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  1. #1
    Five-O Home Page Author Mr. Mike's Avatar
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    I am working on updating my review of Nine Dragons, which is still not done (my favorite episode).

    There are numerous differences between what appears in the show on the DVDs ("DVD" below) and what was in a copy of a script that I have ("Script" below), though that is "Second Draft, April 9, 1976." Whether this script was modified before broadcast or things mentioned below were later edited out is not known.

    Script: When McGarrett is taken away after he is no longer useful to Wo Fat, he is on a "hydrofoil boat." The two thugs accompanying him start shooting after he escapes and dives over the side. Amazingly, he is not hit. DVD: McGarrett is on a wooden boat, he kicks one of the two thugs over the side and punches the other one out before he leaps into the water.

    Script: After he is rescued by Suzie and her uncle, they take his clothes to dry out and give him "the clothes of a Chinese fisherman." Suzie also shaves McGarrett while he is "out" after his ordeal.

    Script: The thugs chasing McGarrett and Suzie in the market area fire guns at them.

    Script: Prior to the toxins arriving in Honolulu, McGarrett and Danno meet with the Governor and Colonel DePaul at the Governor's office which fills in background on why the toxins are coming to Hawaii.

    Script: Wo Fat's name is "Soong," not "Shang."

    Script: There is no line about Dr. Dalton being "very pretty."

    Script: Mr. Chong, Wo Fat's stooge, does not appear in the show's first half at all. Wo's henchmen are Jimmy Tsen (played by Walter Omori, the "mysterious actor") and Harry Luk. The conversation between Chong and Wo in the limousine is handled by Tsen. When Professor Po Ling arrives at Wo's hotel, he is announced by Tsen, who later forcibly takes Ling away, puts him in his car and, with Luk, manually pushes the car over a cliff. DVD: Tsen and Chong put Po Ling in his car and push it over the cliff using another car, which is driven by Luk.

    Script: Only Duke goes to Wo's hotel to meet the bald guy who is pretending to be Soong/Shang, not Duke and Danno.

    Script: After McGarrett phones campus security to tell them that Prof. Sheng is a fake and to immediately check him out, they react appropriately. During the shoot-out with Wo's men, one of the two campus cops is killed. DVD: McGarrett later says, "They were alive when I left them."

    Script – explained: The "Freon-12" gas used to knock out Shimoto and the two students via the bunsen burner supposedly produces phosgene, an extremely toxic vapor, according to McGarrett (this is not correct in real life). It is also explained that the small box which Wo attached to the gas line for the burner is "miniature power pack [which] put a small DC voltage on the line, which could be read by a simple voltmeter in the Utility Room."

    Script: McGarrett tells Wo that the Hong Kong police were "diverted" when he arrived, just like "the way you diverted the Army captain for that Schofield payroll heist." Wo wonders how McGarrett knew that "my truck would enter the army camp at exactly 5:02 that day." This refers to some other caper of Wo which never happened in a previous episode.

    Script: The torture of McGarrett is much more elaborate, including "lying face-up on a lab table, and wired all over his face and body for electric current. Suddenly the juice is turned on, and he writhes and screams and convulses in agony." Also: "Dolly through blackness to a beautiful oriental woman, her arms outstretched as though to receive him in love; then, moaning in pain, zoom out to show him hanging by his thumbs."

    Script: The moustached guy that Wo gives the toxins to is "Mr. Han-Chu." Surveillance footage later reveals him to be "Keemoy [sic] Han-Chu -- former general in charge of China's ballistic missile program. When Chou Enlai died, he wanted the country run by a military junta. But he was overruled by Chairman Mao, and stripped of his rank." The general is in cahoots with Wo as part of Wo's power play to take control of the Chinese government.

    Script: McGarrett doesn't enter the police station with an element of surprise after the attack by the "rickshaw driver" (Beau Van Den Ecker). DVD: We first see him being examined by a doctor in the police station.

    Script: Waring leaves the building under the pretense of investigating a triad-related killing, mentioning that Frank Chambers, who would normally handle this kind of case, "is ill." Chambers, who suddenly appeared in the show out of nowhere, has collapsed because of low blood sugar. There is no special significance to this that I can determine. In the script, Waring's name is "Ward."

    Script: Waring tells Wo in their phone conversation that "old Blake is improving with obesity." Huh? DVD: The expression is "with age."

    Script: The boat that Waring escapes on is described as "a small power boat." There are no other people on the boat and it later explodes. DVD: Two men emerge from some secret compartment in the boat, which is wooden-looking and seriously injure Waring with machetes. In both versions, Waring is still alive enough for McGarrett to grill him before he dies. On the DVD, Waring says Wo is on "Victoria Peak," but in the script, he says he is in "Kowloon -- the old Tai Mansion -- Castle Peak."

    Script: McGarrett and Chin Ho go to "China Travel Service" to send an urgent message to the Chinese government. DVD: It's Danno and Chin Ho who go there.

    DVD: At the end of the show, Wo Fat is in a building at Victoria Peak, watching his handiwork via a monitor which shows what's going on in China. Script: Wo has gone back to Peking, where he has a "command post" with monitors. Tipped off by McGarrett via China Travel Service at the last minute, Colonel Kuo-Ming, some big shot in Peking, busts Wo Fat and others for "high treason." Han-Chu is seen on a TV monitor wearing his general's uniform. He is preparing to launch a missile attack and do other bad things. Kuo-Ming tells Han-Chu via the monitor to "surrender or die."

    Script: People who sometimes should be speaking Chinese in the show are speaking English, like during the initiation ceremony for the Nine Dragons. DVD: People sometimes speak Chinese and the subtitles say "SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE," as if we don't know that it is Chinese, duh! During the initiation ceremony, the dialogue is Chinese and there are English subtitles on the screen, the only time in the series subtitles for the dialogue appear like this (I think).

    Script: Mr. Chong appears at the end of the initiation ceremony to tell the assembled that McGarrett has escaped from the boat. DVD: Han-Chu makes the announcement.

    Script: As the show ends, McGarrett writes a letter to Suzie, telling her that she will get a $5,000 reward for helping rescue him (this was not mentioned previously anywhere). Blake delivers the money to her, and she tells her uncle that now they can buy a fishing boat (she mentioned in the script that they wanted to do this previously after McGarrett was rescued).

    If you think that the broadcast version is rushed at the end, it is nothing compared to the scripted version!

  2. #2
    Five-O Home Page Author Mr. Mike's Avatar
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    At the beginning of 9 Dragons, we see McGarrett jump into the water in the teaser (the very dinky teaser at the beginning). We see him once running from left to right, and then only a few minutes later, from right to left, though these are the same shot. I really don't think that Jack Lord would have been jumping into the filthy dirty water off Hong Kong. When you see "him" going into the water, it is at such an angle that it is probably a stunt man. Once he is in the water, you don't see too much of the background, which makes me think that these scenes were probably shot in Hawaii. When Suzie and her uncle help McGarrett out of the water, you do not see their faces, which is interesting. In the background seems to be an island. I brought this section to someone's attention and she is of the opinion that the island in the background is probably Molokai.

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