Plot: Andy Lo and his comedic sidekick, Pancho, are freelance special agents who are called in by the Hong Kong police department when they have a mission that needs to be kept “off the books.” One day, Andy receives a letter from a former colleague in need of help and, together with Pancho and Andy’s young nephew, Bin Bin, heads to Greece on a secret mission masquerading as a vacation. After Andy’s colleague is killed, Bin Bin accidentally ends up with a suitcase that contains a magical talking crystal. Soon, a group of KGB agents, lead by the sadistic Karov, are after Andy and his family in an attempt to retrieve this mysterious artifact. With the help of two Interpol Agents, Andy must stop the KGB and uncover the secret behind the magic crystal before it’s too late.
After the sudden passing of Richard Norton the other day I wanted to look back one of his movies that he starred in alongside Cynthia Rothrock and Andy Lau called Magic Crystal. This movie is absolutely bonkers and incredibly silly, and I love every second of it.
Norton plays the villain Karov who wants a magic piece of jade that will give him special powers. The jade crystal is sentient and an alien artifact that has befriended young boy Pin-Pin and obeys his commands. Any Lau, Cynthia Rothrock and co. will give their all to protect the boy and the crystal from falling into the wrong hands.
What ensues is 90 minutes of martial arts madness with insane fight scenes and as expected the highlights are when Cynthia is facing off against Richard Norton. Both look amazing on screen with Norton as always making for a formidable opponent. Any Lau had the moves too and is one of my favourite actors; he can do serious roles with ease or star in something as crazy as this and still be believable.
It’s cool to see Enter the Dragon’s main villain Shih Kien in a small but entertaining role.
In terms of flaws I don’t love slapstick humour and there is a lot of it in this movie and some characters are a little annoying. That’s just my personal taste though…
I was reading some trivia on this movie and apparently Cynthia Rothrock accidentally injured Richard Norton during the filming a fight scene involving weapons, resulting in a small scar on his forehead. She also performed most of her scenes while nursing a blown out knee which is impressive.
Overall, Magic Crystal is one of the craziest martial arts films you’ll ever see but it’s endlessly entertaining with Cynthia Rothrock and Richard Norton stealing the show and some breathtaking fight scenes.