Known as “Call Him Mr. Shatter” in the U.S., this was the second of a three-movie deal co-production between Shaw Brothers and the British Hammer Film Productions. “The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires” starring Peter Cushing, David Chiang and Shih Szu was the first. Since both movies were box office failures, their third collaboration never materialized.
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At the start of the movie, an assassin named Shatter (Stuart Whitman) is hired to kill an African dictator. His weapon of choice is a gun hidden inside a camera in which he kills his targets by taking their pictures. Maybe they should call him “Shutter” instead. Anyway, after the successful photo shoot, he heads to Hong Kong to meet Hans Leber (Anton Diffring) to collect his payment. But instead of getting his money, he soon discovers that he has become a target as the local hit-men are suddenly out to kill him. While on the run in a strange land, he comes across a kung fu expert Tai Pah (Ti Lung) and massage girl Mai Mee (Lily Li) who are willing to lose their life to help him out. However, Shatter does agree to give half of his payment to them in return.
Shot entirely on location in Hong Kong during the early 70s and without using indoor studio sets, the airport and those populated urban streets are wonderfully captured on screen and the overall look has a natural flavor to it. Additionally, this production definitely benefits from the casting of Shaw Brothers' then top action star Ti Lung, who provides the much needed hand to hand combat scenes even though the fight choreography is of a lower standard. Nonetheless, he excels in the many fight arrangements but the routines displayed are very much a copy of Bruce Lee's fights instead of the traditional Wing Chun. Moreover, filmed mostly in medium shots and tight close-ups, even the long shots are so badly framed that the overall action looks sloppy. Interestingly, director Chang Cheh was seen on the sets at intervals during shooting but his signature action is definitely not there in the finished product which is too messy and uneven; he was probably only there to help the Shaw Brothers actors communicating with the Hammer crew.
Accordingly, sacked after only a few weeks of filming was Monte Hellman, the uncredited original director and producer Michael Carreras then took over. Apparently there were communication issues between the two different film crews and on top of that they had to deal with Stuart Whitman's drinking problems. In his last appearance for Hammer, Peter Cushing has a brief, undemanding supporting role as the trench coat wearing, slimy double crossing secret agent Paul Rattwood. However, his interaction with the main lead is quite intense and he makes the best of his character. Anton Diffring turns up as a corrupted banker, playing a loathsome role which he's good at. Looking both tired and rugged, Whitman is tolerable if uninspired as the international hitman on the run; he's probably more at home doing his TV series.
Unfortunately and significantly underused, Shaw Brother's Lily Li plays Shatter's love interest; a weak character with badly written dialogue. Ti Lung, on the other hand, has a meatier part with plenty of screen time to demonstrate his action skills that should please his fans. Anyway, for their parts, both of them get to speak in English but in a less challenging way. There's a reasonable amount of unknown locals being used as extras but they're mainly there to get beaten up by Ti Lung's character.
Overall, the whole production feels rushed and the editing is a letdown, while the action is equally unspectacular and lacks impact, resulting in a mediocre presentation. On the other hands, Ti Lung's fans will probably get a kick out of it if they can endure the movie's duration.
Shatter was a famously troubled production, originally set to be a Canadian co-production entitled Shoot, until the Canadian producer went bust, but Don Houghton, a Hammer regular who rewrote the original script, had a father-in-law who had business dealings with Run Run Shaw and basically engineered the Hammer / Shaw contract. After Monte Hellman was fired after two weeks of shooting, Carreras took over and realised that very little which had been shot was useable, and tried to salvage what he could. Most people who worked with Whitman in that period, such as directors like Alberto De Martino and Roy Ward Baker, would say that Whitman was terrific in the mornings, until lunchtime, when he would start drinking, so they tried to get all his scenes shot as early as possible.
I think Shatter is an interesting failure, with good performances from the supporting cast, and especially Cushing as the sinister Rattwood, and the action scenes pass muster. It would have been nice to see what would have happened if the production wasn’t disrupted so much by the firing of Hellman and the resulting reduced shooting schedule.