT-tan,” “ZEE-tin”…
Well, Cord still thinks that he should have been the champion, so he follows along with Morthond, planning to help him through the notorious trials to find Zetan.
Now here’s where it gets a bit hairy.
Cord runs into a blind monk (David Carradine, with a disconcerting wall-eyed contact lens) with a flute built into his staff and a small bell on one foot. This leads to the one truly great scene in the movie: Carradine, encircled by ruffians, fighting them all with his staff. The sound design — the small jingle of the bell, the “whoosh” as he swings his staff — was honestly worth the price of admission.
The monk also gets all the good lines. The best two:
“Tie two birds together, and though they have four wings, they cannot fly.”
“A fish saved my life once.”
“How?”
“I ate him.”
Cord follows with the monk a while, soaking some Zen wisdom through his own cockiness. Then he gets separated from him, and finds Morthond, beaten nearly to death. Morthond gives him the medallion that marks him as the champion and asks for a quick death.
Cord then goes to fight the monkeymen who did this to Morthond, especially their leader (also Carradine, not that you can tell). They exchange Zen insults, then Cord knocks him on his ass.
While crossing the desert, Cord encounters the second-best scene in the movie: Old Eli Wallach, in a huge pot of oil. Seems he’s been marinating there for ten years, waiting for that “hideous thing” between his legs to shrivel away entirely, and it’s almost there. (A frisson of horror plays up my spine.) It’s a hilarious conversation, and I’m sorry it’s over, because then we go back to the plot, such as it is.
Cord next wanders into the gypsy-style camp of the lordly Chang-Sha (also Carradine). And here’s where the Zen stuff overtakes the plot entirely. Chang-sha plays “indian giver” with one of his wives, with whom Cord breaks his one-year vow of chastity, in a scene that goes to ridiculous lengths to avoid true nudity in an R-rated movie. (One year? Wimp.) He finds her crucified the next morning, when the camp has moved on.
He then has a dream in which he meets death, who is apparently the Black Panther Ninja (and whaddaya know, it’s Carradine again). And then he meets the monk again, and spends a full twenty minutes absorbing Zen lessons from his actions.
By this time, the lack of forward momentum in the plot caused by all these teaching moments was interfering seriously with my ability to stay awake, so I’ll see if I can summarize briefly:
Cord meets with Chang-sha again, but is Zen enough that he’s not after revenge.
He finally reaches Zetan’s castle, where Zetan is — surprise! — NOT played by Carradine; instead, it’s Christopher Lee. He gets to see the famous book, and the “twist” at the end is something straight out of a junior high creative writing class.
The end.
There are no real flaws in the performances (though we’re never sure if Cord is meant to be a Han Solo-style rogue or an honest seeker), and Carradine obviously has fun with the monk role. But there are some serious flaws here:
Carradine the monk is too obviously sighted in many scenes (especially the ones in which he’s evading mounted warriors in a grove of trees).
They could have used an honest-to-goodness costume designer, who could create distinctive looks for the villages and cultures they pass. Instead, we get a jarring assortment of styles, occurring on people within the same scene, including (I’m not kidding) Arabian, Chinese, Mongol, Russian, Roman, Viking, Japanese, Greek, Egyptian, east Indian, Persian, African, and Tibetan — not to mention the generic Western European and Asian elements. Blechh.
The biggest flaw, though, is that it’s a movie constructed for didacticism. Everything is focused on the Zen bits, which the story from having its own momentum; it’s a slave to the wisdom. And unfortunately, Zen just doesn’t translate well to film, especially to one in which the protagonist is a blond Conan.
This movie started out as a Bruce Lee project, and I will say that the Zen comes across a lot better than the fortune-cookie wisdom of the first few minutes of Enter the Dragon. I wonder what role Lee would have taken if he had lived to see it come to the screen; most likely that of the blind monk, which would have taken what little fun left out of the movie.
I dunno. May there are people who think this is the greatest film out there. For me, though, it only succeeded too well in being inscrutable.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 8
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 0
- dream sequences: 1
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- real chimps: 1
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
- Anthony DeLongis (Morthond) had a recurring role as “Cullah” on the 2nd season of Voyager
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