In the world of billiards trick shots, few are as jaw-dropping than Florian “Venom” Kohler’s signature massé-ing with multiple cues or Andy “Magic Man” Segal’s famous “The Pendulum” or Bogdan “The Wizard” Wolkowski’s “The Bottle Shot.”
But, I’m pretty sure none of these magicians could recreate the “50 balls to create a word” shot that comprises one-fifth of the trick shot competition in the 1985 Hong Kong billiards movie Equals Against Devils (original title: Huo ping lang zi), which was also released with the English title The Desperate Prodigal. In this trick shot, opponents must shoot and stick a series of balls onto an adhesive surface about 30 feet away to create a word (or a letter).
Of course, the shot is ridiculous (and only made using some crude on-screen computer graphics), but then again, everything is in this low-budget, b-rated film from director, writer, and leading actor Roc (Peng) Tien.
The plot (and that is being generous) of Equals Against Devils is that a wealthy man, Black Sinner, who once had his hand chopped off after beating his opponent, White Cloud, in a pool tournament, enlists a rising pool prodigy in his master plan to extract revenge and win $500,000 from White Cloud in a 150-point billiards tournament.
That prodigy is Alan, who we first meet hustling pool in a local parlor, with Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” (aka the theme to Rocky) playing in the background. Alan is a soft-spoken player, who lives with his three orphaned friends and is so penurious that when he first visits Black Sinner, Alan requests permission to walk on the rug, having never seen one.
Black Sinner befriends Alan, promising him food, wealth and three months of pool lessons in order to beat White Cloud. Black Sinner’s plan works, which then causes the humiliated White Cloud to devise his own series of revenge schemes. First, he hires Chicken, a white leisure suit wearing hitman, who sports a Bjorn Borg headband and suffers from exotropia, to kill Alan. That idea fails, so he then recruits Sally, a buxom, pin-up who hustles Alan into playing pool for a $15,000 diamond ring. Turns out Sally is a pool shark, but this plan collapses as well, when one of Alan’s associates swaps out the diamond for a fake.
Finally, he sets up a doubles trick shot billiards competition, in which Alan and Black Sinner will compete against White Cloud and a billiards pro named Biyashi. This is arguably the most imaginative part of the movie, even if the pool-playing is completely fake. The first of the five shots involves aiming balls at light bulbs to break them. The second is the aforementioned lexical shot. The third is a variation of William Tell’s famous archery feat, but in this case, it entails knocking a billiards ball into a light bulb atop a person’s head. The penultimate shot involves shooting balls into bells. And the final shot requires the player to massé the cue ball through a series of bottles and land precisely in the middle of a small circle.
Alas, Black Sinner and Alan win the competition, which prompts White Cloud to get old-school with his retaliatory tactics. [SPOILER ALERT!] First, he guns down Black Sinner at his mansion, and then he blows up Alan’s car. But, even that idea backfires, as Alan emerges from the debris, looking like an extra in a George Romero film, and, now (suddenly) an expert marksman, proceeds to assassinate White Cloud and all of his henchmen.
Given this film’s appallingly bad billiards animation, and the over-dubbed sound effects (to emulate the pocketing of the balls), as well as the terrible acting and inane dialogue, I think the real “sinner” in Equals Against Devils is director/writer/actor Roc Tien, for forcing his audience to endure this dreck.
Equals Against Devils is available to rent or buy on DVD. I’m not sure why.
