Back in the mid-80s, I went to the theater to see the Remo Williams movie. I liked the concept but disliked the overall movie because the fist half and the second half of the film were oddly different. The first portion was great--with an interesting concept about creating a perfect assassin. The second, though, was dreadful--and suddenly looked like the movie merged with an episode of "The Love Boat"! But, because I liked the concept, the notion of a TV series based on this had some promise. Unfortunately, the folks who made the TV pilot seemed to use the bad from the movie with none of the good.
Like the original film, the TV show was automatically offensive because they had a white guy (Roddy McDowell) playing an Asian! Why not just hire some Asian actor?! And, instead of Fred Ward, they cast some pretty-boy with LOTS of hair--hardly the assassin type! And, instead of doing lots of cool martial arts and tricky ninja-like work, this one was mostly played for laughs. When they did actually have some fighting, the lead showed that he really had minimal training in martial arts--and I seriously wonder if McDowell could have taken him in a fight in real life! In addition, there are dumb killer robots...need I say more?! If you are curious, this pilot is floating around the internet. But I wouldn't bother...my score of 3 is probably over-generous.
Like the original film, the TV show was automatically offensive because they had a white guy (Roddy McDowell) playing an Asian! Why not just hire some Asian actor?! And, instead of Fred Ward, they cast some pretty-boy with LOTS of hair--hardly the assassin type! And, instead of doing lots of cool martial arts and tricky ninja-like work, this one was mostly played for laughs. When they did actually have some fighting, the lead showed that he really had minimal training in martial arts--and I seriously wonder if McDowell could have taken him in a fight in real life! In addition, there are dumb killer robots...need I say more?! If you are curious, this pilot is floating around the internet. But I wouldn't bother...my score of 3 is probably over-generous.