Bullet to Beijing

Plot synopsis:
Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is forced into early retirement from MI5. He receives a telephone call offering a mysterious job opportunity.
Harry flies to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he is met by Nikolai (Jason Connery). They are followed and shot at by Chechens, before Nick (as Harry insists on calling him) and Natasha (Mia Sara) can deliver Harry to his potential employer, Alex (Michael Gambon). Alex tells Harry that a deadly binary biological weapon called Alorex has been stolen; he wants Harry to find it. Harry cannot turn down the pay: $250,000.
Louis (John Dunn-Hill), one of his old contacts, tells him that the Alorex will be on a train, the Bullet to Beijing. Ex-KGB Colonel Gradsky (Lev Prygunov) and his men are also passengers, as are Nick, Natasha and Craig Warner (Michael Sarrazin), yet another unemployed spy, this time formerly with the CIA. When Harry and Nick try to find out what is in the crate Gradsky is transporting to the North Korean embassy, Gradsky (as a professional courtesy) merely has them thrown off the train. Conveniently, though they are in Siberia, there is an airport nearby, and they are able to board a crowded, ramshackle Aeroflot Antonov An-30 aircraft. Though the plane runs out of fuel and has to set down 300 miles from the train's next stop, Harry and Nick just barely manage to get back aboard the Bullet.
When they go to confront Gradsky, they receive several surprises. Natasha, whom they find in the colonel's compartment, turns out to be Gradsky's daughter. Then, they learn that Gradsky also works for Alex. Finally, Harry guesses that Alex is selling the Alorex to the North Koreans for heroin, a specialty of Craig's. Nick, who sincerely thinks that Alex is the man to lead Russia in the troubled times ahead, refuses to believe it. Harry talks Gradsky into dumping his half of the Alorex and replacing it with vodka and urine. But where is the other component? Then, Harry remembers that Louis' grandson had given him a seemingly innocent gift, a Matryoshka doll. Inside, he finds a vial.
Nevertheless, they have to pretend to deliver the Alorex. At the North Korean embassy, Palmer meets another old spy acquaintance, Kim Soo (Burt Kwouk). Kim Soo has orders to get rid of Harry because he knows too much. Fortunately, Nick rescues him by lying and saying Alex will deal with him later. Later, when Harry asks him why he did it, Nick tells him that he thinks Harry is his father. During the Cold War, the Soviets had attempted to suborn a British spy by having a woman agent seduce him. Harry denies being that man, but Nick doesn't believe him.
On the way back to St. Petersburg, Harry explains to Nick that Alex planted the specifications for Alorex in his passport (which was confiscated by Kim Soo), but Harry was not fooled. He burns the valuable but deadly information and tips off both a rival gangster and the police about the incoming heroin shipment. Complications arise when there is an attempt on Harry's life by men working for Kim Soo, which Craig surprisingly foils. The American, it turns out, is working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Harry and his friends emerge relatively unscathed from the chaotic final shootout.

Tags: intrigue, murder

Review:
BULLET TO BEIJING amusing return of Harry Palmer.
After 30 years Harry Palmer ( Michael Caine) returns a bit older but still amused and amusing.
In the one I own, Sue Lloyd makes a brief appearance as Harry's old girl friend Jean, now a blonde, sexy widow.
However, I though Caine, Connery and Michael Gambon were all first rate and the running gags about redundant, over-the-hill secret agents worked for me.The locale of St Petersburg is fresh and the complications of plot ( who is one whose side), falling off the train, the problems of the decaying yet free market Soviet Union, etc.
I like BULLET and have actually watched it twice in 2 weeks.
The Return of Harry Palmer.
I first broke into the Harry Palmer series when I thought Midnight in St. Petersburg sounded like a good film in the TV guide, and it had Michael Caine in it.
Since then (realising there was more of it)I've become quite a fan of the series, not really minding if it was the vintage 60s or the modern 90s.Bullet to Beijing was the fourth film out of the five that I've seen (I've yet to see the somewhat rare Billion Dollar Brain) and I thought it was a good film, certainly worthy of at least a 6.5 rating on IMDB.
I know fans of the vintage 60s were somewhat opposed to this even being made, because it was obviously not going to be as good as The Ipcress File.And it's not.
The Ipcress File is still the best of Harry Palmer, but I thought this was the second best of the series.
I found Funeral in Berlin to be mind-numbingly tedious, and Midnight in St. Petersburg didn't quite live up to this one.First thing, I'm going to address a few issues regarding plot holes or continuity.
Make no mistake, this is one of those films you'll probably have to watch twice or even three times to fully comprehend all that's going on.
So most plot holes are probably down to something the viewer missed (I certainly thought that the first time I watched it).This certainly isn't vintage Palmer, and I give it credit for not trying to be.
Palmer is on the verge of retirement anyway, and so he's not going to be as quick or sharp as he once was (at least they didn't try and pretend he was still young!).
He doesn't run from danger, something present in all the movies, even when he's being followed by the mafia, he's fairly daring once he's got away from them.As for the film itself, it's very fast-moving and fluid.
There are a LOT of twists and turns in the plot, but I like the fact that's it's all within the time limit of the train arriving in Beijing, who's going to make it there etc.
The trouble with something like the Ipcress File was the amount of free time Palmer had, and so it would sometimes seemingly stand still, whereas the train journey here gave it an edge.That's my humble opinion anyway, maybe I'm just uncultured.
This certainly doesn't have the class of the 60s, but it makes up for it with the action, humour and plot-twists.8.5/10Incidentally, if you can get hold of it, there's a special edition DVD where Sue Lloyd has a slightly bigger role than a voice on the telephone..
This was my kind of spy movie...really bad bad guys...really sexy sexpots...car chases...boat chases...mysterious trains crossing hostile borders and the worst gang of lousy shots you ever saw.
Believe me, the hilarious sequence in the movie of the flight to Irkutsk is not that much of an exaggeration.) It's probably more of a spoof than a spy thriller.
Sure it doesn't all add up and the continuity is a bit suspect but I have to say that I really thought it was good fun.
The collapse of the cold war has somewhat put an end to our spy stories, but I was thrilled to get another Harry story.
I have seen and loved the original Harry Palmer movies and can tell you that this belated made-for-TV sequel does not measure up at all.
BULLET TO BEIJING doesn't even deserve to be called a Harry Palmer film.
Skip this failure and see THE IPCRESS FILE, FUNERAL IN BERLIN, or THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN.
As Michael Caine said in his Golden Globes speech "I made a lot of crap" this is some of it.
Please disregard the review of this movie by "Dr_Yvon_COULARDEAU"......he clearly entered a review of some other film here by mistake....i think he was trying to review some version of "the Thomas Crown Affair".....first, there is no character in this movie named "Crown".........there is also no robbery with an insurance investigator involved.......i think it is odd that Dr_Yvon_COULARDEAU did not correct his mistake after he realized he reviewed the wrong movie........i think it is odd as well that no one from IMDb noticed either..........IMDb.......may i review a three stooges film and put it here or vice versa?.........Dr, a question.......do you often lose track of where you are?.
After almost thirty years, Michael Caine is back playing Harry Palmer.
However, it has been THIRTY YEARS--and, like the expression goes, you can never go back--and that certainly is true of "Bullet to Beijing".
Unlike the earlier Palmer stories, Len Deighton was not involved with this one...and I think it shows.
The first three films of the series ("The Ipcress File", "Funeral in Berlin" and "Billion Dollar Brain") were great--a nice alternative to a Bond film.
Here, however, it looks like there is a lot more Bond and a lot less Harry Palmer.After three decades with the British secret service, Palmer is summarily retired without so much as a thank you.
Harry takes the offer (why?) and soon is transported into a world completely unlike his earlier film efforts.
Sure, things happened--but most of the time Palmer stood by on the sidelines.
Here in "Bullet to Beijing", it's one action sequence after another after another--including way too many shootouts that resulted in folks with pistols taking out many folks with machine guns!!!
The overall effort is a passable ACTION film but one severely disappointing to those expecting the Harry Palmer of old.
Return of Harry Palmer is not as bad as expected and is occasionally amusing.
The fact that I can only recall a funny car chase scene with falling apart Russian cars is ominous, though.
palmer only shot one person the entire trilogy, If I recall correctly.The Palmer of those films was something of a blank page.
The Palmer of 'Bullet' has lost that sixties cool and it's hard to recognise him.
He's more like an ex-football or pool hall manager with a drink problem or simply Caine being more his working class self.
Some of the old stalwarts remain, such as Harry meeting 'old friends' who turn out to have no qualms in dispensing with him altogether in the terminal sense.
'Bullet To Beijing' is only to be viewed as a last resort, that is you have been made redundant, your wife has left you and your TV license is about to expire with no money left in the kitty to renew it..
If they wanted to make an ironic post glastnost Harry Palmer film why did they not ask me to write it!
There is nothing of who Harry Palmer was in this film; it's trite, corny, contrived, and set in the worst stereotypical world.
If you like Caine being Caine in an average spy spoof played for laughs, enjoy..
Disappointing attempt to reinvent Harry Palmer.
A damn good cast and a good storyline....wasted and spoiled by poor acting by Jason Connery in a central role....definitely not a chip off the old block..
Fun, light action film.
If you loved the Harry Palmer movies in the 1960s—The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, and Billion Dollar Brain—you'll be happy to hear that thirty years later, Michael Caine agreed with you!
He made two more Harry Palmer films, Bullet to Beijing and its sequel Midnight in Saint Petersburg, both costarring Jason Connery and Michael Gambon.In this one, Michael Caine is forced to retire, but isn't slowed down a bit in his secret spy career.
He's approached to work for Michael Gambon, with Jason Connery and Mia Sara as his colleagues, but who can he really trust?
I really liked this spy thriller because it wasn't too complicated, so I could easily keep up with the plot twists.
Some of the other Harry Palmer movies were a bit too complex for me.
Also, even though Michael Caine makes several references to his age, since it's been thirty years since he played Harry Palmer, it's fun to see him still fighting the bad guys with as much pizazz as he had before.
Rent it if you're a Michael Caine fan or are in the mood for a light action film, and for a double feature, rent the sequel!.
Good action, multiple plot twists, exotic locales.
Good action, multiple plot twists, exotic locales.
There are excellent well-shot action scenes, familiar faces, respect paid to the Russian location and people, and it all moves along at a decent fast pace.People who hated this 1995 offering are always comparing it to the 60s films.
Now lumped together as one tidy trilogy (due to the temporal proximity of their productions) Harry Palmer was then touted as a less glamorous, thinking man's Bond.
But the movies were still pretty sensationalist and fantastical.A lot had changed since, and what was right for the big screen in the 60s would have to reinterpreted to a modern context.
(That said, the stultifyingly vapid Blue Ice, another Michael Caine-led spy film released three years prior, failed to thrill - but that's my opinion.)The film would have been improved with a more dramatic score, and I'm sure it would have made greater impact, been more memorable, and be held in higher esteem if it had it.
But for what Bullet to Beijing was - a direct-to-video movie - it was an impressive and enjoyable work.
The storytelling and pacing made it feel like it could be a big-screen movie, and otherwise it hit the spot in the right places.
Location shooting is not as common these days, so in a historical context, Bullet to Beijing is something that is getting rarer and more special by the day.
Although it's always a pleasure to watch Michael Caine -- even in stinkers such as "Blame It On Rio" -- there was little fun in this lame attempt at resurrecting the under-paid and melancholy British agent of the 1960s Harry Palmer.
"Bullet to Beijing" has holes in the plot you could drive the Trans-Siberian Express through, with little of the humor and none of the style of "The Ipcress File" or "Funeral in Berlin".
I was surprised to see this film on the shelf for sale as I'd never heard of it and never knew anyone had tried to resuscitate Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.
I came to the conclusion it wasn't going to be very good compared with the original Palmer films and would be like other attempts at revivals i.e. not very good.
If you watch this film with this frame of mind you won't be too disappointed.
Mr Caine still gets to do his cheeky one liners to those in authority but Harry appears to have grown less subtle in his later years(unlike his new  black framed glasses)  Certainly not a Harry Palmer film of the old ilk, but could a post Cold War version ever be?
Not a bad Michael Caine film which he just does for the money, just one he's done when there are no good scripts on offer!.
Playing Harry Palmer, the most boring secret agent ever presented on screen (can't say if he's that boring on the books), Michael Caine has the mission of tracking down the formula of a nuclear weapon that is about to be delivered to North Korea by the Chinese.
And Palmer is not working for his British comrades that decided to retire the man, but yes for the Russian, in the post Cold War scenario.Has to be one of the most uninteresting and weak developed spy films I've ever seen.
In one of his weakest performances but not to the point of going to the Wall of Shame (like "Jaws 87"), Michael Caine is helpless in playing a character that isn't appealing like James Bond or clever and real as George Smiley.
Jason Connery, Mia Sara, Michael Sarrazin, Burt Kwouk and Michael Gambon, they all didn't have much to do with a script that leaves somewhere to go nowhere.The more it reaches the end the worse it gets, and the only good moment out of "Bulllet to Beijing" is a sequence involving a car chase where Caine and Connery's son need to get in time to catch the Express train to Beijing.
Like the majority of people brought up on The Ipcress File I was disappointed by sequels such as Billion Dollar Brain (yet to see Funeral in Berlin).
Although he has done some great stuff in his career, Mr Caine, a "working actor" who does not suffer luvvies and primadonnas gladly, has produced some real stinkers.
This is one of them, although I have to say it was initially good to see Caine returning to the role after all these years (and he looks bloody good for 62 as well).
At the beginning of the film when HP is spying on an embassy through some net curtains, you can see where the comedian, Paul Whitehouse, got the inspiration for "Michael Paine, the nosey neighbour." Apart from that, a disappointment and an unbelievable plot.
And tell Jason Connery not to give up the day job..
I Love Beijing.
I was very excited when I first read that Michael Caine would return to the role of Harry Potter in not just one, but two made-for-cable-TV films for Showtime networks.
But after the announcement was made it was a few years before they actually aired.I was wary when I learned that one of the producers was Harry Alan Towers.
Caine looks good, but he doesn't have the same verve.
Potter was always a bit of a dupe in the earlier films (MOUSETRAP, THE SPY FROM RIO, and HARRY'S MISFITS), but here he seems particularly dull-witted.
It looks like the majority of the budget went to Caine and location shooting, because it didn't go for editing or photography.
And the score by Rick Wakeman sinks the project.Casting is nice, but even though the two films were directed by different men, it is obvious they were filmed at the same time, with many of the same supporting players, including the less than impressive Jason Connery.
Fans of the Len Deighton novels know that Harry Potter is not the name of the character in the books (his name is never revealed), and that the name Harry Potter is an invention of J.K. Rowling (and not Harry Saltzman who co-produced the early Bond films).
The worst film I have seen for a long time..
Sad that this is the first film I have commented on, for most of the films I bother to vote on are good - but having just watched this, and been so disappointed, I must make the effort.
Just how did Michael Caine, and other names I recoginised, get involved in such a film.
Awful scriptwriting, wooden acting, poor editing, continuity and most other aspects of film-making.
Michael Caine keeps the train moving.
British agent Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is doing a nothing job observing the North Korean Embassy when a demonstration turns violent.
Harry gets retired due to budget cuts.
He is lured to St. Petersburg where he meets Nikolai (Jason Connery), Natasha (Mia Sara) and potential employer Alex (Michael Gambon).
All the while, Harry is hounded by would-be assassins.This is a continuation of Len Deighton's character Harry Palmer but not actually from a book of his.
It's a TV movie elevated by Michael Caine returning as Harry.
The action isn't slick like 007 but it's exotic enough.
Other than Michael Caine, there isn't anything superior in this movie..
Harry Palmer still shows 'em how it's done!.
Michael Caine slips comfortably and amusingly into one of the most famous roles of his career, Harry Palmer (AKA the anti-Bond), after a 30-year break.
The film itself is both pleasingly old-fashioned (much of it takes place on a train, by far the most traditional means of transportation in this genre), and successfully updated to be relevant in the mid-1990s, post-Cold War era, where spies from all over the world are suddenly labeled "redundant" by their governments.
The story is slightly meandering in the middle but it has its surprises too, and the film is well-produced (especially for a TV project); the relatively (in comparison to James Bond) small scale of its action sequences generally works in their favor.
It's been a long time since I last saw the final theatrical Palmer film, "Billion Dollar Brain", but I think "Bullet To Beijing" is superior to that one at least.
Like the man said you can't go home again and in most cases you shouldn't even try but as we all know Michael Caine is so afraid of winding up broke he'd even black up to play a spear carrier in a remake of Zulu.
Although Caine is still the Harry Palmer of The Ipress File, Funeral In Berlin etc, Len Deighton didn't write so much as FADE IN on this one and all I can say is he must have got some serious wedge for the use of his creation.
The plot, if you can call it that, needn't detain us, suffice it to say there is lots of shooting, blowing up and stuff of that ilk and about once every other Fall you can actually tell who is who and what side they're on.