Sab Shimono

Melvin Smiley (Mark Wahlberg) has a good life thanks to his talents as a contract-killer but has a very working-class mentality going about his life, in combination with his constant struggles to maintain two romantic relationships. One is with the demanding and demeaning Chantel (Lela Rochon), who does not accept his work, and the other with Pam (Christina Applegate), who knows nothing of his job. Melvin is somewhat of a pushover, trying to appease all of Chantel's demands, even her most expensive wishes (like paying the next installment of $25K on her mortgage), as well as rolling over whenever one of his co-workers takes credit for his achievements. Chantel is cheating on Melvin and knows that he is engaged to Pam on the side. Pam has also taken $50K out of their savings account to loan to her parents, who are unable to get a loan to start a business due to their bad credit history in the past. Melvin carries out entire heists by himself (taking all the risks), while his co-workers wait for him outside to finish the job. But in front of the boss, they push Melvin behind to take all the credit. Perhaps as a result of his helplessness in asserting himself, throughout the early scenes, Melvin is often seen drinking Maalox to relieve a developing stress-induced ulcer. Feeling underpaid for their work for mob boss Paris (Avery Brooks), the assassin team of Melvin, Cisco (Lou Diamond Phillips), Crunch (Bokeem Woodbine), Vince (Antonio Sabato Jr.) and Gump (Robin Dunne) take an independent job, kidnapping Keiko Nishi (China Chow), the teenage daughter of local electronics magnate Jiro Nishi (Sab Shimono), for a hefty ransom. Melvin poses as her limo driver and picks her up from school. Her boyfriend Lance tries to sexually assault Keiko in the back of the limo and Melvin shoots him. Despite the kidnapping, Keiko is not afraid and instead makes fun of the fact that the kidnappers look amateurs. Unfortunately, the team does not realize that Nishi has recently gone bankrupt over his failed foray into films and furthermore, their boss Paris is the girl's godfather. Enlisted by the group to hold Keiko, Melvin has to hide the bound and gagged schoolgirl on his property. At first, Melvin hides Keiko at Chantel's place, but she kicks her out when she finds that Melvin has been unable to come up with the money for the mortgage like he had promised. Now Melvin has no option but to hide Keiko at Pam's. Attempting to keep her presence hidden from Pam and her parents (Jeanne (Lainie Kazan) & Morotn (Elliott Gould)), who are staying over at Pam's for the weekend. Pam takes her parents to the Jewish temple for their daily prayers. That allows Melvin a little breather to bring things under control. Melvin feels sorry for Keiko and relieves her from her bondage. In the ensuing hours they build up a rapport preparing dinner together, an act which leads into a love scene reminiscent of the pottery scene from Ghost, but which is cut short when Keiko attempts to escape. Melvin captures Keiko and puts her in the boot of his car. Ordered by Paris to discover the kidnappers of his goddaughter, a panicked Cisco kills Gump. While Cisco was with Paris, Gump makes the ransom call to Jiro at the appointed time. By this time Jiro had set up all the trace equipment needed to track and locate the caller. Gump gives the location of the money drop to Jiro, but Jiro stalls enough for the trace to be completed. So, Cisco rushes out (with the rest of Paris's goons) to get to Gump and kill him, because he will spill the beans to Paris. Cisco hits Gump in the midriff into implicating Melvin for the kidnapping, by saying that Keiko is with Melvin. Then Cisco kills Gump. A team of assassins crash Melvin's dinner with Pam's family, leading to a shootout during which Melvin realizes Pam was going to break up with him over pressure from her mother, a hardcore Jew who is severely against her being with Melvin, a Gentile. Melvin and Keiko's growing feelings for each other lead them to forming an awkward romance, and she and Melvin attempt to escape from the fiasco, pursued by Cisco. In the chaos, Melvin happens to run into Chantel (who was running away with her boyfriend and Melvin's money) and finally takes the opportunity to stand up to her and end their relationship. A fight ensues between Cisco and Melvin, culminating at a video store where the ever-honest Melvin stops to return an overdue tape of King Kong Lives. Melvin kills Cisco by stabbing him in the chest, but not before Cisco arms an explosive device. Melvin leaves the building and is confronted by Keiko, her father and Paris. He re-enters the building, which explodes. Paris and Nishi, believing Melvin to be dead, call off the manhunt. Soon Melvin is revealed to have survived, sheltered from the blast by an enormous solid gold film stand-up made for the flop that destroyed Nishi's career. Melvin and Keiko are reunited and ride off together, while Nishi recoups his losses by making a film out of the story of his daughter's kidnapping.

In Tibet after the First World War, at the court of a powerful foreign warlord, an American named Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin) has succumbed to his darker instincts during the war. He then vanished into the Orient, where he exists as a brutal warlord and opium kingpin under the alias of Yin-Ko (Mandarin Chinese meaning "Dark Eagle"). One night he is abducted from his palace by servants of the Tulku (Barry Dennen), a holy man who exhibits otherworldly powers and knows Cranston's identity. Tulku lives in a huge temple deep and high within the mountains, but the temple itself is hidden to the outside world. Only the chosen ones are allowed to see the temple. Tulku informs Cranston that he will become a force for good. Tulku says that Cranston has the ability to see the evil in men's hearts as he has seen the evil himself. Cranston objects but is silenced by the Phurba (Frank Welker), a mystical living knife that assaults Cranston, wounding him. Cranston is unable to refuse and remains under the tutelage of the Tulku for seven years. The price of Cranston's redemption was to take up man's struggle against evil. He learns to "cloud men's minds", a form of hypnosis that allows him to influence others' thoughts through the force of concentration and bend their perceptions so that he becomes invisible, save for his shadow (the only thing he can never hide). Cranston returns to New York and resumes his previous life. No one is aware of his past in the East, and he is seen as a shallow and opulent playboy. He operates as The Shadow, a vigilante that terrorizes the underworld. Citizens who are saved by the Shadow are recruited to be his allies, providing him with informants and specialists. The existence of The Shadow is regarded by the public as nothing more than an urban legend. Moses "Moe" Shrevnitz (Peter Boyle) is a cab driver allied with the Shadow. Dr. Roy Tam (Sab Shimono) is a Chinese scientist rescued by the Shadow. Burbank (Andre Gregory) is an ally of the Shadow who runs his spy network which is connected to a central station through a network of communication pipes running through the city, used by the allies to deliver messages to The Shadow. Cranston's allies are given a special ring that helps them identify each other as members of The Shadow's organization. His identity is largely unknown, especially to his Uncle Wainwright (Jonathan Winters), who happens to be the Police Commissioner of New York, who he has to regularly hypnotize in order to keep the police from interfering with him. The Shadow's secret is endangered when Cranston meets Margot Lane (Penelope Ann Miller), an eccentric socialite who is also a natural Telepath. He is intrigued, but unable to continue seeing her as he cannot keep his thoughts from her. Cranston is challenged by Shiwan Khan (John Lone), another student of the Tulku who possesses even sharper powers but did not turn to good. Shiwan Khan arrives in New York inside Genghis Khan's sarcophagus and delivered to the New York museum. Isaac Newbold (Joseph Maher) is curator of the New York museum and Berger (Max Wright) is the assistant curator. Isaac is astonished to find a sarcophagus made of pure Silver delivered to the museum. He is shocked to read the inscription and realize that the sarcophagus belongs to Genghis Khan. The sarcophagus opens at night, revealing Khan, who kills Nelson (Ethan Phillips), the night guard at the museum. Through his network, Cranston learns about Khan's arrival in the city. Khan is the last descendant of Genghis Khan and plans to fulfill his ancestor's goal of world domination. He offers Cranston an alliance, sensing that blood-lust and a thirst for power still exists in his heart, but Cranston refuses. Cranston acquires a rare coin from Khan and learns that it is made of a metal called Bronzium that theoretically can generate an explosion large enough to destroy a city. This suspicion is confirmed when he learns that Margot's father Reinhardt (Ian McKellen), an atomic scientist working for the War Department, has vanished. Cranston deduces that Khan has compelled Reinhardt to create an atomic bomb. Shiwan Khan hypnotizes Margot Lane and sends her after Cranston, hoping to force him to kill her and reawaken his darker side, but the attempt is unsuccessful. Cranston breaks Khan's hold on her but she is now aware of his secret identity. Cranston goes to rescue Reinhardt but is thwarted by several of Khan's henchmen. The Shadow suffers another setback when he confronts Reinhardt's former assistant Farley Claymore (Tim Curry), who has joined Khan's forces. Claymore traps the Shadow in a submersion tank, but he saves himself by mentally summoning Margot. The Shadow learns of Khan's hideout: the luxurious Hotel Monolith, a building in the middle of the city that Shiwan Khan has rendered invisible as it appears to everyone as an empty lot. Knowing that Khan has Reinhardt hostage and the completed bomb in his possession, he infiltrates the hotel for a final showdown. The Shadow fights his way through the hotel, killing Claymore and Khan's warriors. He faces Khan and is subdued by the Phurba, sustaining multiple injuries until he forces himself to concentrate and overcome Khan's power. He takes control of the Phurba and sends it into Khan's torso, splitting his concentration which undoes both Reinhardt's hypnotic state and the hotel's invisibility. As the citizens outside see a building appear, the Shadow pursues Khan into the bowels of the building while Margot and Reinhardt disable the bomb. The Shadow defeats Khan by psychically hurling a mirror shard into his skull. Khan awakens in an asylum, confused as to how he got there and discovering that his powers no longer work. He learns that the doctors saved his life by removing the part of his brain that harbored his psychic abilities. He demands to be set free but is ignored along with the rants of the other inmates. Unknown to him, the doctor is an agent of the Shadow who has ensured that Khan is no longer a threat. Cranston and Margo begin a relationship and join forces to fight the criminal underworld.

In a town in rural Pennsylvania, the automobile factory has been shut down for nine months, leaving the town economically distressed. A Japanese company, Assan Motors, has purchased the factory, but will need to be convinced that it is worth reopening. Hunt Stevenson goes to Japan to make a presentation to Assan's management, and the result is that Assan sends a management team to America and the factory is reopened, although the workers will earn a substantially lower wage than they had before the factory had originally closed. However, Hunt is a hero for having convinced management to reopen. The culture clash is severe, as Japanese management demands far more regimentation and output than the workers are used to, and unpaid overtime is expected when output falls short of productivity standards. Management has little regard for the workers and the quality of their lives, focusing on productivity alone. The workers become agitated and their relationship with management becomes adversarial. Acting as employee liaison, Hunt tries to smooth things over, but is unable, and when a worker intentionally knocks over one of the Japanese managers during a company baseball game, the situation appears beyond repair. Japanese management sees little point in keeping the factory open until Hunt contends that he can match the production of a Japanese factory in its best month, meaning 15,000 completed automobiles. Amused by this contention, Japanese management agrees that once this output is reached, the factory would remain open and wages would return to the levels operating before the original closing of the factory. Otherwise, the factory would close once again and the workers would receive nothing. Hunt advises the workers of this deal, but his announcement is met with incredulity, and to appease them, he falsely relates that a lesser raise would still be earned once this output exceeded 13,000 automobiles. The workers give this a shot, but despite working long hours and on weekends, they conclude that the goal of 15,000 is unattainable, and decide to go for the raise that would come once 13,000 automobiles were completed. After attaining this goal, the workers walk out on management when a dispute arises. Now, Hunt must come clean, and tell his town that he made a deal for 15,000 automobiles, and that failure would result in no raises, which would devastate the town's local economy. Hunt has now gone from hero to goat, and his co-workers are furious. However, they finally put their noses to the grindstone and put their differences with the Japanese managers aside as the senior executive from Japan is coming to check on the state of the factory. When the strict executive comes by, they have fallen slightly short of their 15,000 goal, but the Japanese executive is nonetheless impressed by the team spirit he sees in the factory. Liking the way that the Americans and Japanese are now working together, he decides to keep the factory open, and give the full raises, and the stage is set for an era of understanding among all those working at the factory. The management agrees to be partially less demanding on their requirements and pay the employees better while the workers agree to be more cooperative.