Expected more

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is one of Spencer and Hill's movies that perhaps hasn't aged quite as well and is probably more appealing to kids. It also resorts to racist stereotypes with the islanders and the Japanese soldier, who still thinks World War II is going, but it's still a classic as far as I'm concerned. Great fight scenes and plenty of laughs, as well as comical villains who as usual never get the better of Bud and Terence.

This is pure escapist slapstick comedy. Don't try to find any hidden meaning in the simple plot. There isn't any. Terence Hill, in hock to gangsters, is given a map which purports to show the location of a hidden treasure on the mysterious island of Bongo Bongo. He stows away on a small motorsailer captained by bearlike Bud Spencer which is leaving on a circumnavigation. Despite the fact that the boat is only 30 feet long, the two blundering mutually antagonistic Hill and Spencer manage to keep out of each others way until well into the voyage. The stowaway scenes are the comedic highlight of the movie. The rest is slapstick bluster. The point of departure is obviously Miami, Florida but Bongo Bongo is located in the South Seas. Hill manages to rig the compass so that the boat heads for the island instead of on its intended course. During a tussle both fall overboard and swim for the island, a tropic paradise inhabited by natives who behave like the cast from a 1920s Harlem musical. The island is guarded by a Japanese WW2 soldier unaware that the war is long over. He fires shots randomly in all directions narrowly missing both protagonists. Naturally the treasure is hidden in his fort. Hill and Spencer demolish the fort and most of the other structures on the island with the help of an abandoned WW2 Japanese tank. At this point the Japanese soldier reveals a remarkable talent for English music hall comedy and the three become allies. Periodically the island is visited by slave traders and the gangsters who, having found a duplicate map, are also looking for the treasure. Like Gilligan's Island, everyone except Hill and Spencer seem to come and go as they please. Each visit results in a slapstick melee in which Hill and Spencer are uniformly victorious, performing Jackie Chan feats of derring do. The escape from the island is anti-climatic except for the surprise ending which is as improbable as the rest of the story.I must confess that I watched this movie because I own the original boat that was featured in the first half. It is a 1974 Willard Horizon motorsailer and looks just as it did in the film. The previous owner was a technical consultant on the seagoing sequences for the producer. I'm a fan of the boat, not necessarily the actors - but the film is a good family diversion on a rainy night. The kids will love it.

The less you expect from this film, the more you are likely to enjoy it. It's filmed on pleasant locations and has a nice carefree spirit, but as a comedy it is anemic and rather leisurely paced - only mildly amusing BEFORE the starring duo gets to the "desert" island, and even less amusing when they DO get there. There are no outstanding scenes, and the dubbing of Bud Spencer's character is problematic. (**)

It's gone some years since I saw this movie, but I remember it as one of the funniest Bud Spencer films. Spencer is on a desert (he thinks) island to search for a treasure, but soon he got some company from some bandits who (several times) ends up with broken bones and black eyes.If you like Jackie Chaan-movies you probable like this one.