AMERICAN
KICKBOXER 2 (1993) - In
this in-name-only sequel to AMERICAN
KICKBOXER 1 (1991), evil kidnapper Xavier (Ted Markland; EYE
OF THE TIGER - 1986) grabs the young daughter of mother
Lillian (Kathy Shower; COMMANDO SQUAD
- 1987) and stepfather Howard (David Graf; Sgt. Tackleberry in the POLICE
ACADEMY films) and demands $2 million in ransom. Xavier
tells the couple that if they contact the cops or FBI the little girl
is dead, so Lillian gets the bright idea to contact hot-headed cop
(and ex-husband) Mike Clark (Dale "Apollo" Cook; FIST
OF GLORY - 1991) and David (Evan Lurie; SHADOW
WARRIORS - 1996), a martial arts teacher who Lillian had an
affair with while she was married to Mike, to help her get her
daughter back. Since Mike and David are bitter enemies, Lillian tells
them that either one of them could be the little girl's father, so
they both go out on their own to rescue the kidnapped child. While
Lillian deals with her conniving gay
Uncle Francis (Greg Lewis) to scrape together the ransom money, Mike
and David do their separate investigations, which leads them to the
same person: the rental manager (Nick Nicholson) who leased the
helicopter that Xavier used to kidnap the little girl. When the
manager ends up dead, Mike and David reluctantly agree to work
together in their common goal to rescue what each believes to be his
daughter. That doesn't mean that they don't get into the occasional
dust-up with each other, though. After following a tip that the
helicopter pilot hangs out at a bar frequented by mercenaries (I
smell a bar fight!), our unlikely duo pick up a clue which leads the
to a Chinese restaurant that is actually a front for a whorehouse.
They rescue a young prostitute, who gives them their next clue to the
location of the little girl. That location is a warehouse where
Xavier holds illegal martial arts competitions. It's also where the
little girl is being held. Mike and David get themselves into a
pickle when they are captured and forced to fight each other to the
death by Xavier. They are saved by a private detective hired by
Howard, who grabs the little girl and takes off without them. The
finale finds that the kidnapping was actually orchestrated by Howard,
who plans on killing Lillian and her daughter in order to inherit
Lillian's family fortune. Mike and David arrive in the nick of time
and foil the plot, but the question remains: Who is the father, Mike
or David? I'm afraid we never find out, as the film majorly cops-out
in the final scene. This Philippines-lensed actioner suffers
immensely from the outrageously bad acting talents of Dale
"Apollo" Cook (misspelled "Appollo" in the
opening credits), who spends the majority of his screen time emoting
with a toothpick between his teeth, and bulky Evan Lurie, whose
monotone line delivery (not to mention hair so oily, Saudi Arabia
might want to look into drilling into his head) makes Arnold
Schwarzenegger look Shakespearean in comparison. Director/co-scripter
Jeno Hodi (DEADLY OBSESSION
- 1988), who also plays garlic-loving Attila, the private detective
hired by Howard, tries to distract us from the awful acting abilities
of the two main stars by offering numerous martial arts battles and
gunfights, but the sad fact is every time they open their mouths, we
are automatically drawn to their awfulness. Some of the action scenes
are quite lively, as people are thrown through doors and windows,
riddled with bullets (lots of bloody squibs) or simply beaten to a
pulp, but believe me when I tell you this: Director Jodi could have
made a much better film if he simply made his two actors mute and had
them communicating with each other using sign language, although I'm
sure that many middle fingers would have to be shown. The fact that
we never find out who the little girl's father is also hurt my
opinion of the film. In the end, we're led to believe that Mike,
David and Lillian live happily ever after, neither man anxious to
find out who is the real father (I suspected this was coming when,
earlier in this film, Mike and David discover they have the same
blood type). I hate films that promise something and then fail to
deliver. Also starring Jeff Iorio, Jim Moss and an uncredited
appearance by American expatriate actor Jim Gaines as a warehouse
tough. A Vidmark Entertainment
Release. Not available on DVD. Rated R.
ANGEL'S
BLOOD MISSION (1988)
-
A lot of people think this is another one of Godfrey Ho's
cut-and-paste martial arts flicks (Ho only scripted this one, using
the name "Benny Ho") that he made for producers Joseph Lai
and Betty Chan, but they would be wrong. As usual the IMDB
lists Godfrey Ho as the director, but this was actually directed by
Philip Ko (ANGEL ON FIRE
- 1995) and, unlike Ho patchwork martial arts films, this one is 100%
ninja-free. Ko has taken some unreleased Hong Kong gangster film,
inserted newly-shot footage featuring Caucasian actors (including
Mike Abbott and Mark Watson) and rejiggered the plot. The core of the
story concerns gangster Peter Lin, who is working in concert with
Barton (Abbott) to take over the territory of female crime boss Helen
Mo (Juliet Chan). Charlie, who is working with unemployed ex-cop John
Foley (Watson), infiltrates Peter's gang with plans on killing Peter
and Barton, who killed Charlie's best friend
Sam and stole a briefcase full of money that Sam was delivering to
Helen. With me so far? It get's more confusing. Every twenty minutes
or so, John Foley can be seen getting into fights with Barton's white
goons and either beats them with his fists or guns them down. Arthur,
another unemployed guy working with Charlie, goes to work for Helen
as an enforcer (When Helen tells him that her main business is in the
"service" industry, making men happy, Arthur says, "You
want me to service men?!") and begins beating the crap out of
Peter's men. Peter and Barton take notice and they order their men to
kill Arthur, but they fail miserably every time they try. Arthur and
some of Helen's goons go to Peter's casino and clear it out when they
light some phony sticks of TNT (!) Peter retaliates and sends some of
his men to Helen's massage parlor, where they light some smoke bombs
and clear out the joint (These two crime bosses are utter geniuses!).
Helen issues a challenge to Peter: One game of poker between Arthur
and Peter. The stakes: Helen's prostitution racket vs. Peter's casino
operation. When Arthur draws four aces to Peter's four kings (they
both cheated), things turn ugly, a fight ensues and Helen gives Peter
three days to move out. Arthur quits Helen's gang (He says to her,
"I'm declaring myself free!") and Helen orders his death
(which happens). After all this, Peter and Helen join forces when
Charlie finally surfaces to bring both gangs down. He takes on
everyone single-handedly while John Foley fights Barton in a battle
to the death. While the film doesn't make an ounce of sense,
there's plenty of bloody violence to keep your eyes occupied. People
are sliced with knives, beaten with pipes, shot with a speargun,
riddled with bullets and killed with a forklift. During Arthur's
death sequence, he spends most of his time fighting Peter's goons
with a huge knife sticking out of his stomach. Before he dies, Arthur
manages to pull one goon down on some spikes of a wrought iron fence.
In an unbelievable ending to the scene, Arthur's girlfriend Sylvia
comes running to him while he is lying on the ground and incredibly
says, "Arthur, are you alright?" Bitch, can't you see the
huge knife in his gut and his bloody shirt? Some other
"highlights" include some lucky guy getting his eye poked
out with a broken bottle, Charlie's hyper-kinetic fight scene in the
finale and a scene where John Foley shows one of his opponents some
comical razzle-dazzle footwork, only to shoot him when he is done.
Also hilarious is Mike Abbott's obvious stunt double in the final
fight. Since there are no ninja outfits to hide the actors' faces,
it's plain to see some Oriental stuntman was used when Abbott had to
do backflips and high kicks. Forget the plot and enjoy the violence.
I can see why people would confuse this with a Godfrey Ho film. It's
confusing as hell and follows the same narrative structure as Ho's
patchwork films, except there are no ninjas in sight. On-screen
title: AMERICAN COMMANDO
- ANGEL'S BLOOD MISSION.
Also known as ADVENT
COMMANDO: ANGEL'S BLOOD MISSION. I'm still trying to figure
out who the hell Angel is, since no one in this film went by that
name. Also starring Champ Wang (c'mon now!), Gary Carter, Eric
Hopper, Bill Hunt and Tattoer Ma. A Parade Video Release. Not Rated.
BAMBOO
GODS AND IRON MEN (1974) -
Fun Filipino film, a mixture of martial arts action and comedy
elements. Legend says that a pouch recently stolen from the grave of
a 10th Century Chinese scientist contains a substance so powerful,
whomever is in possession of it can rule or destroy the world.
Professional boxer Calvin Jefferson (James Iglehart; SAVAGE
- 1973; FIGHTING MAD
- 1978) and his new bride Marlene (Shirley Washington; DARKTOWN
STRUTTERS - 1974) are visiting Hong Kong on their honeymoon
and get mixed up in the whole mess when one of the bad guys places
the pouch in a statue of Buddha that Marlene bought as a souvenir.
The bad guy does this to insure that the pouch will make it out of
Hong Kong customs and to Manila, where head bad guy, Leo King (a bald
Ken Metcalfe, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joseph Zucchero, who
also has a role here), plans on retrieving it and ruling the world.
While in Hong Kong, Calvin saves the life of mute peasant Chow Lee
(Chiquito; ARIZONA KID -
1971; JAMES WONG - 1973),
who was knocked-out and thrown in the ocean by three street thugs
after saving a young woman from being raped. Calvin jumps in the
ocean and saves his life and from that moment on, Chow Lee (who
Calvin renames "Charley") is indebted to lifelong servitude
to Calvin and becomes an unwanted third wheel in Calvin
and Marlene's honeymoon. No matter how much they try to ditch him,
Charley says close behind them, stowing away on the ship to Manila
and eventually saving Calvin's life when Mr. King's goons try to
steal the Buddha (Charley's very good in the arts that are martial).
Calvin and Marlene eventually welcome Charley into their lives and
it's a good thing, too, because Mr. King sends wave after wave of bad
guys to steal the Buddha. Charley teaches Calvin the finer points of
the martial arts to go along with his boxing skills (which aren't
very good when you're facing kung-fu experts) and when Mr. King
finally steals the Buddha and finds that the pouch is not in it,
Calvin will have to use his new-found skills when Mr. King believes
he stole the pouch. Mr. King kidnaps Marlene, which forces Calvin and
Charley to figure out where the pouch is and deliver it to Mr. King
before Marlene is killed. Charley discovers the true location of the
pouch and races to Mr. King's hideout with an inept police detective
in tow to stop Calvin from making a big mistake. Everything works out
in the end when it is discovered that the "powerful"
substance in the pouch is nothing but simple gunpowder (powerful in
the 10th Century, no so much today). Everyone, including Mr. King,
have a good laugh when the gunpowder explodes in their faces, making
everyone look like performers in a minstrel show. Oh, and Charley
regains his ability to speak thanks to the explosion! This
Filipino action film, directed by Cesar Gallardo (HUSTLER
SQUAD - 1976) and produced by Cirio H. Santiago (TNT
JACKSON - 1975), is a funny, if derivative, martial arts
variation of THE MALTESE FALCON
(1941) and bears striking similarities to director Robert Clouse's GOLDEN
NEEDLES, made the same year as this. Lighthearted in tone,
yet still containing bloody deaths and scenes of rape, BAMBOO
GODS AND IRON MEN (also known as BLACK
KUNG FU) treads a fine line between comedy and violence and
succeeds most of the time. James Iglehart and Shirley Washington are
surprisingly good as the newlywed couple and popular Filipino
comedian Chiquito is very funny as the mute Charley. While he's a
little too broad at times and his martial arts skills questionable at
best (for a martial arts master, he sure does get knocked-out a lot),
Chiquito makes a good silent partner for Iglehart. There are some
funny sequences between the two, such as when Mr. King's head
henchmen, Ambrose (Eddie Garcia; BEAST
OF BLOOD - 1970; THE
WOMAN HUNT - 1972), brings the duo to a massage parlor under
false pretenses, which results in some hand-to-hand combat between
the parties (and lots of screaming topless women) and Charley running
out of the building bare-assed. There are plenty of badly-staged
martial arts fights on view, but it is the goofy comedy (especially
the unbelievable ending) by the game cast, including Ken Metcalfe
(who seems to be in at least 80% of the Filipino action flicks I have
seen), that will suck you in. Not a good film by any stretch of the
imagination (the production values are horrid and the editing and
sound recording are piss-poor), but an entertaining one nonetheless.
Cesar Gallardo's son, Jun Gallardo (who was Associate Director here),
directed many Filipino action flicks, Including RESCUE
TEAM (1983), COMMANDO
INVASION (1986) and SFX
RETALIATOR (1987), usually using the pseudonym "John
Gale". Also starring Marissa Delgado, Michael Boyet, Robert
Rivera, Leo Martinez, Zubas Herrero, Benny Pestano, Steve Alcardo and
a cameo by Vic Diaz as a hotel desk clerk. Distributed theatrically
by American International Pictures. Never released legitimately on
home video in the U.S., but it did get a Canadian VHS release through
Astral Films. Available on DVD-R from many gray market sellers,
including Cinefear Home Video. Rated
R.
THE
BLACK DRAGON (1974) - Hong
Kong/Philippines co-production that mixes martial arts sequences with
the tale of the grimy life of an undocumented worker on the mean
streets of the Philippines. The film is more notable, though, for Ron
Van Clief's screen debut in the title role (although he's a secondary
character at best) and also for the wildly inappropriate bluegrass
music (heavy on the harmonica and the banjo) playing on the
soundtrack that totally ruins some of the early fight scenes. When
his brother, Chi Fu Shi (Thompson Kao Kang), returns from the
Philippines to his small Chinese farming village a refined and
well-dressed businessman (although it's plain to see that his
personality has not changed for the better), Tai Lin (Jason Pai Piao; BLOODY
PARROT - 1981) borrows some money from him and heads to the
Philippines, only to find its streets littered with opium addicts,
pickpockets, illegal gambling and street fights. Tai Lin befriends
pickpocket Siao Mao (Ruen Vernal), only to have Siao Mao betray him,
stealing a pair of shoes Tai Lin's mother made him (which he promised
to wear only when he becomes a "man") and losing them at a
gambling den. Tai Lin takes pity on Siao and saves him from a
beatdown at the hands of the gambling den's goons, where Tai
retrieves his shoes and beats the snot out of the goons. Tai takes a
job on the docks, where the majority of Chinese
immigrants end up when they can't find any decent work. After
witnessing one of his fellow "dockers" being beaten-up for
moving too slow, Tai intervenes and ends up defeating a bunch of the
Big Boss' men (Films like this don't assign a name to the big boss,
preferring to just call them the "Big Boss"). This doesn't
go unnoticed by the Big Boss, who convinces a naïve Tai to sign
a contract to work for him as a "gang leader" at the docks
(basically making him no better than the people he just defeated). On
the first day of his new position, a rival gang headed by a Black
(Ron Van Clief) and a Filipino (George Estregan) invade the docks,
where Tai proves his worth by single-handedly defeating them in a
fight. Tai is about to learn the hard way that he's actually working
for the wrong side and is exploiting his own people, as the rival
gang and Tai's new girlfriend, Ching Kwei (Nancy Veronica) open his
eyes about what is really going on at the docks: The Big Boss is
illegally exporting huge quantities of opium back to China and
throughout the rest of the world. Tai quits his job in disgust and
joins the rival gang, but he soon learns that the contract he signed
is legally binding (by a crooked Filipino law system) and he has one
of two choices: Work for the Big Boss for five years doing menial,
back-breaking jobs or pay a $100,000 penalty. Being a man of his
word, Tai has no choice but to work for the Big Boss, but Siao Mao,
without Tai's knowledge, sneaks into the Big Boss' house to steal the
contract. Siao Mao is killed, but not before delivering the contract
to Tai, who finally believes he is now man enough to wear the shoes
his mother made him. Together with his unnamed Black and Filipino
cohorts, Tai begins dismantling the Big Boss' operation, one
bone-crushing encounter after another until Tai learns the awful
truth about his brother's involvement in this whole mess. This
martial arts action flick, directed by Tommy Loo Chun (real name: Lu
Chin Ku), who also directed the weird horror/fantasy MAGIC
CURSE (1977), as well as many other kung fu films (such as TIGER
OVER WALL - 1980), is typical of the many martial arts films
released in the 70's as drive-in and grindhouse fodder. It's
hideously dubbed, re-edited and renamed to appease English-speaking
audiences. The title THE BLACK DRAGON
is highly misleading because the majority of the film is about Tai's
plight. Ron (here billed as "Ronnie") Van Clief plays a
supporting role here and has fairly little to do besides appear in a
few fight scenes. The fact that he and George Estregan (who is billed
as "Jorge Estraga" on the ad mats) are not even given
proper names for their characters speaks volumes about their
importance to the plot. Van Clief would return with more prominent
roles in the in-name-only sequels BLACK
DRAGON'S REVENGE (1975) and WAY
OF THE BLACK DRAGON (1978). This could have been an
interesting film about how Chinese immigrants were abused in the
Philippines, but THE BLACK DRAGON
turns out to be nothing but a mediocre martial arts action film where
even the fight scenes are uninspired. There's nothing remotely
entertaining about it unless you like exaggerated sound effects and
terrible English dubbing. Also starring Subas Herrero, Chen Liu, Mon
Hu, Bella Flores, Philip Coo and Michael Boffrey. Originally
available on VHS from Sun Video and available on double feature DVD
from BCI Eclipse (with CHINESE HERCULES
- 1974) as part of their now-defunct "Exploitation Cinema"
banner. Also available on a double-feature
DVD from Code Red with BLACK
DRAGON'S REVENGE. Rated R.
BLOOD
RING (1991) - As the 80's drew
to a close and the 90's were upon us, director Teddy Page (using his
"Irvin Johnson" pseudonym) stopped making his exciting
brand of Filipino war actioners (WAR
WITHOUT END - 1986; PHANTOM
SOLDIERS - 1987; JUNGLE RATS
- 1987; FINAL REPRISAL
- 1988) and switched to the martial arts genre, thanks to the glut of
war films that over-saturated the home video market. Page managed to
bring his usual repertoire of stock actors over to his martial arts
flicks, but since none of them were actual martial artists, he
brought in Dale "Apollo" Cook as his leading man (Page also
used Cook in his FIST
OF STEEL, made the same year as this). Unfortunately, Cook
isn't much of an actor (check out his abysmal performance in AMERICAN
KICKBOXER 2 [1993]), but he is a pretty good fighter, so
your enjoyment level of BLOOD RING
will depend on your tolerance for stiff acting by a lead actor (and I
mean frozen corpse stiff). Alcoholic fighter Max Rivers (Cook) makes
a living by throwing matches in illegal back alley martial arts
fights for crooked fight promoter Dingo (Norman
Howard). After "losing" his latest fight, Max is visited
by Susan (Andrea Lamatsch; SUDDEN
THUNDER - 1990, who is stiffer than Cook), the wife of Max's
best friend Philip (Steve Tartalia), who is also a fighter. Susan
tells Max that Philip has disappeared and she fears that his manager,
champion martial artist Don Carlio (Don Nakaya Neilsen), is
responsible. At first, Max thinks Susan is over-reacting, but when
she goes to Don Carlio's office to do some snooping of her own, is
shot in the arm and almost kidnapped by Don Carlio's head henchman
Stevens (James Gaines), Max does some investigating of his own and
finds out (after beating the crap out of some of Don Carlio's
security guards; one of them played by Nick Nicholson) that Philip
was shipped off to South America to fight in a big martial arts
tournament. When Don Carlio finds out what a good fighter Max really
is, he has Stevens kidnap Susan (she and Max are ex-lovers) and holds
her as an insurance policy, forcing Max to work for him as a fighter.
Max and Susan and sent to South America, where Max is thrown into a
dungeon cell and only let out to fight tournament matches. Max's
first fight is against D'Executioner (Cris Aguilar) and when Max
doesn't give his all, Don Carlio trots out Susan and Stevens starts
to fondle her, causing Max's blood to boil and win the match. When
Max and Susan learn that Philip is dead, they escape the dungeon and
hide out in the jungle, but Don Carlio recaptures Susan (after Max
kills Stevens by impaling him on a tree branch), forcing Max to
return to Don Carlio's compound in Rambo mode, blasting his way in
with a shotgun and sticks of dynamite. This leads to the inevitable
final confrontation, where Max must fight Don Carlio in the ring
(where the ropes are lined with barbed wire!) for Susan's life. Care
to guess who wins? Compared to Teddy Page's 80's war actioners, BLOOD
RING is a major disappointment. It's apparent that Page is
working with a smaller budget than usual, but there's no excuse for
some of the technical ineptitude on display here, including terrible
sound recording (the boom mike can be seen in several scenes), sloppy
camerawork and lighting and the fact that South America seems to be
populated by Filipino and American expatriate extras (including Steve
Rogers and Jim Moss). Add to that the fact that many of the lead
actors on display here are just terrible (besides Cook, Andrea
Lamatsch sounds exactly like a female version of Arnold
Schwarzenegger with the emotional range to match and Don Nakaya
Neilsen is so wooden, he could be the substitute for the mulch you
spread around your garden) and even the usually dependable Jim Gaines
looks to be slumming here. The only worthwhile fight scenes in this
film are when a street gang play a game of "Keep Away" with
Max's bottle of Jack Daniels and the final bloody match between Max
and Don Carlio in the barbed wire ring. All the other fights are
pretty disposable and lack any oomph. The poverty of the production
(all of the fighting scenes in the ring have no lighting on the
outside of the ropes to hide the fact that hardly anyone is in the
audience) and the illogical storyline (When Susan learns husband
Philip is dead, she immediately jumps in the sack with Max. Way to
grieve, Susan!) leaves little to admire here, even if it did spawn a
sequel, BLOOD RING 2
(1994), using many of the same actors. A rare loser from the late
Teddy Page (real name: Teddy Chiu), who died in 2008. Also starring
Ned Hourani and Richard Olney. Released on VHS by A.I.P.
Home Video and not available on DVD. Not Rated.
THE
CHAKU MASTER (1974)
- This ridiculous semi-intentionally funny Filippino martial
arts actioner should only be viewed in a state of total inebriation.
A chap by the name of Bruce Lee (Bruce Ly) returns to his Philippines
coastal hometown after being away in China, Thailand and Japan
learning different fighting techniques, only to find his town overrun
by a bloodthirsty crimelord and his many goons. As soon as Bruce sets
foot in town, he is attacked by four men in a car (one guy eats a
razor blade and swigs from a bottle of booze to prove how tough he
is). After defeating them (and getting his pretty white suit all
dirty), he heads to his home where he learns about what has been
going on since he has been away. The townspeople are glad he has
returned and look on him as their saviour. After the crimelord has
his men kill most of Bruce's friends (including a little boy), Bruce
goes on the warpath but the crimelord sets him up to take the fall in
the shooting death of another young boy. He is arrested and thrown in
jail, but escapes after making some fake blood and tricking the
jailer into thinking that he's hurt. Bruce must prove his innocence
as well as bring down the crimelord. Now
using the alias "Mario", Bruce defends a young woman and
her father from two thugs named Lui and Fedal. To show her
appreciation, the young woman gives him a job on her farm shucking
coconuts. Finding out that the young woman is the sister of the boy
he is accused of killing, Bruce leaves to end the life of the
crimelord. His overseas training comes in handy, as he will have to
fight Chinese, Thai and Japanese fighters (including a lengthy fight
with a sumo wrestler) in order to get to the crimelord. It all ends
on the high seas, as Bruce and a sympathetic cop fight the crimelord
and his henchman on a junk. Be prepared for an abrupt ending. I
can't begin to describe how utterly delirious this film actually is,
but I'll try. There's one scene where Bruce defeats a guy named Nando
and he then does a backflip into some chick's moving Mustang. They
park underneath a tree and begin to make out when a bunch of bad guys
fall out of the tree and fight Bruce. After he defeats them, he goes
back to making out with the girl. She begins to give him a blowjob
and we see the look of ecstacy on Bruce's face, intercut with scenes
of zoo animals eating and licking their food! There's another scene
of a young boy getting shot in the chest and when the dying kid asks
Bruce if he's going to be OK, he says, "Don't worry, it's only a
scratch." The boy then dies. It's quite plain to see that this
print comes from England because every time Bruce pulls his nunchucks
out of his socks, there's a huge edit which concludes with the bad
guys lying on the ground and Bruce is no longer holding the
nunchucks. The film is missing over four minutes of nunchuck action,
thanks to Britain's stance on showing how nunchucks are used may
influence children to perform copycat violence (a stance which has
since been abolished). It's really difficult to tell if
director/producer Luis San Juan (DOLPHY'S
ANGELS - 1980) was trying to make a comedy here (the dubbing
makes it seem so, as there were a few moments when I actually laughed
out loud at what was being said). The reason why it is so hard to
tell is because Filippino productions have no problem mixing
slapstick with extreme violence (including the death of children).
What's even harder to establish is the year this film was made.
Judging from the bell-bottom trousers and disco-style large collar
shirts, I want to say anywhere between the years of 1976 - 1980. But,
knowing how the Fillipinos tend to catch on to American fads later
than most other countries, this film could have been made as late as
1984. I did find a 1979 Filippino film titled THEY
CALL HIM BRUCE LEE on IMDB
that sounds a lot like this film, but the IMDB lists a different
director (Francis Posadas). We all know how inaccurate that site can
be at times, though, don't we? THE CHAKU MASTER
(a kind of ironic title considering what was edited out of it) is
grand entertainment, even if it's for all the wrong reasons. Have
plenty of alcohol handy. Also starring Tony Bernard, Rey Malonzo (of CLASSIFIED
OPERATION and SEARCH
FOR VENGEANCE, although I couldn't spot him in the cast) and
a brief appearance by Phillipines action stand-by Jim Gaines. An
InterVision Ltd. DVD Release. Not Rated. NOTE: Andrew
Leavold's wonderful blog, THE
SEARCH FOR WENG WENG, states that this film was actually made in 1974.
CLASH
OF THE NINJAS (1986) - Another
Filmark International Ltd. production from producer Tomas Tang and
director Godfrey Ho (using the name "Wallace Chan" here),
where they take an unreleased Hong Kong martial arts flick and badly
intercut new footage featuring Caucasian actors (see my reviews of DIAMOND
NINJA FORCE [1986] and INSTANT RAGE
[1988] for more Tang/Ho goodness). This one deals with a black market
that trades in illegal human organs. The film opens with some Chinese
dude being led against his will to an operating room, where a team of
smiling white doctors remove his eyes and kidneys and put the in
glass jars. We then cut to the board room of the evil Mr. Roy (Louis
Roth), who is discussing prices of body parts with his cohorts (all
white, of course), when he gets a call saying that all his
"guinea pigs" have escaped from the basement
operating room. Mr. Roy becomes a black-masked ninja and, in one of
the worst edited scenes of old and new footage (check out Roy's
throwing star emblem on his headgear and compare it with the old
footage), proceeds to slice and dice a bunch of Chinese men and women
in a field with a sword and throwing stars. Tony (Paul Torcha), an
Interpol agent, tries to intercept a money payment from goons sent by
Mafia chieftan Mr. Foster (Joe Redner), but after yelling, "Hold
it there, we're Interpol!" and capturing the goons after a short
fight, another black ninja (who works for Mr. Roy) kills the goons
with poison darts from his blowgun and then disappears into thin air
(it's hilarious in it's ineptitude). Mr. Roy puts a hit out on the
final four guinea pigs who escaped from his basement. Two are killed
trying to hide in a church ("Maybe God can help!") by a
black ninja disguised as a priest, who then sets a cop on fire with
daggers that spit flames ("Holy smokes, a flamethrower!")
and then disappears in a puff of smoke. The final two guinea pigs
hide out with an uncle, while Tony and his black partner (who is
sliced numerous times with a sword and sent to the hospital, where he
is bandaged head-to-toe!) and Mr. Roy and his associates try to find
them, for totally different reasons. The finale finds red ninja Tony
(and his amazing spinning head!) fighting black ninja Mr. Roy (and
his trusty bullwhip!) in a duel to the death. One of them blows up in
a puff of red and white smoke. Care to guess which one? Full of
nonsensical scenes, such as when police surround a black ninja in a
circle (what I call a "Polish firing squad") and shoot him
dozens of times, yet he still escapes (!), CLASH
OF THE NINJAS may be fragmented and incoherent, but it is
never boring. From the opening graphic surgery, to the numerous
fights (where people are stabbed, pummeled, shot, impaled and blown
up), car chases and near-rapes, this film moves at a brisk clip. Half
the fun of watching these types of films is for the bad dubbing and
insane dialogue and this one doesn't disappoint. As with most films
of this ilk, they are dubbed by Brits who try to talk American with
hilarious results. They pronounce "mafia" as
"mafier" and "ninja" as "ninjer" and
some of the dialogue is priceless. One guy ask another: "What's
the TV like here?" He replies: "Great. Two channels and we
watch it a lot!" A female hitwoman says this to her mark:
"Hello, big boy. Shaving your lovely beard so we can be
closer?" There's also a scene where Tony's girlfriend throws her
entire record collection at an invisible ninja (most of the records
stick to the wall in an unbelievable display of gravity) before the
ninja slashes her to death with a straight razor. I must have missed
straight razor training when I went to ninja school. The illegal
human organ angle is dropped after the first ten minutes but, if you
don't mind non-stop violence mixed with brain-frying lapses in logic,
you may find that you'll be laughing yourself into liking this. Also
starring Eric Neff, Bernie Junkner, Klauss Mutter, Eddie Chan, Max
Kwan and Stanley Tong. A Trans
World Entertainment Home Video Release. Not Rated.
COBRA
AGAINST NINJA (1987) -
Another insane martial arts cut-and-paste flick from producer Joseph
Lai (for his IFD Films & Arts Ltd. production company), only this
time he also directs (regular director Godfrey Ho only gets a story
credit here). The newly-shot footage finds master ninja Gordon
(Richard Harrison) being issued a "ninja challenge card" by
bad ninja Cobra (Stuart Smith). I think we know what that means:
Every 15 to 20 minutes, Gordon must fight Cobra's men until the
climatic showdown in the finale. The reworked old footage (which
looks to have come from some unreleased Indonesian action flick),
which takes up the majority of the film's running time, has Chester
heading home after a stint in the Army (His friends say to him as
he's leaving, "Good luck, asshole!"), only to find his
mother deeply in debt to Ringo, the local crimelord. One of Chester's
Army buddies, Kirk, goes undercover in Ringo's gang to find his weakness,
while Chester makes Ringo's life difficult on the outside, stealing
a suitcase full of money that was to be used for betting on a fight.
Meanwhile, Gordon's first fight is against "The Green
Serpent", whom he easily defeats with a silver boomerang to the
back of his head! Chester returns home to find his mother dead and
his sister kidnapped by Raymond, Ringo's gangster brother. Chester
kills one of Raymond's men with a broken bottle and gets the location
of where his sister is being held. Kirk is hired as an assassin (he's
given the name "The Killer Whale") and is told to kill
Gordon but, when the time comes, he can't pull the trigger (in one of
the film's badly-edited scenes that intercuts old and new footage).
Gordon's next fight is against "The White Dolphin", whom he
kills rather quickly with his sword. Chester's sister is raped by
Raymond (a recurring theme in these flicks), but is saved by cop
David, another one of Chester's Army brothers. Chester and all his
Army buddies plant bombs at Ringo's headquarters, kill everyone and
blow up Ringo as he tries to get away in his boat. Gordon faces Cobra
in the final battle and they use swords, shields and spears. Gordon
slices up Cobra and then walks into the sunset, in one of the most
uneventful finales in this series of films. As with all of
producers Joseph Lai's and Tomas Tang's Hong Kong pastiches, this
film makes precious little sense, but offers tons of unintentional
entertainment value. Let's start off with the newly-shot footage.
Just so we know it's real ninjas that are fighting, they all wear brightly-colored
headbands with the word "Ninja" emblazoned on the front. I
almost spit soda out of my nose when I saw Gordon bean one opponent
on the head with a boomerang. I did not know that piece of equipment
was part of a ninja's arsenal. As with all of these flicks, after a
fight, the winning ninja disappears into thin air. The intercutting
between old and new footage is also very obvious, though this one has
the forethought to have Harrison talk on the phone to people in the
old footage, thereby negating the need to match backgrounds. The
dubbing in this one is also pretty funny, such as when Ringo yells to
his girlfriend, "You slimy, ugly whore of a bitch!" before
putting a bullet between her eyes after finding out she was
unfaithful. There's also a scene where David is being branded with a
hot poker and the burly torturer laughs like a schoolgirl (!) and two
other choice bits of dialogue, when Carter says, "The taste of
death is satisfying!" after killing a bad guy and when Ringo's
two floozies (one who talks like a Brit trying to do a Brooklyn
accent!) tell him, "You're too old to start over!" after he
tells them he's leaving the country. After watching about a dozen of
these films (see my reviews for NINJA
MASTERS OF DEATH - 1985; DIAMOND
NINJA FORCE - 1985; CLASH OF
THE NINJAS - 1986; NINJA THE PROTECTOR
- 1986; and INSTANT RAGE - 1988),
I see a definite pattern that they all follow, but each individually
offers entertainment in decent-sized nuggets. Also starring Alan
Friss, Paul Branney, Jimmy Bosco, Alfred Pears and Gary Carter. An Imperial
Entertainment Corp. Release. Not Rated.
DAY
OF THE PANTHER (1987) -
Retiring Hong Kong Special Branch agent William Anderson (John
Stanton of THE NAKED COUNTRY
- 1984) inducts his protoge, Jason Blade (cherub-faced Edward John
Stazak), and his daughter Linda (Linda Megier), both also HKSB
agents, into the top secret martial arts society known as the
"Temple Of The Panthers" (Blade has to brand himself on the
forearm with a red-hot iron, but Linda doesn't!). While working
undercover in Hong Kong, Blade and Linda photograph Jim Baxter (Jim
Richards) making a huge drug deal with the local Triad, but they are
spotted and in the ensuing fight, Baxter escapes and hops a plane
back to Australia. Linda follows him to Perth and ends up getting
killed by Baxter after fighting three of his rubber mask-wearing
thugs (one of them carries a spiked baseball bat) in a long battle in
empty warehouses. When Blade arrives in Australia (the local bumbling
cops assigned to follow him think he is a top Traid enforcer) and
finds out that Linda is dead, he makes it his mission to bring down
Baxter and his boss, Damien Zukor (Michael Carman). Blade first stops
at William's retirement cottage to pay his respects and meets
William's niece Gemma (Paris Jefferson) and they
soon fall in love (Must be something to those Anderson women that
Blade likes!). Blade remains undercover and manages to get a job as
one of Zukor's hired muscle, where he meets Baxter at a pool party at
Zukor's mansion (Baxter shows his nastiness by pushing a bikini-clad
girl in the pool for no reason at all!). Blade proves his trust to
Zukor by delivering a package of (fake) drugs and beating the crap
out of the hoods waiting for it (It was all a set-up by Zukor to test
Blade's allegiance). When Blade learns that Zukor is holding an
underground martial arts tournament as a cover for a major drug deal,
he uses the tournament as a way to bring Zukor down and get his
revenge on Baxter for killing Linda. When Baxter discovers Blade's
true identity just before the tournament, Blade, William and Gemma
make a beeline to the tournament site to grab Zukor's drugs and kick
Baxter's ass. Atrociously acted (especially by lead Edward John
Stazak), DAY OF THE PANTHER
is rescued by some extremely lively action scenes that just pop with
excitement. This should come as no surprise, as it was directed by
Brian Trenchard-Smith, who replaced the original director after four
days of shooting and made this and it's sequel, STRIKE
OF THE PANTHER (a.k.a. FISTS OF BLOOD),
back-to-back in Australia for less than $500,000 each. While Stazak
is a terrible actor (his only acting roles were in the two Panther
films), he is a wonderful martial artist and Trenchard-Smith (THE
MAN FROM HONG KONG - 1975) takes full advantage of Stazak's
strengths, putting him in peril as much as possible and filming the
fight scenes with a minimal amount of flashy editing techniques (some
fights are filmed without any edits at all). Trenchard-Smith relies
on Stazak's natural athletic abilities and always places the camera
at the correct angle to maximize the impact. The weirdest fight scene
doesn't involve Stazak at all, but rather his female partner Linda.
She takes on three thugs wearing rubber masks (a skull, a toothless
old man and a wild tusked boar) in an extensive sequence in a series
of abandoned buildings. My favorite part of that sequence is when she
rips the rubber skull mask off one of the thugs it reveals his
face...in skull makeup! It's obvious that Trenchard-Smith patterned
the look and feel of this film after MIAMI
VICE (1984 - 1990), as the guys wear pastel colored jackets
with rolled-up sleeves and tee shirts underneath and there are
musical interludes, such as the hilarious scene where 80's big-haired
Gemma dances provocatively in her leotard in front of Blade as he
bench-presses weights in a gym. There's also a fight scene where
Blade beats the snot out of several of Baxter's men with a broom
handle and most of the action plays out as shadows on a brick wall!
If you don't mind your action mindless (both Stazak and co-star Jim
Richards are credited as Fight Co-ordinators), the story absurd and
acting on an Ed Wood level, you could do a lot worse than this film.
One technical gaffe (revealing it's low budget) shows a cameraman's
hand as he tries to stop a falling stuntman from crashing into the
camera. Also starring Zale Daniel, Matthew Quartermaine and Brian
Fitzsimmons. A Celebrity Home Entertainment (VHS) Release. Also
available on British DVD (Region 2 PAL) from ILC Prime. Not Rated.
DEATH
MACHINES (1977) - When three of
the best martial artists in the world, under the influence
of a new mind control drug, start killing the hitmen belonging to
gangster Mr. G. (Chuck Kizakian), he meets with Madame Lee (Mari
Honjo - who looks like she is taking a shit every time she talks),
who represents the unknown boss (only seen in the shadows) that owns
the drug-controlled karate killers. Mr G. and Madame Lee strike up a
deal, sending the killers to eliminate Mr. G.'s enemies. Their first
stop is a martial arts academy, where they kill everyone with swift
efficiency except Frank Thomas (John Lowe), who has his hand chopped
off. Frank swears vengeance when the police detective (Ron Ackerman)
questions him at the hospital. The superhuman trio (who wear
bulletproof vests) try to kill Frank at the hospital but fail,
leaving one of the trio (Ron Marchini) injured with a bullet wound to
the head. During interrogation, the injured assassin escapes, killing
a handful of cops in the process. He stops at a diner, where he meets
the other two assassins, and kicks the shit out of a motorcycle gang
(The diner owner hands him some religious pamphlets as he walks out
the door!). The trio then kidnap the daughter of a bank president.
When he refuses to resign his position, he is blown up with a bomb
attached to a red Buddha. Meanwhile, Frank (remember him?) gets his
life back together working as a one-handed bartender (!) at a strip
joint and falls in love with the nurse that took care of him at the
hospital. While taking his nurse/girlfriend to a motel, he spots the
trio in a car. He has his girlfriend call the cops while he follows
them. They end up at a makeshift airport in the woods, where Frank
watches the trio blow up Mr. G. and his airplane with a bazooka.
Frank then follows them back to Madame Lee's house, where the cops
kill her after she attacks Frank with a sword. The three assassins
are then seen at an airport, ready to board a flight to some unknown
destination. This crazy, all-over-the-place, unclassifiable
film is a highly enjoyable mess. Leaving many unanswered questions
(Who is the unknown boss? What happened to the bank president's
daughter?), DEATH MACHINES
can never make up its' mind what kind of film it wants to be. Part
martial arts actioner (which is why the review is here), part
gangster drama, part police procedural and part love story, this film
takes all those parts (and then some), throws it all together and
comes up with one looney and campy flick. Filled with flying bodies
(and body parts), explosions, gunfights and kung fu moves, director
Paul Kyriazi (WEAPONS OF DEATH
- 1981; CRAZED COP - 1986; OMEGA
COP - 1990 and the long-thought lost, but recently found NINJA
BUSTERS - 1984) gets high marks in keeping you entertained
and your mind off the gaping plot holes. It's as if he was making it
up as he went along. Don't go in expecting much and you'll probably
have a good time. Star Ron Marchini
(who doesn't speak one word here) can also be seen in the
aforementioned OMEGA COP, as well as KARATE
COP (1991), KARATE RAIDER
(1995 - which he also directed) and many others. Also starring
Michael Chong (Asian Assassin), Joshua Johnson (Black Assassin) and
Edward Blair. A Rhino Home Video
DVD (fullscreen) Release. Finally released in it's original OAR on DVD
from Code Red. Rated R.
DIAMOND
NINJA FORCE (1986) - This
is one of director Godfrey Ho's notorious cut-and-paste jobs where he
shoots about 15 - 20 minutes of new footage (usually featuring
Richard Harrison) and incorporates that footage into some unreleased
or unfinished Hong Kong flick. When construction workers unearth
human remains at a building site, the developer pays off the workers
to look the other way. It happens to be the burial site of the Black
Ninjas, who lost a major battle with the Diamond Ninja Force one
hundred years earlier and they, along with their treasure and magic,
were buried there. The decendant of the Black Ninjas hires a female
sorcerer to do her "Devil Magic" on the developer. She does
(she turns the sky black) and kills him in his limo. His daughter,
Fanny Wong, takes over the
business and refuses to sell the land to the Black Ninja decendant.
It's not long after that the female sorcerer is working her magic on
Fanny and her family: Husband George and little son Bobo (Christ, she
must hate her child to give him the name "Bobo"!). Soon,
Fanny and Bobo are seeing ghosts and other strange things (floating
objects, strange noises, flowers wilting, etc.) and George thinks
that they are imagining it. George goes to Gordon (Harrison), who
happens to be the Golden Ninja Warrior (a decendant of the Diamond
Ninja Force), and asks for help with his wife and child (It's also
painfully obvious that this scene never happened, as it is a bad
editing job between old and new footage.). Gordon sends a detective
named Firecracker to babysit Fanny and Bobo when they still see
ghosts, as well as snakes and rats. Firecracker bolts out the door at
the first sign of trouble and runs back to Gordon (more bad
intercutting). Gordon tells Firecracker to go get sorcerer Magic Chan
and return to Fanny's house. While all this is happening, Gordon gets
into a series of fights with members of the Black Ninja clan. When
Bobo is attacked by demons, levitated in the air and made to eat
grass (!) and George is raped by a ghost, good sorcerer Magic Chan
arrives on the scene but forgot to bring his magic mirror (the stupid
oaf). He sends Firecracker to retrieve it and papers the house with
magic spells. What happens next is so unbelievable (and insanely
illogical), I refuse to describe it to you. You will just have to
experience it for yourself. You'll thank me for it.
Entertaining in it's badness, DIAMOND
NINJA FORCE doesn't make a lick of sense, bit it ain't
boring. Godfrey Ho has taken some obscure Hong Kong supernatural film
and turned it into a semi-martial arts flick, as every 10 minutes or
so, Richard Harrison pops up on screen in his red ninja outfit to
kill people unrelated to the rest of the film. Ho and producer Joseph
Lai churned out dozens of these flicks during the 80's. A lot of them
were released on tape by Imperial
Entertainment and Trans
World Entertainment. This one is filled with stupefying dialogue
("Don't wet the bed!" is George's goodnight line to Bobo.),
nonsensical images (at one point, Harrison is seen using a Garfield
the Cat telephone!) and some of the worst intercutting of old and new
footage that I have ever seen (even worse than Ho's DEADLY
DARLING - 1985). This film is one of those "What The
Fuck?!" experiences that is best viewed after downing a sixpack
or smoking a couple of joints. This is entertainment for the dead
braincell crowd. Also starring Donald Kong, John Ladalski, Melvin
Pitcher, Curtis Yao, Andy Chrorowsky and Yolanda Chang. Those
thieving scum-sucking pirates over at VideoAsia/Ventura Distribution
released this as part of their TALES
OF VOODOO DVD series (Volume
2) under the title GHOST NINJA. It's a VHS port with
rollouts, distortion and video noise associated with an overused tape
that was probably copped from the Trans
World Entertainment VHS tape from the 80's. Buyer beware. Not Rated.
THE
ENFORCER FROM DEATH ROW (1978) -
As soon as you hear the opening guitar licks from Isaac Hayes'
"Theme From Shaft" on the soundtrack of this cheap
Philippines-lensed martial arts actioner, you know you are about to
watch something unoriginal and done to death a thousand times before.
But don't write it off just yet; there's more going on here than
meets the ear. The film opens with some black-clad ninjas following a
scared guy down a dark street and then cornering him in a swimming
pool, where they punch and kick him, eventually drowning him
(apparently, the guy can't hold his breath longer than ten seconds!).
We then switch to the headquarters of the World Organization of Peace
(WOP!), where the members are informed that three of their four
agents have been killed in Manila (the fourth hasn't been heard from
in a couple of days, but I'm willing to bet he's the guy we just saw
drowned in the pool) and they have received a letter from a terrorist
group called NOMAD demanding that unless a 45 million dollar ransom
is paid, the entire population of the Philippines will be wiped out.
To show they are serious, "key figures will be annihilated, one
each week, beginning on the 25th of this month" (Christ, I hope
it's not December!). WOP has discovered that NOMAD has stolen several
vials of a deadly bacterium and plans on using it, so the heads
of WOP (and not one of them looks Italian!) decide to bring in an
outsider to do their dirty work. That outsider is T.L. Young (Leo
Fong; KILLPOINT -
1984), a prisoner on Death Row who is about to be executed in the gas
chamber for a crime he didn't commit. WOP members bribe prison
officials to fake Young's death and WOP member Anderson (B.T.
Anderson) acts as Young's priest as they walk to the gas chamber,
where Young is given a pill to swallow as fake poison gas fills up
the chamber. Young's apparently dead body is quickly taken away by an
ambulance, he is revived, is informed of his mission and begins a
strenuous workout regime to get in shape. Young takes a new name,
"Albert Lim", and flies to Manila, where he is supposed to
meet WOP informant Jose Cervantes, but NOMAD baddie Drago (Charlie
Davao) gets to him first, torturing and killing Jose by hanging his
body upside down in a cage while poisonous snakes bite his body.
Drago's boss, Mr. Spenser (Darnell Garcia), catches another spy
trying to infiltrate his organization, so he has his hulking black
sidekick, appropriately named Monster, tie the spy to the floor while
rats eat him alive. While searching Jose's room, Young runs into some
ninjas, but he fights them off, which leads to a car/motorcycle chase
where Young's car is firebombed. When Danny (George Estregan) is
nearly killed by Drago and Monster (by being lowered slowly into a
vat of acid like some old BATMAN episode), he escapes and joins
forces with Young to bring down NOMAD and rescue Danny's sister Vicky
(Lotis Key). The finale finds Young flying a helicopter and picking
up Spenser's car with a giant claw, depositing him in the ocean to
drown. This insane Filipino actioner, co-directed by Efren C.
Pinon (BLIND RAGE - 1978
[also starring Fong]; THE
KILLING OF SATAN - 1983; TRANSFORMED
- 2003 [also starring Fong]) and Marshall M. Borden (who is probably
responsible for the insert footage featuring Cameron Mitchell [who
plays a government official who sucks on a lollipop like KOJAK],
which accounts for less than 1% of the entire film), makes about as
much sense aa a blind man at a book store without a Braille section,
but the simple fact is the film's so goofy and endearing, it's hard
not to enjoy it. The goofiest thing about this film is Leo Fong's
voice. He looks like any slightly overweight Asian action star, but
speaks like a Texas cowboy (that's his real voice, folks!). Fong, who
also co-produced and wrote the trippy screenplay, would go on to star
in a slew of self-financed vanity projects (which some people have
rightfully dubbed "Fongsploitation"), including LOW
BLOW - 1986; BLOOD STREET
- 1990 and SHOWDOWN - 1993,
but the simple fact is he's not much of a martial artist and even
less of an actor. This has all the earmarks of a Filipino action film
of the 70's: awkwardly staged martial arts fight scenes and car
chases; copious amounts of female nudity and rape; and graphic bits
of violence (including the rat feasting scene and Vicky's torture by
soldering iron). It's not one of the best in the genre, but it has
its moments, making THE
ENFORCER FROM DEATH ROW an OK time-waster for fans of this
stuff (myself included). Also known as NINJA
ASSASSINS and NINJA ENFORCER. Also starring John
Hammond, Ann Farber and Mariwin Roberts. Originally released on VHS
by Lightning Video
and later on Genesis
Home Video. Be aware that some versions, including the DVD
released by Mac Filmworks, Inc., totally omits Cameron Mitchell's
appearance as well as some of the more violent bits (including
Danny's death). Rated R.
ENTER
THE NINJA (1981) - This is the
classic early 80's martial arts actioner from Cannon Films that quite
possibly inspired all those Godfrey Ho/Richard Harrison cut-and-paste
flicks that littered the video store shelves throughout the 80's.
After passing his test to become a Master Ninja (which involves
running a gauntlet involving swordfights, hand-to-hand combat and
even a decapitation), Cole (a badly dubbed
Franco Nero; REDNECK
- 1973; DAY OF THE COBRA
- 1980) receives a scroll from Master Komori (Dale Ishimoto) that
officially makes him a ninja for life. He also makes an enemy for
life in Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi; NINE
DEATHS OF THE NINJA - 1983; PRAY
FOR DEATH - 1985), who doesn't believe a Caucasian should
ever be made a ninja. Cole then travels to the Philippines, where he
visits old Army buddy Frank Landers (Alex Courtney; PROGRAMMED
TO KILL - 1987) and his wife Mary Ann (Susan George; DIRTY
MARY CRAZY LARRY - 1974; MANDINGO
- 1975), who own a coconut plantation. It seems evil businessman
Charles Venarius (Christopher George; DIXIE
DYNAMITE - 1976; PIECES
- 1982) wants the Landers' plantation because there's a fortune in
oil (not the coconut kind) under the ground. Thank goodness Cole has
shown up, because Frank has turned into a hopeless alcoholic, leaving
Mary Ann to deal with the problems, such as all the long-time workers
quitting after Venarius' chief lackey, Siegfried Schultz (Zachi Noy,
in the film's funniest performance), also known as "The
Hook" (guess why?), and his goons beat them up and tell them not
to come back. Thanks to Cole's ninja skills, he is able to beat back
Sigfried and his men (Cole even rips-off Siegfried's hook, leaving
nothing but a bloody stump!), which pisses-off Venarius to no end (He
fires Siegfried on the spot!). When Venarius discovers that Cole is a
ninja, he sends his right-hand man, Mr. Parker (Constantin De
Goguel), to Japan to hire a ninja of his own. Guess who he comes back
with? That's right, Cole's lifetime enemy Hasegawa and he tells
Venarius that if he doesn't succeed in killing Cole, he will commit
hara-kiri! Hasegawa kills Frank, kidnaps Mary Ann and burns down the
plantation, forcing Cole to go into Master Ninja mode to rescue Mary
Ann and kill all those responsible for Frank's death. Frank kills
Venarius and all his underlings and the finale finds Cole fighting
Hasegawa to the death in Venarius' warehouse arena, where Cole, after
defeating Hasegawa, gives him a proper ninja death. Despite the
fact that Franco Nero is obviously dubbed (although it's apparent
that he's speaking English), ENTER
THE NINJA is an entertainingly goofy martial arts epic with
much to recommend. Directed by Cannon Films co-founder Menahem Golan (THE
MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN - 1979; THE APPLE
- 1980; OVER THE TOP -
1987; HIT THE DUTCHMAN
- 1992; and his masterwork, THE
DELTA FORCE - 1986) with a cert
ain
sense of style and flair (the camerawork is especially good for a
B-movie). It's extremely bloody (even if the first ten minutes are
somewhat of a cheat), as people are sliced, diced, impaled,
decapitated, stabbed, shot and dismembered. Even though it's plain to
see that Nero (who wears a white ninja outfit) is being doubled by a
stuntman in some of the more strenuous action sequences, especially
when he's pitted against Sho Kosugi (who wears a black ninja outfit),
there are plenty of bloody action set-pieces on view, such as
Hasegawa killing Frank while a tied-up Mary Ann is forced to watch
and Cole's retribution as he storms Venarius' highrise building and
then his warehouse arena. Christopher George is a hoot as Venarius
(his death is pure comic genius), as he screams out orders with a
faint lisp. It's implied (though not overtly) that his character is
gay, even though his indoor swimming pool is always stocked with
beautiful women. When he screams out, "Where is my black
ninja?" during the action-packed finale, I dare you not to
laugh. Susan George is basically wasted in a "heroine in
distress" role, but I have to admit I was surprised when husband
Frank (who is impotent from his chronic alcoholism) gives her
permission to fuck Cole and she doesn't hesitate to do so! This
Philippines-lensed martial arts actioner is colorful, exciting and
even, at times, laugh-out-loud funny (and not unintentionally so) and
should be enjoyed by all chop sockey fanatics, as well as action
lovers in general. It works exceptionally well because it never takes
itself too seriously (Nero even winks directly into the camera in the
film's closing shot). Thanks to the world-wide success of this film,
producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus made two equally successful,
but unrelated, sequels: REVENGE
OF THE NINJA (1983) and NINJA
III: THE DOMINATION (1984), both directed by Sam Firstenberg (AMERICAN
NINJA - 1985) and starring Sho Kosugi. NINJA III is a
delirious stew of martial arts and horror genres mixed together for
an experience you will not soon forget. Also starring Will Hare and
Filipino staples Joonee Gamboa, Leo Martinez and Ken Metcalfe.
Originally released on VHS in one of those MGM/UA
Home Video big flipper boxes. Available on widescreen
DVD-R as part of MGM Home Video's "Limited Edition
Collection" MOD program. Hey, it's better than nothing!. Rated
R.
FIRECRACKER
(1981) - Director/co-scripter Cirio H. Santiago remakes his own TNT
JACKSON (1975), only this time it contains much more martial
arts action. Los Angeles martial arts teacher Susie Carter (Jillian
Kesner; RAW FORCE - 1982) travels to
the Philippines to search for her missing reporter sister Bonnie and
encounters deadly resistance from the moment she steps off the plane.
It's a good thing
Susie is well-versed in the martial arts, because wave after wave of
kung-fu fighting goons, the minions of head bad guy Erik (co-scripter
Ken Metcalfe), try to kill her every chance they get. Susie soon
teams up with burly bartender Pete (Peter Cooper; Santiago's STRYKER
- 1983) and local kung-fu expert Rey (Rey Malonzo; CLASSIFIED
OPERATION - 1985, billed here as "Reymond King")
to find out what happened to Bonnie and why people will kill to make
sure they don't find her. Susie finds her sister's camera and when
the photos are developed, she finds a picture of Chuck Donner (Darby
Hinton; MALIBU EXPRESS -
1985), Erik's martial arts champion and chief enforcer (In the
beginning of the film, we see Chuck killing an opponent in the ring
by impaling him on a sword-tipped pole). Susie heads to Erik's
nightclub, The Arena (where audience members watch people beat the
stuffing out of each other on a stage), and cozies-up to Chuck,
telling him that she's looking for a place to work out. Erik is
immediately suspicious and so is his crime partner Grip (Vic Diaz;
Santiago's SAVAGE -
1973), but Chuck is so smitten he ignores Erik's warnings. Meanwhile,
Susie bones-up on her martial arts skills by having Rey's Master
teach her a new fighting technique using two wooden sticks. She also
begins following Chuck as he goes about his daily illegal routine,
but she is urged to stop following him by a police detective (Tony
Ferrer; Weng Weng's Chief in FOR
Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY - 1981), who tells Susie that Bonnie may
have disappeared because she uncovered information regarding Erik's
illegal drug business. This doesn't deter Susie from following Chuck
and she is eventually captured by Grip, who questions her using a
poisonous cobra as "truth serum", but she escapes (and
throws the cobra in Grip's face!). After many close calls, where
Susie must fight numerous battles, the police discover Bonnie's
corpse and Susie inexplicably runs into Chuck's arms for comfort
(where, in a lovemaking scene directly from the Twilight Zone, he
cuts off all her clothes with knives and she reciprocates!). The
loving doesn't last very long, though, as Susie soon discovers that
Chuck killed Bonnie on Erik's orders (She seems to be the only one
who didn't know this fact!). Susie goes on a mission of revenge and,
before the film is done, she will face Chuck in the "Arena of
Death", Erik's private martial arts tournament ring. This i
s
not going to be pretty, as Rey and the police show up to deal with
Erik and his thugs while Susie deals with Chuck in the ring. Chuck
loses his life (and his eyes!) when Susie finally picks up her two
sticks and uses them as Rey's Master taught her. While nothing
more than a series of lively martial arts sequences held together by
the flimsiest of plots, FIRECRACKER
(also known as NAKED FIST)
moves along at a brisk pace and, at 77 minutes, is not long enough to
become repetitive. The beautiful Jillian Kesner, who died in 2007 of
a staph infection and was also the wife of late
cinematographer/director Gary Graver (she appeared in his TRICK
OR TREATS [1982], MOON
IN SCORPIO [1987] and several others), does a good job here
as the high-kicking heroine who manages to survive fight after fight
to get her revenge. Her standout scene comes when she fights two guys
in a lumber warehouse and keeps losing articles of her clothing until
she is topless, wearing nothing but panties. This is also the films
bloodiest sequence, as we witness a warehouse guard knocked to the
ground and impaled on a scythe, while one of the fighters purposely
steps on his body, forcing the blade to bloodily thrust out his chest
and one of the fighters falling head-first onto the spinning blade of
a circular saw until his skull is cut in half right between the eyes.
Chuck's death in the finale is (if you pardon the pun) also an
eye-opener. No one ever accused Cirio H. Santiago of making
high-concept, thought-provoking films, but, damn, he sure made
entertaining ones with plenty of eye candy. Santiago would remake the
same film a second time with 1992's ANGELFIST,
starring Cat Sassoon in the role originated by Jeanne Bell in TNT JACKSON.
Santiago's next film as a director would be considered his
exploitation masterpiece, the WIP flick CAGED
FURY (1983). Allan Holzman, the director of FORBIDDEN
WORLD (1982), OUT OF CONTROL
(1985) and PROGRAMMED TO KILL
(1987) is credited on some prints of FIRECRACKER as
"Director of Additional Scenes", including the insert of
the graphic eye-poking in the finale. Also starring Chanda Romero,
Carolyn Smith, Omar Camar, Don Gordon Bell and Rubiah Suparman.
Originally released on VHS by Monterey
Home Video and available on a triple feature DVD (with TNT
JACKSON [1975] and TOO
HOT TO HANDLE [1976]) as part of the LETHAL
LADIES COLLECTION (Volume One) from Shout!
Factory. Rated R.
FIST
OF DRAGON (1977) - Two
undercover female cops, nicknamed the "Big Sisters", are
stirring up trouble in Chinatown, disrupting the business of the mob
kingpin known as the Big Boss. Big Sister #1 busts up gambling dens,
prostitution rackets and, in one unbelievable scene, beats the snot
out of two rapists who first fight each other over who will rape her
first. The townspeople catch the rapists and shove a wooden pole up
one rapist's ass and slice the pecker off the other one (thankfully,
offscreen). Big Sister #2 releases a hoarde of snakes into one of the
Big Boss' bathhouse/whorehouses, causing a bunch of naked women and
men to run out into the street. The Big Boss is anxious to find out
the true identities of the Big Sisters, so he hires two bumbling men
to follow them (they are so inept
a blind man could spot them). The Big Sisters lead the two men and
some more goons to a zoo, where a big fight breaks out and the Big
Boss takes one of the Sisters prisoner. She convinces the Big Boss to
let her join his gang. With one Sister on the inside and the other on
the outside, they are able to destroy the Big Boss and his illegal
businesses once and for all. Sister on the inside bugs the Big Boss'
office and bedroom and learns all his intimate secrets. Problems
arise when the real Big Sister (I was just as surprised as you to
learn there was a real Big Sister!) appears on the scene, causing all
kinds of trouble for Big Sister on the inside. The real Big Sister
and the undercover Big Sister on the inside face off for a final
fight. The police arrive in the nick of time to save the day.
Believe it or not, most of this film is played as an outrageous
comedy. Released in the States under the misleading title KUNG
FU HALLOWEEN (a section of the film during the middle takes
place during a masquerade party, which results in a bunch of costumed
people to get in a lengthy fight), most of the humor fails miserably
or just seems wildly inappropriate. The scene where the rapist gets
his weiner lopped-off quickly cuts to a woman cleaving a link of
sausage in two and biting one of the pieces. Hardee-har-har! The
awful dubbing also doesn't help. When the Big Sister on the inside
sees that the Big Boss' girlfriend is getting jealous, she says,
"I better go before that girlfriend of your's busts a gut."
Here's another charming chunk of dialogue: "Stupid broad. She
thinks I'm stupid?" It flows like pure Hemingway (not). There's
also plenty of lifted bad music, including an excruciating disco
rendition of "Flight Of The Bumblebee" in the opening
minutes. The martial arts fights are also sub-par, consisting of
badly-staged fist fights and numerous slow-motion shots of the Big
Sisters jumping through the air, courtesy of hidden trampolines. The
worst (and most unbelievable) part of the film is when Big Sister on
the inside tries to pass Big Sister on the outside as her brother
Peter, by simply dressing her in a man's leisure suit (she doesn't
even try to change her voice) and the Big Boss falls for it! There's
not much to recommend here except bad fights, crappy dialogue and
plenty of lowbrow humor. Directed by Lam Chi Kam and Liu Sun.
Starring Law Lee, Ka Ling, Tien I and Chang Wang. The print I viewed
came from Vomit Bag Video.
It looks to be sourced from a PAL tape. Rated R.
FISTS
OF BLOOD (1987) - The continuing
adventures of Jason Blade (Edward John Stazak), agent for Hong Kong
Special Branch and member of the top secret martial arts society,
Temple of the Panthers. Picking up directly after the first film, DAY
OF THE PANTHER (filmed back-to-back with this) left off, (a
short synopsis, using footage from the first film, catches up new
viewers), Blade once again joins forces with his mentor, William
Anderson (John Stanton), to save Julia Summers (Fiona Gauntlett), the
daughter of a judge, from a Mob-run whorehouse. Using the name
"Mr. Smith", Blade enters the brothel and saves Julia, but
not before having to beat the crap out of a bunch of Mob goons (When
Blade enters one of the brothel rooms and spots a guy in a chicken
suit about to do something kinky, he says, "You're sick!").
Blade has an arguement with his girlfriend Gemma (Paris Jefferson),
William's niece, when she mentions moving in together (Gemma is now
an Interpol agent, but it still doesn't stop her from dancing in
front of Blade seductively in her leotards, just like she did in the
first film
when she was just a normal girl and not an agent). Blade's nemesis
from the first film, Jim Baxter (Jim Richards), escapes from prison
and has revenge on his mind. Two of his goons knock-out Blade, kidnap
Gemma and put William in the hospital when he tries to save her.
Blade promises William in the hospital that he will rescue Gemma and
then marry her. Baxter is holding Gemma captive in an abandoned power
plant and tells police that if Blade doesn't walk through the power
plant's doors by 6:00 PM, he will start cutting off Gemma's fingers.
Baxter has the power plant rigged with plastic explosives and holds a
remote that can trigger the explosion. Blade calls in Interpol
psychologist Lucy Andrews (Rowena Wallace) to act as negotiator to
buy Blade some time. Blade uses that time to capture the two goons
that kidnapped Gemma (Blade chases one of the goons up the outside
walls of an apartment complex, which results in a foot chase and the
goon dying when he gets hit by a car). After getting some valuable
info from the surviving goon, Blade enters the power plant and must
fight a gauntlet of hockey mask-wearing martial artists before he can
make his way to Baxter and Gemma (he also gets some psychic support
from William in his hospital bed). A team of commandos, led by Lucy,
also enter the power plant, but are picked-off one-by-one by the
stealthy assassins. The finale finds Lucy trying to diffuse the bomb
while Blade and Baxter have a duel to the death. Can Lucy stop the
ticking timebomb before everyone goes BOOM? What do you think?
While not as loony and off-the-wall as DAY OF THE PANTHER,
director Brian Trenchard-Smith (THE
MAN FROM HONG KONG - 1975; DEATH
CHEATERS - 1976; STUNT
ROCK - 1978) manages to milk a lot of action for the paltry
$500,000 budget. The cherub-faced Edward John Stazak is not much of
an actor (he improves slightly from the first film), but he's an
excellent martial artist, which makes me wonder why he quit films
after making this (that's right, this is the last Jason Blade
adventure, which is also known as STRIKE
OF THE PANTHER). I'm a firm believer that Trenchard-Smith,
working with a script by Peter West (who also scripted the first
film), is having a good laugh with the audience here, making us look
right and then hitting us with a left (although Paris Jefferson
spends most of her screen time in a sexy leotard, the only nudity in
this film is a shot of Stazak's naked ass when he's taking a
shower!). The final twenty minutes, where Blade and Lucy must run the
gauntlet in the power plant, is non-stop action, as people have their
throats cut, have their faces pierced by throwing stars, are inpaled
on swords or are just beaten or stabbed to death by Blade. Since both
Stazak and co-star Jim Richards are the film's Fight
Coordinators, the best fight scene is saved for last, where Blade and
Baxter square off. While the script has holes you could drive a truck
through (What's an abandoned power plant still doing with power?), FISTS
OF BLOOD is goofy, violent fun if you don't set your sights
too high. Also starring Zale Daniel and Matthew Quartermaine, both
returning from the first film. A Celebrity Home Entertainment VHS
Release. Both DAY OF THE PANTHER and STRIKE OF THE PANTHER
are available on a single DVD
from France. Not Rated.
FORCE
FOUR (1974) - In 1974 &
1975, director Michael Fink shot two ultra-low budget films, this one
and VELVET SMOOTH
(1975) and then he disappeared from the filmmaking business. Besides
some of the actors who have never done anything else (one-and-done,
if it were), a few if them would appear in Fink's other film and
director Barry Rosen's crazy martial arts/horror hybrid DEVIL'S
EXPRESS (a.k.a. GANG WARS
- 1975) and also quit the filmmaking business. During the mid-70's,
there were a whole slew of cheapjack martial arts and action films
made in New York City (including DEATH
PROMISE - 1977) and then long forgotten (sometimes for good
reason), only to be
revived during the video boom of the mid-80's, when anything and
everything was released on tape to satisfy the renter's hunger for
obscure films. Now they are getting released on disc in their
original aspect ratio (thanks mainly to Code
Red) and getting another generation of fans. I really haven't
decided if that is bad or good, but no film deserves to sit in
obscurity, so getting a disc release is at least a way to help keep
them preserved, whether they deserve it or not (Personally, I believe
every film made, no matter how bad it is, deserves the chance to be
preserved for eternity). Like Rosen's movie, this film has many
badly-staged martial arts sequences (even though the four main stars
are various levels of black belts) and, after the opening credits,
the following appears on-screen: "All martial arts sequences
in this film are authentic. No attempt has been made to enhance or
alter actual fights by the use of special effects or trick
photography. A
slow motion camera was used to capture specific techniques."
The film begins with an Oriental man carring a briefcase containing
something valuable. A multi-race street gang (containg everything
from Caucasians, Latinos and Blacks) steal the suitcase and kill the
Oriental guy by slamming his head violently against the sidewalk. We
then see martial arts master Jason (Owen Wat-són; who also
appeared in Fink's other film) meditating next to a fireplace when he
gets a call on his telephone (a tricked-out device the size of a
toaster oven with digital readouts and encased in red velvet!) by a
mysterious caller telling him he needs his help. The person on the
other end of the line says his courier was attacked and killed and a
valuable African artifact was stolen (An envelope is slid under
Jason's door with photographs of the artifact, along with a stack of
$100 bills. His door must have a wide gap at the bottom!). He wants
to hire Jason and his crew, which consists of Adam (Warhawk Tanzania;
whose only other film was the one he did for Barry Rosen the
following year), Eric (Malachi Lee; his only film) and Billy (Judie
Soriano; her only film), to retrieve the artifact. Jason agrees and
gathers his troops together and we get to witness each one of them
practice their own special brand of martial arts (an overlong and
boring sequence) before Jason brings him back to his place (he has an
automatic sliding door in the room with the fireplace!) and tells
them what they are hired to do. Eric takes a look at the photos and
identifies the four-armed artifact as a statue of a
"Witchdoctor's Fetish", which is supposed to contain
mystical powers (Those of you waiting to see the statue at work will
be disappointed because this plot point is dropped immediately). They
then hit the streets looking for information on the stolen statue,
even going as far as to threaten bodily harm on innocent people (Eric
beats up a pimp when he has nothing to offer. He may be a pimp, but
why beat him up if he knows nothing?) This is another sequence that
goes on forever and nothing really happens besides getting a good
look at the streets and brownstones of mid-70's NYC and listening to
lots of post-synch dubbing. We then see the multi-racial gang (One of
them is portrayed by Wilfredo Roldan, who made a distinct impression
in DEVIL'S EXPRESS,
but he really doesn't have much to do here except get into a knife
fight with fellow gang member Juan [Frank Ruiz; who choreographed the
fight] and get the snot beat out of him every time he goes up against
Jason's quartet) hand over the briefcase to Mob head Z (Sam Schwartz;
his last acting credit) and when he opens it up and holds the statue,
Juan (who is sweating profusely from his sideburns) says, "Man,
that is a spooky-looking thing!", to which Z replies, "This
spooky-looking piece of wood is worth a lot of bread to all of us.
Let's call it our good luck charm." A hooker from the streets
enters the room and warns Z that the heat is on, because Jason and
his gang are asking a lot of questions and some people are getting
"leaned on" (We see Eric threatening a white guy on the
street and when he turns around, he is a priest standing in front of
his church! Wait a minute. Who are the good guys here?). Z needs some
time to trade the statue for some cold hard cash, so he tells his
gang to keep Jason and his gang busy until he is able to make the
trade. (Z says, "Waste them all and waste them fast. If they're
roaming the streets, you can get them one at a time. I call that
pretty good odds!"). Z is in for quite a surprise. Three gang
members attack Eric, but he makes mincemeat out of them in about
thirty seconds. Five gang members attack Billy at an outside
basketball court, but she knocks them all out in no time. Adam is the
next to be attacked (the first attacker rips off Adam's shirt, so we
can watch him fight bare-chested!), but he beats the crap out of
seven gang members. Judy beats-up a white guy stealing hubcaps and
threatens to kill him if he doesn't find out some information for her
(For stealing hubcaps? Who are the good guys here?). Jason is walking
down the street with a young boy (possibly a student at the martial
arts school Jason owns, but we never get to see it), when he is
attacked by six gang members, but I don't think I have to tell you
how it turns out. The four then gather at Jason's place to share
information, where Adam tells Eric, "The streets are holding
back." (I would hold back, too, if they treated me the way they
treated the other people on the streets!) and Billy says, "It
sounds like the Mob and the Mob with a capital 'Z'!" Jason was
able to pry an address to where the statue is from one of the gang
members he beat up, so they all go there, where we witness one of the
lamest group martial arts fights ever committed to film (the walls of
the "room" are made of sheet rock!). After discovering that
the statue is not there, they decide to go to Z's mansion, where he
is holding a huge party for all his white friends (You can see some
of the party "guests" in the background staring directly at
the camera). Z meets bad girl Felicia (Sydney Filson; a black belt
whose only credits are in both of Fink's films) and offers the statue
to her, but says the price has gone up $100,000 more because of
"inflation" and all the trouble it has caused him (We then
watch a truly awful band, called "Life U.S.A." [who also
supply other songs on the soundtrack], which contains some Black
people, singing a terrible early disco tune at the party, while the
white people boogie down!). They both go to the poolhouse to look at
the statue and Felicia agrees to pay the money tomorrow morning at
her house. Z is alerted that Jason and his friends are in the woods
next to his mansion, so he sends a shitload of gang members (they
seem to multiply like rabbits!) to take care of the problem. The
ensuing fight is full of missed kicks and punches and one gang member
falls down prematurely so he doesn't run into the camera! Jason and
his friends meet Z in the poolhouse, but make it seem like he got
away, because they want to get Felicia's money and the statue at the
same time (all the white people scatter and scream when they see four
Black people chasing Z!). Adam places a tracking device on Z's car We
never see the device or the receiver, only a beeping on the
soundtrack!) so they can follow him in the morning, where they all
end up at Felicia's house and another group martial arts fight breaks
out. After Billy beats Felicia in a fight and Z and the gang are all
knocked out, Jason and
his gang collect the briefcase and the money. When the briefcase is
opened, Eric discovers that the Witchdoctor's Fetish is not worth all
that money and there must be another reason why all this money is
exchanging hands. Sure enough, hidden inside the briefcase is a
fortune in heroin, so Eric says he will dump it so it doesn't hit the
streets, they will betray the mystery caller that Jason had in the
beginning of the film and they will keep the money for themselves
(Who are the good guys here?). At this point the film runs 70 minutes
long, so to pad out the film, they repeat every fight scene that was
in the film! The closing credits run for nearly five minutes (where
we discover that everyone besides Sam Schwartz and a few other people
hold some color martial arts belt) before the film mercifully
ends. It's not hard to see why director Michael Fink only made
one more film and then hung up his shingle. The screenplay, by
Leonard Michaels and Janice Weber, holds no place for nudity of any
kind and the film itself seems improvised in most of the non-fighting
scenes (both Owen Wat-són and Warhawk Tanzania are credited as
the Martial Arts Fight choreographers), as well as displaying our old
friend "Boom Mike" is several sequences (pay attention to
the left side of the screen when Jason and his friends go back to
Jason's place), a lot of post-synch dubbing (most of the outdoor
scenes are filmed MOS and were looped after the film was finished),
some truly wretched fight scenes with exaggerated sound effects
(there are so many missed kicks and punches, it looks like the wind
knocked them down), plenty of racial slurs (even though Z's gang is
multi-racial), extremely bad original songs on the soundtrack and
worst of all, there are no guns on display. What Don in his right
mind would not have a gang that was strapped? I guess Michael Fink
couldn't afford guns or bloody bullet squibs for the film (the only
blood we see is when the Oriental guy's bloody head is on the
sidewalk). To paraphrase Billy, this film is bad with a capital Z.
Code Red offers this film on a double
feature DVD (with the even worse THE
GUY FROM HARLEM - 1976, but at least that film was
brain-dead entertainment) in its original aspect ratio, but the print
is far from perfect. It is full of emulsion scratches and dirt
particles, including some really distracting large red bands of
scratches where the print was beginning to turn into vinegar, but it
is still watchable if you are into bad mid-70's homegrown martial
arts films that tried (and failed) to compete with the superior Hong
Kong and Chinese martial arts films that were being released to
theaters at the same time. Released fullscreen to VHS and budget DVDs
under the alternate title BLACK FORCE.
Also starring Moses Lyllia, Alex 'Plus One' Sternbere, Roscoe
Richardson, Barbara Braun, Elsie Roman, Mike Madrid, Bill Lin (as the
courier), Hector Quinones, Lynne Plagoff and Shirley Williams. A Code
Red DVD Release. Rated R.
FULL
CONTACT (1992) - Typical, but
good, martial arts actioner from Executive Producer Roger Corman,
which is nothing but a remake of the Corman-produced BLOODFIST,
made four years earlier (It's so similar, in fact, that Corman had
to give BLOODFIST's screenwriter, Robert King, a story credit
here). Luke Powers (Jerry Trimble) goes to Los Angeles to visit his
brother Johnny (Gerry Blanck), only to discover that he has been
murdered by someone after competing in an illegal alley fight. Broke
and out of work, Luke hooks up with conman Albert (Raymond Storti)
and his sister Tori (Denise Buick), staying with them in their tiny
apartment while he investigates his brother's death. Luke meets
street person Pep (Marcus Aurelius; PYTHON
2 - 2002), who convinces Luke that the best way to find his
brother's killer is to become a fighter on the alley circuit. Pep
becomes Luke's trainer, putting Luke through some unorthodox
endurance and strengthening sessions. As a reward
for his hard training, Pep takes Luke to a strip club, where he
discovers that Tori is one of the featured topless dancers. A romance
develops between Luke and Tori, while Pep teaches him fighting
strategy taken directly from Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" and
Tori teaches him ballet to make him more flexible (Insert your own
dirty joke here). Luke spots a bum wearing his brother's jacket and
the only thing the bum is able to tell him about his brother's killer
is he is known as "The Cobra". It becomes apparent that The
Cobra doesn't want to be found out (although eagle-eyed viewers
should be able to spot the killer during Johnny's murder in the
beginning of the film), so Luke enters an alley tournament and begins
asking about The Cobra. He gets very few answers (One fighter says,
"Yeah, I got a cobra...in my pants!"), but Luke begins
moving up the ranks (as does Albert, who is also in the competition)
in contention for the $5,000 grand prize (It doesn't seem worth it,
does it?). When Luke finally gets a lead on The Cobra and the
informant ends up dead before passing the info to him, it's clear
that The Cobra is closer to Luke than he knows. After Albert becomes
permanently paralyzed during a brutal tournament fight, Luke must
fight Ahmed (Joe Charles), the same beefy fighter that put Albert in
the hospital. Tori discovers an important clue about The Cobra at the
hospital, but can she relay it to Luke before it's too late?
Although nothing special, FULL CONTACT (not to be confused
with Ringo Lam's 1992
actioner with the same name) has it's share of decent action
scenes and a pretty good sense of humor. Jerry Trimble (ELIMINATOR
WOMAN - 1992; STRANGLEHOLD
- 1994) is not much of an actor, but he is definitely a good martial
artist and director Rick Jacobson (DRAGON
FIRE - 1993; THE UNBORN II
- 1994; NIGHT HUNTER
- 1995; BLOODFIST
VIII: HARD
WAY OUT
- 1996) uses Trimble's athletic abilities in the best manner
possible. Pep's training of Luke is full of strange methods,
including making Luke try to outrun a bus across a city block (it
becomes a daily showdown between Luke and the bus driver and is quite
funny), as well as having neighborhood kids throw dozens of rotten
tomatoes at Luke to sharpen his reflexes. Jacobson also films the
fight scenes in a lively manner, using Trimble's high-kicking ability
to good effect (sometimes using slow-motion photography to allow the
viewer to appreciate how fast Trimble really is with his feet). The
final fight between Luke and The Cobra, where they fight each other
to the death while quoting passages from "The Art Of War",
is a thing of unexpected beauty that ends with a nasty pipe-through-the-stomach
gag (complete with blood pouring out of the pipe). All-in-all, a
decent little martial arts flick, with touches of nudity (mostly by
Denise Buick), lots of blood and a good sense of humor. Also starring
Alvin Pounder, Howard Jackson, Manuel Luben, Dino Homsey, Matt
Willig, Darnell Rae Manzon (also the Fight Coordinator, along with
Jacobson) and an early appearance by Michael Jai White (SPAWN
- 1997; EXIT WOUNDS - 2001) as
"Low Ball". Released on VHS by Columbia Tristar Home Video
and still awaiting a U.S. DVD release. Rated R.
GOLDEN
NINJA WARRIOR (1986) - In
this semi-sequel to NINJA TERMINATOR
(this film begins with a shortened version of NT's climatic battle
and is Richard Harrison's only appearance in the film, even if he
does get star billing), the good Golden Ninjas fight the evil Red
Ninjas for possession of the Golden Ninja Warrior statue, which is
said to give it's owner the "ultimate" power (whatever that
is). Well, the Golden Ninjas are now the proud owners of the statue,
but the Red Ninjas will never give up their quest to possess it. In
case you're a newbie to this genre, this is another cut-and-paste
flick that is not only produced by Joseph Lai (for his IFD Films &
Arts Ltd. production outfit), he also wrote and directed this one,
too (This one is Godfrey Ho-free, although it reeks of his
handiwork). The old footage (an unreleased Hong Kong crime drama) is
about a young model named Sherri (Queenie Yang), who travels to Hong
Kong to avenge the death of her father at the hands of crime kingpins
Eagle Lam and Eric Tan. Sherri goes undercover as a virgin prostitute
(!) to infiltrate one of Eagle Lam's brothels (where we earlier
witnessed a goon mercilessly whipping a tied-up,
totally nude young woman for refusing to put out), where she uses
her expert kung-fu skills to free all the female captives forced into
prostitution and beats the crap out of all the males that work there
(in the newly-shot footage, some masked woman in a black ninja outfit
[I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be Sherri or not. If so, she's
one quick-change artist!] slugs it out with some other guys in
badly-matched shots that are supposed to take place in the same
building that Sherri is in). Sherri begins dismantling Eagle's crime
organization piece-by-piece (including stealing incriminating
documents out of his safe), much to Eagle's dismay. Every twenty
minutes or so, a woman in a red ninja outfit attacks Michael Anderson
(Donald Owen), who turns into a black-clad Golden Ninja in a puff of
smoke, and they fight each other using swords and their fists, all
over possession of the Golden Ninja Warrior statue. Sherri falls in
love with a young newspaper reporter named Dick, who grows more
suspicious of her reasons for being in Hong Kong as the film
progresses. As Sherri begins decimating Eagle's goons, Eagle hires a
female assassin named Sakura (Morna Lee) to capture Sherri. Sakura
does indeed capture Sherri and Eagle beats and rapes Sherri in his
bedroom while her hands are tied behind her back. Dick rescues her
and then Sherri goes on a final revenge spree, killing Eagle, his
crime partner Eric and Sakura with Michael and Dick's help. GOLDEN
NINJA WARRIOR is extremely hard to follow, but, for the most
part, holds the viewer's interest thanks to some crazy fight
sequences and tons of female nudity, most of it the full-frontal
kind, which is highly unusual in these Joseph Lai pastiche films.
Truly head-scratching are some of Sherri's fight sequences, which Lai
intercuts with scenes of the black-clad female ninja fighting on what
are supposed to be the same sets that Sherri is on, but it's quite
obvious to the viewer that most of the sets don't match. As with all
of Lai's cut-and-paste flicks, the English dubbing is hilarious, such
as when Sherri bursts into Eagle's home (dressed in short-shorts, a
revealing top and matching headband) and he says to her, "Who
are you?" Her reply of "I am the Death Fairy!" is sure
to elicit laughs rather than strike fear into the heart of her enemy.
Here's another one: Dick: "I'm a reporter." Goon:
"I don't care if you're Robert Redford!" (It's probably an
obscure reference to ALL
THE PRESIDENT'S MEN [1976], but, c'mon, who is going to get
it?). The whipping scene in the beginning and Sherri's rape later in
the film go way beyond the boundaries of good taste (they're
downright cruel in their execution) and Sakura's arsenal of weapons,
including motion-sensing throwing knives (You've gotta see them to
believe them!) and throwing stars equipped with garrotte wires, are
highlights of this crazy film. Although the newly-shot insert scenes
are quite noticeable, it's also obvious that Lai did try this time to
match background shots, especially the final climatic battle among a
bunch of abandoned multi-colored disc-shaped modular homes. Lai
failed for the most part, but at least an effort was made, something
that's severely lacking in most of these films. The Golden Ninjas
return in GOLDEN NINJA INVASION
(1987), directed by Godfrey Ho. Also starring Raymond Lee, Mary
Leung, Paul Wong, David Chan, Mike Tien, Dick Wu, Pansy Pak and Peter
Wang. Originally released on VHS by Trans
World Entertainment, Inc. and available on British DVD. Not Rated.
HANDS
OF DEATH (1987) - Another one
of director Godfrey Ho's patchwork films, using existing footage of
some unreleased Oriental action flick (this one being a
Korea/Taiwan/Thailand co-production titled GREAT
ESCAPE IN JUNGLE - 1985) with newly-shot footage of
Caucasian actors awkwardly edited in. This film opens up with three
ninjas, dressed in pink and white ninja outfits (with black headbands
with the word "Ninja" written on them), killing two white
dudes and stealing their treasure map, which shows the location of
gold hidden by the Japanese during World War II. It's located in
Devil's Cave, which happens to be in Willie's territory (it sounds
scary). The head pink ninja, Baron (Mike Abbott), goes to Willie to
work out a deal (in a badly-edited segment of old and new footage).
Meanwhile, a bunch of women escape from Willie's territory and are
hunted down by his men. They manage to kill three women and capture
the rest, except for Jennie, who is saved by adventurer Chester
(Sorapong Chatri; EYES
OF THE CONDOR - 1987), who decapitates one of Willie's men
with a machete. To show her
gratitude, she offers to become partners with Chester and lead him
to the gold. One of the dying women tells an Army colonel (Richard
Harrison) about the gold and how Baron and his ninjas will have to
pass through this area to get to it. The colonel and his men set up
ambush points (and boobytraps) and wait for Baron and his men.
Jennie, her friends David, Jack and Chester (who has a score to
settle with Willie, since he is responsible for his sister's death)
begin their trek through the jungle and must contend with numerous
attacks by Willie's men, a very hungry tiger and various other jungle
pitfalls. Chester finds a friend in jungle woman Jane, who wears a
loincloth, swings from vines and controls animals. Jennie, Jack and
David are captured by Willie, who rapes Jennie in his bedroom by
gunpoint after forcing her to smoke a cigarette laced with a
halucinogenic drug. Carter tries to save them, but he, too, is
captured. Jane saves them all (David says, "She dresses like
Tarzan, but she fights like King Kong!") and they continue on
their treasure hunt. The colonel and his men (who, for some reason,
are now dressed in camoflauge ninja outfits with red "Ninja"
headbands!) begin their fight against Baron and his men, who come
armed with crossbows (with explosive bolts) and shotguns. Chester and
his group save a bunch of women from a cannibal tribe and continue on
their way to Devil's Cave, not aware that Willie and his men are
already there and the cave is very unstable (everyone but Willie
leaves their guns outside so they don't cause a cave-in). The
conclusion finds Chester's group fighting Willie's group, while the
colonel goes mano-a-mano against Baron. Willie is the first to find
the treasure, but the idiot fires his gun and the roof comes falling
in on him. The Colonel and Baron duel to the death with swords and
the Colonel defeats Baron with a well-placed yellow smoke ball
grenade! As far as Godfrey Ho's cut-and-paste films go (he made
this one for producers Joseph Lai and Betty Chan's IFD Films And Arts
Ltd. production company), HANDS OF DEATH is one of the better
ones, thanks to a plot that's not confusing and the non-stop action.
The old footage comes from an Oriental film that is reminiscent of RAIDERS
OF THE LOST ARK (1981), only bloodier. And it is
entertaining, too. For once, the newly-shot footage pales in
comparison to the older footage, which offers plenty of martial arts
fights (including a nasty 180 degree neck twisting), decapitations,
cobra attacks, multiple stabbings and bloody gunfights. The new
footage seems unnecessary and superfluous in comparison. Seek this
one out. Also known as NINJA
OPERATION 7: ROYAL WARRIORS and THE
SECRET OF THE LOST EMPIRE. Also starring Stefan Bredhart,
Phil Parker, Simon Heagan, Lars Anderson, Gary Carter, Walter Kong,
Celia Lee and Surian Suryoog. An Imperial
Entertainment Corp. Release. Not to be confused with HANDS
OF DEATH (1971), a Hong Kong/Thailand martial arts actioner
that was released on VHS as THE
KING BOXERS. Not Rated.
IMMORTAL
COMBAT (1993) -
Roddy Piper made a welcome comeback to films (after a two year
absense spent back in the wrestling ring), starring in this
above-average martial art thriller and the actioners BACK
IN ACTION
(1993), TOUGH
AND DEADLY
(1995) and NO
CONTEST
(1995). Piper appears with Meg Foster (his co-star in John
Carpenters THEY
LIVE
- 1988) and an old-looking Sonny Chiba (THE
STREET FIGHTER
- 1974) as a cop who investigates the death of a female officer who
is carved up by a seemingly immortal musclebound fighter (played by
former American Gladiator Deron "Malibu" McBee). Clues lead
Piper to a tropical island, where Foster is conducting experiments on
male patients, turning them into superhuman fighters impervious to
bullets. Soon, Piper is neck-deep in trouble and must face-off
against a barrage of Fosters superhumanoids, aided by his
partner Chiba and new-found island friend Tiny Lister (PRISON
- 1988). Piper has an engaging screen presence and proves adept in
both beating people to a pulp and playing his role with a comedic
touch. Action packed and filled with welcome doses of humor, IMMORTAL
COMBAT
(also known as RESORT
TO KILL)
will not disappoint fans of the genre. Directed, produced and
written by Daniel A. Neira. An A-Pix Video & DVD Release. Rated
R.
INSTANT
RAGE (1988) - This is another one
of those piecemeal martial arts films from producer Tomas Tang (for
his Filmark International, Ltd. company) and director Godfrey Ho
(using the pseudonym "Philip Fraser"), where they take an
unfinished or unreleased Hong Kong martial arts flick and intercut
about 15 to 20 minutes of newly-shot footage of Caucasian actors
(usually Richard Harrison, but not this time) with unintentionally
hilarious results. In the Hong Kong section, Brian (who for some
reason has superhuman strength) and friend Carol, with the
help of her old blind uncle ("As you can see I am blind, but I'm
not stupid!"), must fight members of the Chinese mafia every ten
minutes or so. In the new footage, white ninja Wilbur battles black
ninja Steve for some reason or another every 30 minutes or so and
then disappear (poof!) in a puff of smoke. There's a slight
supernatural angle to the Hong Kong plot (involving a woman, the
leader of the Chinese mafia, who wears a black mask and robe and
travels from house-to-house with her devoted followers, killing
everyone in sight), but nothing makes much sense. It's not boring,
though, as people are shot, stabbed, have throwing stars embedded in
their skulls, women are raped, Brian picks up the back end of a
running car with his bare hands, cars explode and people are beaten
to a bloody pulp. The film is also full of laugh-out-loud scenes, as
where white ninja Wilbur uses a cordless phone as a walkie talkie
(there's a photo of it on the back of
of the VHS box); a catfight between two girls over Brian, where
one girl says to the other; "I'll tell you one thing, I'm great
in bed!"; a really slow chase between an injured man and a
bulldozer which results in the man being gored to death by the
bulldozer's blade; a gunfight between the police and members of the
mafia in a quarry where they are no more than ten feet from each
other; a scene between Wilbur and a police captain where it's plain
to see they are in two different locations (the backgrounds don't
match) even though they're supposed to be in the same room; and,
anytime ninjas fly through the air and land on balconies or the top
of walls, it's obvious the film is running in reverse. I haven't even
touched on the scene where Brian is stripped to his red bikini briefs
and tortured with snakes or when a girl is attacked in the shower by
the female Mafia chieftan with a fencing sword. The final ninja fight
between Wilbur and Steve involves swords, a rolling bale of hay and
explosions, but makes absolutely no sense and ends rather quickly. INSTANT
RAGE is non-stop action from the minute it starts, but if you
like a coherent plot (or any plot) to go along with your kicks and
gunshots, look elsewhere. I did chuckle, though, when one cop says,
"Hey, I got one!" after shooting a bad guy in the final
battle. Proceed at your own risk. Starring Elton Gibbs, Max Hill,
Jack Fox, Ruby Clay, Norman Luddy, Jerry Jones, Paul Gould, Derry
Bishop and Janet Palin. I'm willing to bet every name in that cast is
ficticious. A Trans World Entertainment
Home Video Release. They, along with Imperial
Entertainment, released a slew of these piecemeal films on VHS.
See my reviews of DIAMOND NINJA FORCE
(1986) and CLASH OF THE NINJAS
(1986) and my sections on TWE
and Imperial Entertainment
for VHS box art on these films. Not Rated.
THE
INSTRUCTOR (1981) - Wow. Simply
wow. Revel in the badness of this regional (made in Ohio and
Colorado) martial arts actioner, where the majority of men sport 70's
porno-style moustaches and everyone knows karate. The film opens with
the Instructor (Bob Chaney) and student Thumper (director Don
Bendell) breaking up a rape by an overage street gang. Thumper gets
knocked out, but the Instructor defeats the dozen gang members
single-handedly (lots of crotch grabbing) in one of the most
awkwardly-staged and hilarious fights in recent memory (I
particularly liked how he kicked one female gang member in the
stomach and, as she stands bent-over in pain, he grabs her by hair
and finishes her off with a punch to the face). The film then settles
in to the major storyline. The Instructor runs a karate school where
he teaches discipline over fighting. His rival is Bud Hart (Bob
Saal), who owns a karate school across town and only teaches
fighting, discipline
be damned. He is nothing but a bully that turns out nothing but
thugs and is also responsible for the Instructor's wife's death,
although there is no evidence to prove it. Bud sends four of his men
to the Instructor's school late one night to destroy it, but Dee
(Lynday Scharnoff), one of the school's teachers, is there. They try
to rape her, but she fights them off (she jabs a pencil into one
guy's armpit). Bud is also in cahoots with a crooked union boss and
he kidnaps a rival union leader for supplying "scabs" to a
work site (this plot line leads nowhere). At a local karate
tournament, where the Instructor and Bud's student fight for
trophies, Thumper is seriously injured in the locker room by a
retarded man stealing a trophy ("I'll mangle you, you
turd!"). The Instructor snaps, thinking Bud is involved (he
isn't), and goes looking for revenge. He ends up fighting half the
punks in town and then gets into a car chase with Bud (his Corvette
vs. Bud's Camaro), which turns into a motorcycle chase (!) and then
turns into a fight in a river which climaxes in a duel in the woods,
where a chainsaw and an axe is used. After Bud is accidentally
killed, the police arrest the Instructor, where he eventually gets
fined $500 and gets off with a suspended sentence. Hooray for our
legal system! Director/producer/scripter Don Bendell (who never
made anything else) has the advantage of using real black belts in
the starring roles but, unfortunately, none of them can act their way
out of a paper bag. Still, the film is entertaining in a car-wreck
kind of way (it's bad and you still can't take your eyes off it), as
Bendell uses every filmic trick in the book, from slow-motion kicks
and falls, POV shots, car chases and crashes, to the climatic fight
with a chainsaw. The creepiest aspect of this film is the retarded
guy, who we first see stalking kids playing in the park, dressed in a
black ninja uniform (we see him pick his nose under the mask) and
brandishing a knife. As I said before, everyone in town knows karate,
so the kids beat the stuffing out of him. So what does the Instructor
do? He lets the retard become a student at his school! Another
strange aspect is that Bob Chaney's character is never given a proper
name. He is only referred to as "Instructor",
"sir" or "karate guy". It plain to see that it's
done purposely in the screenplay, as in the prison scene in the
finale where great care is taken not saying his name by the cops, the
jailer or Dee. It's as if Bendell wanted to create some mythical
character in the vein of Clint Eastwood's "Man With No
Name". But Chaney's short stature, thick moustache and curly
black perm will elicit nothing but laughs. Don Bendell has, on the
other hand, created something that, once seen, you're not likely to
ever forget. What more could you ask for? Made by martial artists
using what God gave them: Big moustaches and no wires or stunts that
defy gravity. Also starring Bruce Bendell, Shirley Bendell (nepotism
alert!), Tom Atha, Tony Blanchard and Jack Holderbaum. A Vestron
Video Release. Not Rated.
KARATE
WARRIOR (1987) - In this Italian
version of THE KARATE KID
(1984), teenager Anthony Scott (Kim Stuart) travels to Manila to
visit his absentee father, Paul (Jared Martin; QUIET
COOL - 1986). After stepping off the plane and accepting a
ride from a talkative taxi driver (Have you ever eaten fried
rat?" "You see those girls over there? They've got the
clap!"), Anthony is dropped off on the bad side of town, where
he is instantly beaten-up and robbed by three street punks. He then
takes a long bus ride to the town of Los Banos, where he has an
awkward reunion with his father ("How's your Mom?"
"She's got a rich New York lawyer that she sees on
weekends!") and then meets a beautiful local girl named Maria
(Jannelle Barretto). After fixing a broken motorcycle in his father's
garage, Anthony takes a ride around town and spots a goon named Quino
(Enrico Torralba) shaking down Maria's parents in their store. Maria
explains to Anthony that Quino heads a protection racket and since
he's the town's karate champion, you either pay up or get the shit
kicked out of you. Anthony, who doesn't know the difference between
karate and his asshole, quickly gets on Quino's bad side when he
kicks him in the nuts at a local karate tournament (The old "blind
him with a camera flash and kick him in the family jewels"
trick!) and then leads Quino and his goons on a motorcycle chase,
where Anthony proves quite proficient on two wheels. Quino retaliates
the next day by kidnapping Anthony and beating him within an inch of
his life, leaving him to die in the jungle. While Paul and Maria
search for Anthony, he is rescued by Master Kimura (Ken Watanabe; NINJA
WARRIORS - 1985), Quino's former martial arts teacher who
disappeared four years ago in disgrace after finding out that Quino
went to the dark side. Master Kimura agrees to teach Anthony karate
if he agrees to face-off with Quino at the annual "Kimura
Tournament", which Quino has won for the past four years. I
think we can all see where this is heading. Master Kimura has ten
days (!) to teach Anthony everything he knows (Forget "wax on,
wax off", there's no time for that!), including the incredible
"Dragon Blow" technique, a way of incapacitating a person
without actually touching them. Anthony's mother, Julia (Janet Agren; PANIC
- 1976), makes the trip from America to join Paul and Maria as they
watch Anthony take on Quino for the $2,000 grand prize (that's right,
$2,000!) at the Kimura Tournament in the film's finale, where
Anthony, blinded by Quino's constant illegal blows to his face, gets
to use the Dragon Blow on Quino while blindfolded. Hooray for
karate! Where do I begin to describe how truly pathetic this
film really is? For one, Kim Stuart (the son of late Italian actor
Giacomo Rossi-Stuart [WAR
BETWEEN THE PLANETS - 1966; CRIMES
OF THE BLACK CAT - 1972]) is a terrible actor and is so
skinny, I was afraid he would slip through the slats in the floor. He
is to karate what Carrot Top is to comedy. In other words, he just
doesn't cut it. Director Fabrizio De Angelis (THUNDER
WARRIOR - 1983; DEADLY IMPACT
- 1984; MAN HUNT - 1984),
using his frequent pseudonym "Larry Ludman", has fashioned
a film so devoid of characters to care about, I fail to see the point
in making this film for any other reason than to capitalize on the
popularity of THE KARATE KID. The script, by De Angelis and
Dardano Sacchetti (using the name "David Parker Jr.), makes
Anthony look like a wise-cracking asshole who deserves whatever
punishment is given him (he really is a jerk); his father is nothing
but a self-confessed coward who left his son and wife when things got
too complicated back in the States; his mother is a control freak and
Maria nothing but a generic damsel in distress. They all lack even
the basest of human emotions, which makes the whole film seem like it
is being acted by a bunch of robots. The violence never rises above a
PG level and the martial arts sequences are badly choreographed. The
final face-off between Anthony and Quino is anti-climatic and is all
over in less than a minute. It really is about as lame as they come.
The only fun to be had here is counting the flubbed lines, monotone
delivery and white belt machinations by Kim Stuart, who looks like he
would have trouble opening a box of cereal, nevermind winning a
karate tournament. The scene where he knocks out an ox using the
Dragon Blow is a thing of unintentional hilarity (This being an
Italian film, I have to wonder what means they used to get the poor
ox to fall to it's knees. It wouldn't surprise me it it was fatal.).
Believe it or not, this
film spawned five (!) sequels, as well as an offshoot film
titled KARATE
ROCK (1990), all directed by De Angelis, which I hear were
big in Germany, but we all know how easy the Germans are to please,
don't we? Too bad history proves that the Italians bend over
backwards to accommodate them, because KARATE
WARRIOR is a steaming pile of celluloid crap. Also starring
Jonny Tauzon, Rudy Meyer and Enrico Orbita. Originally released on
VHS by Imperial
Entertainment Corp. and not available on DVD in the States.
Germany? That's a different story. Not Rated, but no harder
than a PG.
KING
OF THE KICKBOXERS 2 (1992) -
Filipino martial arts revenge actioner with a cast of familiar faces.
When champion martial artist Billy Edwards (Sean Donahue; SAVAGE
INSTINCT - 1989; PAROLE
VIOLATORS - 1994) is late picking up his waitress sister
Judith (Michelle Locke) after her shift is over, she decides to walk
home and is assaulted and nearly raped by Tony (Greg Douglass; FIST
OF STEEL - 1991) and a couple of doo-rag-wearing street
thugs (one of them portrayed by Filipino film staple Jim Gaines).
Billy arrives in the nick of time to prevent the rape and beats the
crap out of Tony and the other two creeps. Tony's brother Russell
(Ned Hourani; DUNE WARRIORS
- 1990), a crooked street fight promoter (Is there any other kind?),
watches Billy beating the stuffing out of his brother and sees
dollars signs. Russell drives Billy and his seriously injured sister
to the hospital (Billy doesn't know Russell and Tony are brothers)
and offers to pay Judith's extensive medical bills if Billy will
fight for him. Billy accepts and soon he is fighting in a series of
high stakes back alley fights where there are no rules. Billy's new
trainer, Murphy (Jerry Bayer), works him hard and a real friendship
builds between them. Billy's best friend, David (Loren Avedon; NO
RETREAT NO SURRENDER 2 - 1988), sees Russell for the crook
that he is and gets Billy to quit fighting
for him. Still unaware that Russell is Tony's brother, Billy goes on
the hunt for Judith's attackers. Russell is, of course, pissed off
and orders his men to kill Billy, which they do, by beating him up,
dragging him behind two cars (with each arm tied to a separate car!)
and slamming him face-first into a third car. In what will probably
have most viewers doing a double take, Billy comes to David in a
vision (complete with swirling fog!) and tells him that he must
avenge his death and Judith's blindness, caused by the beat-down she
took during the attempted rape (When David goes to the morgue to
identify Billy's body, he pukes his guts out when he views Billy's
mashed-up face!). David begins his revenge spree by seducing Tony's
girlfriend, Joyce (Santi Jordana), and pumping her (so to speak) for
information on Russell's enterprises. He begins to (awkwardly)
dismantle Russell's operation, but first he needs heavy training from
Murphy, who whips him into shape (in true 80's montage fashion, even
if this is a 90's film) for the inevitable showdown with Russell, who
has never been beaten in a fight. This unrelated sequel to KING
OF THE KICKBOXERS (1990; also starring Loren Avedon) is one
of the most badly acted martial arts actioners I have seen in quite a
while (It's no coincidence that this is Michelle Locke's only film
credit; she's simply cringe-worthy as Judith), but director John
Lloyd (NINJA WARRIORS
- 1984; NINJA'S FORCE II
- 1986) and screenwriter Rod Davis offer so many outrageous moments
and choice bits of dialogue, that it's impossible not to be
entertained. The insanity begins immediately when the film starts, as
we watch (an uncredited) Mike Monty portray a drunk who refuses to
leave Judith's bar and demands more beer by saying, "All you
women, you're all the same. Just a bunch of nagging bitches, just
like my old sea hag!" and then the film goes on to display a
series of bloody martial arts fights that are lively in their
execution, but what comes between those fights will have you shaking
your head like one of those toy dogs you see in the back of Mexicans'
cars (It's a joke people! Quit being so sensitive.). Billy's death
took me completely by surprise, but when he appears to David in a
vision after shuffling off into the Great Beyond, the film quits
being a standard martial arts flick and crosses over into surreal
territory. The film also crosses over into CAPE
FEAR (the 1991 remake) territory in detailing Tony's
obsession with the now-blind Judith, even going as far as to have him
hitch a ride on the undercarriage of David's Jeep to find her. The
scene where Tony traps her in a swimming pool is one of the funniest
things I have seen in a long time, thanks to Ms. Locke's horrible
emoting and Tony's dialogue (When Tony says to Judith, "I just
want you to know, you are going to die, but I thought I might POP!
one of your eyeballs out and skull-fuck you first!", I was
laughing so hard, I nearly shit my pants!). KING
OF THE KICKBOXERS 2 (also known as FIGHTING SPIRIT)
contains enough action, blood and stunts to keep you totally
enthralled (most of the time unintentionally) for 91 minutes. Not to
be confused with AMERICAN
SHAOLIN: KING OF THE KICKBOXERS II (1991), which is the real
sequel to KING OF THE KICKBOXERS. Both are actually the fourth
and fifth films in the NO
RETREAT NO SURRENDER franchise. Confusing, isn't it? Also
starring Charlie Vincent, Roger Blake, John Steel, Louie Katana,
Steve Rogers, Gary Ruhl and Nick Nicholson as Billy's first trainer.
A Silver Screen International Production that's available both on VHS
(from Imperial
Entertainment Corp.) and DVD (label unknown) in the U.S. Not Rated.
MACHO
MAN (1980) -
Obviously retitled Chinese martial arts flick about a mysterious man
and woman who come to a town run by a crimelord ("They're
climbing our hill!"), whose purpose there is as mysterious as
their appearance. After getting into a fight with some of the
crimeboss' men and defeating them (the guy, who is always smiling,
twists everyone's neck so they all walk around with their heads
tilted to one side!), the crimeboss welcomes them into his town (keep
your friends close and your enemies closer). The townspeople begin to
speculate why they are
here ("Maybe they have come to steal the King's seal!")
and it becomes apparent that the man and woman don't know each other
and are in town for different reasons. After getting into a couple of
fights, it is revealed that the woman is there looking for her
father. The last letter she received from him was postmarked from
this town and no one has seen him for six months. Enter into the
picture an ex-con just out of prison, who demands his share of
payment that the crimeboss received from selling the King's seal that
they both stole, but only he was imprisoned for. The woman is
kidnapped to lure the mysterious man to a lumber yard, where he is
seriously injured when he is impaled by the blade of a forklift. He
and the woman are rescued by a restaurant owner and his daughter. The
crimeboss sends a kung fu master to capture his ex-partner, which he
does, but the mysterious man and woman save his bacon when they spot
him being tortured in the woods. Since the crimeboss is the source of
all their troubles, the trio join forces to bring him down. They
devise a plan to steal back the King's seal, but they will have to
contend with a Japanese buyer, who is a karate master. They will
fight on a moving train full of logs and settle the score for good on
the ominous-sounding "White Wolf Hill". As far as
Chinese martial arts flicks go, MACHO MAN is nothing but
ordinary. Typical of many 70's kung fu films, this one has minimal
plot and lots and lots of fights. Unfortunately, none of the fights
are very exciting (although the final fight, where our hero coats his
arms with his own blood so his opponent can't get a grip, is somewhat
original). The real problem with this film is that the same sound
effect is used for every punch, kick and block. It almost becomes
comical listening to every fight. Almost. What's even funnier is the
totally bogus VHS box art, synopsis and credits on the Master Arts
Video clamshell case. Not only do the artwork and photos on the
clamshell have nothing to do with the film, the synopsis is totally
made up (it could describe hundreds of martial arts films, but not
this one) and the credits are a total sham (although I did get a
chuckle out of "Enyan Liew" and "Jerry Rages" as
the stars of the film). As with most films of this type, the dubbing
is horrendous (everyone yells, "Goddamn you!" when they get
hit) and the scope frame is severely compromised by the fullscreen
presentation (it is pan-and-scan, but the telecine operator has a
hard time keeping up with the action). Not worth your time unless you
have to see every martial arts film in existance. Directed by Yu Ming
Ho and starring Hui Tin, Yee Jan and Lo Lun. The always reliable IMDB
has this listed as a hardcore porno film! A Master Arts Video
Release. Not Rated.
MIAMI
CONNECTION (1986) - If
Godfrey Ho made a film in Orlando, Florida, it would turn out like
this: Cheap, amateurish, badly edited and totally entertaining in a
retarded sort of way. It also found a new life as a cult film thanks
to Drafthouse Films and even got a lengthy write-up in Entertainment
Weekly. It's easy to see why. It has spurts of gore, lots of fight
scenes, mullets, music that could have only come from the 80's and
loads of unintentional comedy. Here's the story in a nutshell: Five
college students by day, Mark (Y.K. Kim, who also co-wrote the story
and directed the re-shot ending), John (Vincent Hirsch), Jack (Joseph
Diamond, who wrote the screenplay), Jim (Maurice Smith) and Tom
(Angelo Janotti), are also in a New Wave rock band called Dragon
Sound with female singer Jane (Kathy Collier), who is also John's
love interest. They are the new house band in a nightclub and are
also expert martial artists. This brings up the ire of Jane's brother
Jeff (William Ergle), who is a drug dealer and doesn't want his
sister dating John because he is too straight-laced and poses a
danger to his drug business. Jeff is in league with Yashito (Si. Y.
Jo), who is the leader of a motorcycle-riding ninja gang (!) that
rips off and kills other drug dealers (as we witness in the beginning
of the film). All of the male members of Dragon Sound are orphans
except for token black member Jim, whose father was stationed in
Korea and
married a Korean woman, resulting in Jim being born. His father left
Korea, Jim's mother died and Jim has been searching for him ever
since (His crying jag about looking for his father is one of the
film's hilarious highlights). The old house band of the nightclub
doesn't take too kindly to being replaced, so they try to beat the
snot out of Dragon Sound (they first try to beat-up the club's owner,
but he is also a martial artist!), only to end up with broken noses
and fractured arms. The injured old house band enlist the help of
Jeff and his gang, who kidnap Tom, beat him up and tie him to a
pillar in an abandoned factory. The rest of Dragon Sound rescue Tom,
which results in the death of Jeff (Jane forgives John for his death
almost immediately!). Jim finally locates his father, so the rest of
the band chip in, buy him a suit and a plane ticket to meet Daddy. On
their way to the airport, Mark, Jim and John are attacked by Yashito
and his black-clad ninjas (Yashito wears a white ninja outfit). Jim
is seriously wounded when he is sliced in the chest with a sword, but
Mark and John defeat the ninjas and Mark has a final confrontation
with Yashito, resulting in Yashito being stabbed to death with his
own knife. Mark and John rush Jim to the hospital, where he survives
his wounds and is met by his father, who tells him that he loves him
and will never leave him again. The balance of nature is once again
at one with peace. Originally, Jim died at the end, but
according to the supplements on the Blu-Ray, nobody would buy the
film with that ending, so more than a year later they resot the
ending with Jim surviving and finally meeting his father. Director
Richard W. Park (Real name: Woo-sang Park; He also directed the
"What The Fuck?!?" films L.A.
STREETFIGHTERS [1985], GANG
JUSTICE [1991] and AMERICAN
CHINATOWN [1996], but they don't match this film in sheer
weirdness), who also plays the owner of a restaurant that Dragon
Sound frequents (he also has his own martial arts fight with a gang
of ruffians), works with what he has. Namely, an amateur cast that
delivers their dialogue with mind-numbing hilarity (Only Y.K. Kim and
Vincent Hirsch were real-life martial artists and Kim struggles with
the English dialogue [He speaks it much more fluently on the recently
shot documentary supplement]). According to Angelo Janotti in the
documentary (He and Kathy Collier were the only real musicians in the
film [it's a hoot watching Y.K. Kim fake playing the bass] and wrote
and sang the film's most memorable songs), much of the dialogue was
improvised, but director Park filmed many takes of each scene and
Hirsch kept on stealing Janotti's jokes on the second take, forcing
him to come up with something else off the cuff. There's some bloody
gore on view, including blood spurting out of a neck wound and
Yashito decapitating one of his own ninjas for failing to kill Mark
and John and plenty of martial arts fights (some in slow motion)
which, I must say, were filmed very well. According to Hirsch, they
really punched and kicked each other to add to the realism! There's
also some female nudity on view, such as when Yashito and his biker
ninjas join some other biker gang and their women lift up their tops
to expose their breasts. I can see why this is considered a cult
item. It runs a scant 83 minutes, so it doesn't outstay its welcome
and the music and dialogue are so goofy, you can't help but have a
good time. This is the type of film better watched with an audience,
but it is perfectly fine to view on your own. This gets my CritCon
Seal of Approval. Also starring William P. Young (as the ass-kicking
club owner), John Escobar and Joy Share. An Image
Entertainment DVD & Blu-Ray Release. The print used is
sometimes grainy and has a few emulsion scratches, but it just adds
to the charm that is called MIAMI
CONNECTION (even though Miami is never shown, but I guess
calling it "Orlando Connection" just doesn't seem as
impressive!). Not Rated.
MAJESTIC
THUNDERBOLT (1984) -
Director/screenwriter Godfrey Ho and producer Joseph Lai team up in
one of their first (along with MISSION
THUNDERBOLT) cut-and-paste martial arts actioners, featuring
newly-shot footage of Caucasian actors slugging it out, spliced into
an unreleased Hong Kong, Indonesian or Filipino action film, making
the end product some surreal bastardization of logic. The film opens
with Dutch businessman Richard (Richard Harrison; NINJA
TERMINATOR - 1986) arriving at the Hong Kong airport with a
briefcase full of diamonds. Richard is supposed to immediately
deliver the diamonds to his boss, Mr. Franco, but he decides to make
a quick stop to visit his girlfriend Mimi first. Richard and his two
cohorts are attacked in the parking garage of Mimi's building by
Philip (Philip Ko; NINJA THE PROTECTOR
- 1986) and two guys wielding hatchets. After dispatching Richard's
mates (both get hatchets in their heads), Philip steals the briefcase
(after kicking Richard in the stomach) and drives away. The bulk of
the film is some unreleased Hong Kong gangster flick about two
warring crime families, who are continually at each other's throats.
One of the families is headed by Mr. Franco
(a Chinese actor in a big black afro wig who smokes using a huge
white cigarette holder), who actually hired Philip to steal the
diamonds for reasons too complicated to go into here (Weren't the
diamonds his to begin with?). When some of Franco's men kill
Mimi without his permission, Franco now has to kill Richard, too, so
he sends Philip and some other men to murder him. That's where the
newly-shot footage comes in, as Richard battles goon after goon using
rapiers, a baseball bat while wheeling down an alley on roller skates
(!) and finally, a showndown on a beach with Philip using guns
(where, for some reason, live chickens are lined-up on rocks so they
can be used for target practice!), swords and machetes. The film
proper documents the warfare between Mr. Franco and arch-rival Tiger
Chan, as Franco has one of Tiger Chan's sons murdered, so Chan sends
his other son, Allan, to get retribution. He does, using some really
unique ways in doing so, including exploding bathroom fixtures,
snakes, acid and a lumberyard band saw. All the bad guys meet fitting
demises and a triumphant Richard walks into the sunset while Ho's
patented white-on-red THE END title card flashes on-screen.
This film is the total package of demented entertainment, as both old
and new footage, along with the hilariously bad English dubbing, are
so goofy you can't help but have a good time. The character of Mr.
Franco is a hoot, with his huge afro, equally huge cigarette holder
and his penchant for sadomasochism, both in the bedroom and the
boardroom. Two scenes sum up Mr. Franco's demeanor perfectly: The
first takes place poolside at his home, where a team of female
synchronized swimmers perform a routine in the pool while Franco
poisons the three men responsible for Mimi's death a few short feet
away. The second scene is at a golf course, where Franco tries to
sink a putt, but misses by inches. His girlfriend (who, moments
before, we saw tied-up in Franco's bedroom while he whips her as a
prelude to sexual foreplay) says, "It's always the same. You
always miss getting in!" Knowing full well that she is not just
talking about golf, Franco slaps her and snaps, "Don't say that
to me you goddamned stupid bitch!" There's so much more
craziness on view in the old footage, including an exploding toilet
(predating LETHAL WEAPON
by a couple of years); a crucifixion that ends with a bad guy getting
bit on the inside of his mouth by a poisonous cobra; an acid shower;
Franco drowning his cheating girlfriend in a fish tank; the unique
death by falling chandelier equipped with a retractable spike; and a
band saw dismemberment. The new footage is just as crazy. You haven't
lived until you've seen a roller-skating Richard Harrison whacking a
guy with a baseball bat or watching him and Philip Ko blasting away
at helpless chickens. Speaking of Ko, he goes through a
head-scratching ritual where he paints Chinese characters on a
tied-up naked woman's body, then fucks her in various positions
(including a little doggy-style action), then stabs her in the
stomach and drinks her blood out of a champagne glass before he does
battle with Harrison. It makes no sense, but it's interesting to
watch (much of this footage was re-used for Ho's SCORPION
THUNDERBOLT [1985], also starring Harrison). Most of the
music soundtrack is nothing but stolen riffs, including an excerpt
from The Edgar Winters' Group song "Frankenstein". If you
are a fan of Ho's pastiche films, MAJESTIC
THUNDERBOLT should be considered one of his classics that
you need to see. Also starring John Ladalski, Cathy Evans, Chan Kun
Tai, Roc Tein, Tricia Yin, Mimo Lawrence and Allan Wang. Never
available on home video in the U.S., but it is available on DVD-R
from many gray market sellers in either a Dutch or Japanese-subtitled
version (the Japanese version optically fogs-out most of the nudity). Not
Rated.
MISSION
OF JUSTICE (1992) -
Excellent actioner filled with amazing martial arts stunt sequences.
A police
officer (Jeff Wincott) quits the force in disgust after a man he and
his female partner (Karen Sheperd) arrest is freed and kills his
girlfriend. When Wincott's friend (Tony Burton), a championship
boxer, is found murdered in his gym, he finds a clue which may tie
the murder to a local organization called the Mission Of Justice. The
Mission is headed by Dr. Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen), who is also
running for mayor of the town. The Mission trains people to become
Peacekeepers, a Guardian Angels-like group who walk the streets and
stop crimes in progress. The Mission's main mission, though, is to
dupe elderly people to change their wills, leaving all their money
and possessions to the Mission so that Dr. Larkin can finance her
mayoral bid. Dr. Larkin, along with her big brute of a brother
(Matthias Hues), then kill the elderly people, making it look like
they died of natural causes. Wincott infiltrates the Mission and
becomes a Peacekeeper (after going through a well-staged martial arts
initiation rite called "Running The Gauntlet") hoping to
gather enough information and evidence to put Dr. Larkin and her
cronies behind bars. Wincott manages, with the help of his ex-partner
and a Peacekeeper (Billy Sly Williams) who witnessed the boxer's
murder, to put Dr. Larkin in her place on the evening that she wins
the mayoral race. Jeff Wincott makes a good action hero and can also
be seen in DEADLY
BET
(1991) and MARTIAL
LAW 2: UNDERCOVER
(1991). It looks as if he has a bright future (I hope that doesn't
jinx him. I once wrote in a review that it looked like Brandon Lee
was going to have a lasting career in films!). Matthias Hues, a
favorite of mine for the past several years, has also appeared in FIST
FIGHTER (1988),
I
COME IN PEACE
(1990 - as the drug stealing alien), NO
RETREAT NO SURRENDER 2
(1988) as well as many others. He is a force to reckon with! Director
Steve Barnett has also made EMMANUELLE
5
(1987, co-directed with Walerian Borowczyk), HOLLYWOOD
BOULEVARD II
(1989) and MINDWARP
(1991), none of which achieve the quality of this one. MISSION
OF JUSTICE
is violent entertainment on a grand scale. A Republic
Pictures Home Video Release. Rated
R.
NINJA,
DEMON'S MASSACRE (1988) -
This is another cut-and-paste martial arts actioner from producer
Tomas Tang and his Filmark International Ltd. production company,
directed by Tommy Cheng (SATANIC
CRYSTALS - 1989; which is not a pseudonym for director
Godfrey Ho, but one of Tang's house directors). Unfortunately, the
title is totally misleading, as there are no demons and the closest
thing to a massacre happens in the film's opening minutes. The film
opens with two Interpol agents (one played by an uncredited Stuart
Smith as agent Robinson Collins) watching an illegal exchange on a
ferry between two groups of Asians. When the Interpol agents call for
a raid of the ferry, two black-clad ninjas appear in a puff of smoke
and nearly kill all the good guys with their swords and hands (the
main bad guy gets away by jumping in the ocean and being towed away
by a speed boat as he clings to a rope), but the sudden appearance of
a good yellow-clad Golden Ninja saves the day. We then switch to some
unreleased modern-day Western-style action film from Thailand, where
Max (an uncredited Sorapong Chatri; EYES
OF THE CONDOR - 1987), a "man of justice" (who
talks with a thick Australian accent!), walks into a borderland bar
and defends the honor of a gambler who was wrongly accused of
cheating. The gambler, Robert Douglas (who looks neither like a
Robert or a Douglas), is challenged by the bar's best fighter to a
one-on-one match for $3,000 and when the fighter cheats and pulls out
a knife (after Robert gives him a good thrashing), Robert has no
choice but to pull out his own knife and cut the fighter's throat
from ear-to-ear, while Max guns down the fighter's friend for
refusing to pay. Max and Robert agree to protect the people of the
borderland town from thugs that come there to abuse them. We then
switch (there's a lot of head-scratching segues in this film) to
Julie and her crippled brother Jack, who have been called to the
country to tutor Lady Christine's bratty children. Lady Christine is
the ex-wife of Boss Willy, the region's crime kingpin, whom we first
meet teaching one of his underlings a lesson by stabbing him in the
back of the neck with a knife (you can see the tip of the knife blade
protruding from the front of the poor guy's neck!). Willy sends some
of his men to destroy the borderland bar, but Max and Robert teach
them all a lesson in justice. Max agrees to a duel with one of the
men, which turns out to be a Thai version of a Wild West shootout and
Max wins handily (he shoots his opponent in both arms and legs, as
his opponent yells out, "I'm crippled!"). Every once in a
while the film proper stops dead in its tracks by newly shot footage,
where bad guy Mr. Culp (Ted Brooke) sends out an enforcer (James
Lear) to deal with Boss Willy's enemies. This leads to a couple of quickly-shot
ninja fights (between the black and Golden Ninja) that totally seems
out of place with the tone of the rest of the film. Meanwhile, Max
makes life difficult for Boss Willy, and the rest of the film is a
series of deadly back-and-forths between Max, Robert and Willy's
gang. And what about Julie and her cripple brother? It turns out they
are not tutors at all, but are really CIA agents! When Max switches
sides and begins working for Willy, the question becomes: Is Max a
traitor or is it a ruse? I think we all know the answer. Expect a lot
more death before the gunsmoke clears. It's quite apparent that
the Thai film proper was trying to imitate the American Western
genre, with its swinging barroom doors, people sporting six-shooters
in hip holsters, damsels in distress and even a fancy bit of
knife-throwing. The shootouts and knife throwing are extremely bloody
(lots of splashy bullet squibs and nasty head and neck trauma) and
since this is a Thai film, there is plenty talk of rape, but precious
little nudity. The newly-shot ninja scenes are totally unnecessary
and foreign in this pastiche film, but the sequence where one of the
Golden Ninjas is defeated and explodes (!) almost makes it
worthwhile. As with most of these Tomas Tang patchwork films (Tang
and Filmark was competing against producer Joseph Lai and his IFD
Films production company after they were partners in a production
company called Asso Asia and then had a nasty falling out), the story
doesn't make an ounce of sense and the English dubbing is
unintentionally hilarious (although the more of these films I watch,
the better sense I get that the Australian dubbing crew was having
fun at Tang's expense), but it's the violence and crazy situations
(including Lady Christine's bloody shooting death) that keeps fans of
these type of films coming back for more. NINJA,
DEMON'S MASSACRE (that's the film's title, complete with
punctuation; it is also known under a myriad of titles including NINJA
DESTRUCTOR; NINJA
TERRITORY; NINJA
U.S.A. and THE
KICKBOXING EAGLE) is loony enough to keep action fans
entertained (and the Western themes are just an added bonus!). Also
starring Edmund Morris, Ken Ashley, Chris Cole, Molly Maxwell, Fanny
Bower and Arthur Young (the credits fail to name any of the Thai
actors responsible for 95% of the film!). Originally available on VHS
from Trans World Entertainment
and not available on DVD. Not Rated.
NINJA
DESTROYER (1987) - More
cut-and-paste martial arts nonsense from the team of
director/screenwriter Godfrey Ho and producers Joseph Lai & Betty
Chan (for their IFD Films and Arts Production outfit) where they film
about ten minutes of new footage of two white guys dressed in
colorful ninja outfits slugging it out amongst themselves and
intercut that footage into some unreleased Asian action film. The
film proper here is some unknown Indonesian war film where a band of
bad rebels begin slaughtering innocent civilians in order to take
over a widow's gem mining operation. In the newly-shot footage, bad
white guy Michael (Stuart Smith; COBRA
AGAINST NINJA - 1987; who spends most of his
screen time in a bright red ninja outfit) has joined the rebels
(although we never see him with any, except via some extremely poor
intercutting of old and new footage where the backgrounds don't
match), so the U.S. government sends Captain Byron (Bruce Baron; FIREBACK
- 1983; who spends the majority of his screen time in a camouflage
ninja outfit) to stop him. Captain Byron has an inside man in the
opposition group named Chester (Sorapong Chatri; EYES
OF THE CONDOR - 1987), who begins killing rebel soldiers
under the guise of the Black Knight. Chester saves the life of a
young woman during an attack on the gem mine, not realizing that she
is one of Michael's agents. When he discovers the truth, Chester
kidnaps and rapes her, but she turns out to be a willing victim!
Meanwhile, every fifteen minutes or so, Captain Byron gets into a
martial arts fight with one of Michael's red-clad ninjas, which
always results in one dead red ninja. Chester is eventually captured
by the rebels, who now occupy the mine (it's really hard to determine
who is worse, the rebels or the opposition group, as either side
kills indiscriminately), and he is tied-up in a barn, but is saved by
the woman he raped earlier (she's now dressed as a black ninja). As
the story gets more confusing and makes less and less sense (thanks
to Ho's rejiggered screenplay), Chester plays both sides against each
other, while Captain Byron and Michael have a final, ninja-style
battle. This is one of Ho/Lai's lesser collaborations, thanks
to a plot that's harder than usual to follow (Just who are the good
guys here? Everyone, including Chester, kills or rapes at the drop of
a hat.) and uninspired newly-shot scenes that lack Ho's usual
over-the-top style. Besides the out-of-nowhere rape scene (which
results in Chester running after the woman in nothing but black
bikini underwear when she steals his Jeep) and a final battle between
the rebels and the opposition at the mining operation, NINJA
DESTROYER contains little bang for the buck. It's hard to
imagine that any Indonesian action film can be this boring, but this
one is, especially in this reedited version. There are a couple of
bloody shootings, stabbings and martial arts fights, but thanks to
the confusing storyline (especially the "Huh?" ending of
the film proper), it's hard to give a damn. Even the final fight
between Captain Byron and Michael (Michael says, "Fuck the
politicians!", while Byron replies, "I'm not trying to be a
Rambo!" What?!?) is ho-hum, as Ho depends too much on reverse
photography and Michael is killed way too easily after an
all-too-short fight (which includes throwing stars, a crossbow and
swords). Not one of Godfrey Ho's best (an oxymoron if there ever was
one!). Bruce Baron, Stuart Smith and Sorapong Chatri also starred in
Ho's THE ULTIMATE NINJA (1986),
which is infinitely more enjoyable than NINJA
DESTROYER. Also starring Na Yen Na, Richard Chit, Peter
Ramwa, Surian Suryoog, Luck Apichart, Anne Aswatep, Richard Berman,
Timothy Nugent, Pedro Ernyes, Rick Jenkins and Roger Seller.
Originally available on VHS by United
American Video and not available on DVD. Not Rated.
THE
NINJA EMPIRE (1988) - Very little
ninja action in this Godfrey Ho/Joseph Lai cut-and paste action film
which deals more in prostitution and gunfights than with swordplay.
By now we all know the score to these type of films: Ho takes an
action film that has never been released, reworks the story lines and
then adds newly-shot scenes with Caucasian actors that interfere the
film proper every 15 minutes or so. The twist to this story is the
Bonnie and Brad Detective Agency. Bonnie takes care of all the action
in the film proper, as some one has just killed
her sister at Judy's modeling agency/beauty school. Brad (Marko
Ritchie) handles all the action in the newly shot scenes, fighting
evil bad guy Mike Abbott and his henchmen with guns every 15 minutes
(The only way Bonnie and Brad actually meet is by telephone, an old
trick in these Ho pastiche films). While Bonnie and her extremely
loud motorcycle trails the bad guys responsible for her sister's
death (how the bad guys don't hear her motorcycle is one of those
great filmic flubs), Brad is being hunted down by boss Mike Abbot's
henchmen with automatic weapons and Brad uses his Ninja training to
disappear in a cloud of smoke and appear behind the bad guys and blow
them away with his pistol. When Judy is killed and Bonnie finally
realizes that her sister is really dead, she dons a huge crossbow and
goes looking for revenge on lead bad guy Tiger (a guy with a balding
head who could look like anyone's grandfather) and all his
underlings. Expect plenty of crossbow impalings, throat slittings and
some really bad martial arts fights (This is also the kind of film
where when you get hit hard, a big purple bruise shows up on your
face immediately!). Bonnie finishes her business by killing Tiger, so
Brad takes-on Mike Abbott one-on-one for a fight to the death in
their ninja suits using guns instead of swords. It ends on one of the
funniest freeze-frames in the Ho history of films. THE NINJA EMPIRE
contains all the earmarks of a Ho/Lai film: Borrowed music (The theme
from RE-ANIMATOR is quite
prominently played); laughable English dubbing done by an Australian
crew ("Ninjas" turn into "Ninjers"); plenty of
phone calls to bridge the new footage to the old footage; and some
surprising full frontal female nudity during a shower sequence
(although another lovemaking scene is blurred out by big black bars
that take up half the frame!). If you like this type of bastardized
film (count me in as a fan), you could do a lot worse than this. It's
funny, bloody, has plot holes you could drive a jittney through and
is funny as hell. What more could you want? Also starring Marcus
Egan, Peter Cressall, Mike Tein and Moon Lee. Also known as NINJA
KNIGHT: THUNDER FOX. An Imperial
Entertainment VHS Release. Not Rated.
NINJA
HUNT (1987) - Another incredible
cut-and-paste martial actioner from producer Joseph Lai, who also
handles the directorial reins here (Godfrey Ho, who usually directs
these, only wrote the screenplay here, using the name "Stephen
Soul"). It is the standard mixture of newly-shot footage, this
time featuring Richard Harrison (SCORPION
THUNDERBOLT - 1985) as CIA agent and Master Ninja Gordon
Anderson and his nemesis, The Boss (Stuart Smith; NINJA
DESTROYER - 1987), and old footage; this time an obscure
Hong Kong gangster actioner. In the beginning of the film, two
black-clad ninjas in The Boss' employ steal a top-secret formula
marked "Strictly Confidential" (on a VHS tape, no less!)
called DAK-10 and deliver it to The Boss. Since DAK-10 is very
dangerous (it boosts the morale and killing instincts of soldiers),
Interpol sends Gordon to Hong Kong to get it back. Gordon's partner
in Hong Kong, Aaron (this
is where the old footage begins and takes up 85% of the running
time), goes undercover to steal the formula from crime kingpin
Campbell. Aaron befriends Campbell's precocious 11 year-old
protégé Billy (who, in this rewritten screenplay, is
Gordon's son, who he hasn't seen since he was born), a chain-smoking
kid who acts like he owns the town. Aaron uses Billy to get close to
Campbell, while Billy's mother, Rachel, Campbell's mistress, frets
over the sudden appearance of Gordon and his newfound interest in
Billy (It's also one of the worst examples of intercutting old and
new footage you will ever see and, if you've ever seen any of these
Lai/Ho pastiche films, you know that's saying a lot). To further
confuse matters, Billy thinks that Rachel is his aunt rather than his
mother, because Rachel runs Campbell's whorehouse and she doesn't
want Billy to know his mother is a madame. Every fifteen minutes or
so, the film proper is interrupted as Gordon (who is dressed in a
camouflage ninja outfit) has brief battles with The Boss' black-clad
ninjas (You can tell they are ninjas because the wear headbands with
the word "NINJA" emblazoned on the front) and kills them in
quick fashion. Billy and Aaron become fast friends and when Billy
gives Aaron some important information on Campbell's operations, it
leads to all kinds of hijinks, including martial arts battles,
gunfights and Billy's life being put in peril (Where is Child
Protective Services when you need them?). Will Billy be saved and
learn who his mother and father really are? Will Ninja Master Gordon
defeat The Boss in the final battle? Well, Billy does get to see his
mother shot dead, so at least the film is not a total waste.
This disjointed martial arts actioner contains all the usual Lai
trademarks: Hilarious English dubbing (Rachel whispers into a
sleeping Billy's ear: "Your mother is a wanton hussy and a
whore!"), terrible intercutting of old and new footage (they
didn't even bother to try and match the backgrounds), ninjas who can
appear and disappear at will (Where can I get my hands on this
power?) and stolen music tracks (the most obvious here is Planet P
Project's "Power Tools", which plays during a disco
sequence). There is nothing here to distinguish it from the dozens of
cut-and-paste films that Joseph Lai, Godfrey Ho and Tomas Tang
churned-out from the mid-80's to the early-90's, but at least it
doesn't skimp of the female nudity (including panty crotch-grabbing)
or shy away from putting a little boy in deadly peril every chance
they get. The newly-shot footage is a total waste, though, and
contains none of the goofy weapons (Where are the golden boomerangs?
The multi-colored smoke bombs?) or bloody action we've come to depend
on. The film doesn't really conclude, it just ends. Also starring
Geoffrey Brown, Jens Harlow, Scott Smith, Wallace Choi, Linda Chan,
Edward Yung, Kenneth Lam, Hakim Cheung, Willie Lung, Patsy Chong,
Yvonne Ying and Krirger Klaus. Originally released on VHS by Trans
World Entertainment and not available on DVD. Not Rated.
NINJA
MASTERS OF DEATH (1985) -
Another hoary cut-and-paste martial arts flick from director Godfrey
Ho (using the pseudonym "Bruce Lambert" here), made for
producer Tomas Tang's Filmark International production outfit. It's
hard to believe, but this one makes even less sense than Ho's many
other pastiche chop socky doosies. Here's what I am able to discern
from the plot: Evil yellow ninja Michael and his band of ninjas join
the National Army on a secret mission called "Project
Daredevil", which is never fully explained to the audience (at
least not in this version). Good purple ninja George and his purple
ninja gang (who actually dress in white ninja outfits!) join the
common people to defeat the National Army and Michael's yellow ninja
gang (who, yep, dress in black ninja outfits). The Army goes out on a
raid and capture a young
boy named Jimmy, who is rallying the people to overthrow the Army.
The Army squad leader, Major Lee, questions the kid ("Tell me
what you know or I'll bayonette you and feed you to the
wolves!"), but it soons develops into an uncle/nephew-type
relationship. Every fifteen minutes or so, yellow ninja Michael and
his men fight purple ninja George and his men and then disappear in a
puff of multicolored smoke. Major Lee tells Jimmy that his father was
once Michael's number three man (he even calls him "Number
Three"!), but he left Michael's outfit when he found out Michael
was only in it for the money, which is against the "ninja
code". Flashbacks show Jimmy's mother was raped and killed (a
recurring theme in these films) and his father brutally butchered by
Michael's black ninjas. After he hears the story, Jimmy vows to
become a "ninja hunter". Then, Major Lee and Jimmy are
injured in a raid and recuperate in a hospital. Jimmy is adopted by a
Professor and his wife, but is kidnapped by Michael's men for
"reconditioning". Major Lee rescues him (it doesn't end
pretty) and there's a final battle between George and Michael, which
includes multiple explosions, smokey hand-to-hand combat,
grenade-firing nunchucks and a flame-throwing dagger. I'm not going
to defend this film or any of Godfrey Ho's badly-edited
amalgamations, except to say this: What they lack in common sense and
coherence, they more than make up for in loony visuals, hilarious
dubbing and way-out-there action. All of these films follow the same
basic formula: Take some unreleased or little-seen Hong Kong martial
arts flick (this one seems to be more of a war film, though), add
some newly-shot scenes of white men dressed in colorful ninja
outfits, make up a totally new plot, add some hilarious dubbing done
by British voiceover talent and have at least one ninja fight every
15 to 20 minutes, with the big fight at the end. Since the films make
no sense, the entertainment comes from the strange visuals,
exaggerated sound effects and off-kilter dialogue. This one is no
different. Jimmy stands on an ox cart and gives an impassioned speech
to the people that starts with, "The Army doesn't give a shit
about you!" After he is done with his speech, one audience
member can be heard saying, "The ninjas are pussies!" When
Jimmy is hurt in the raid, you see the lifeless body of his pet
rabbit roll down a hill. What can I say? I'm a sucker for cheap
sentimentality! We never do find out what exactly "Project
Daredevil" really is all about (it's dropped as soon as it is
mentioned) and there's enough lapses in logic to have this film
committed to a mental institution (I'm not sure if the National Army
are the good or the bad guys), but it's not without a lot of
unintentional entertainment value (including an unexpected ending for
Jimmy and an unbelievable you-have-to-see-it death of yellow ninja
Michael). Starring Chris Peterson, Daniel Wells, Richard Young, Kelly
Kruize, Mick Jones, Henry Band, Nancy Nelson and Rio Smith. Also
known as NINJA PROJECT DAREDEVILS.
An Imperial
Entertainment Corp. Release. Not Rated.
THE
NINJA MISSION (1984) - Well, what
do you know? A Swedish ninja movie (the first thing we see on-screen
is a Volvo)! KGB agents try to kidnap lounge singer Nadia (Hanna
Pola) because her estranged scientist father, Karl Markov (Curt
Broder), wants to defect from Russia. The only thing standing in the
KGB's way is CIA agent Mason (Christofer Kohlberg) and his band of
black-clad Swedish ninjas. After her father successfully escapes from
Russia with the help of two CIA agents (who garrot, stab and shoot
the Russian soldiers with silencers that sound like phaser fire), the
KGB increase their attempts to kidnap Nadia, in hopes of using her as
leverage to bring her father back to Russia. Enemy agents grab Nadia
at her nightclub (a huge gunfight breaks out and many innocent
nightclub patrons are gunned down) and Mason chases them in his car,
but they get away in a helicopter. It is at this time that we learn
that Professor Markov was tricked by the Russians to believe he was
rescued and they plan on using Nadia to make him believe he is safe,
so he will "complete his research" (Mason's boss, upon
learning of Nadia's
kidnapping, says, "This is an invitation to world war!").
Mason is ordered to sneak himself and the ninjas into Russia and
rescue Markov and his daughter. Meanwhile, Markov is introduced to
Ableman (Hans Rosteen), a KGB agent pretending to be a United Nations
envoy, who will work with Markov to finish his research (it has
something to do with a new energy source). While the Russians have
Markov and Nadia fooled into believing that they are safe in Sweden
(hey, snow looks the same in Russia as it does in Sweden), Mason and
the ninjas set explosive charges around the building where they are
being held, giving them 30 minutes to rescue Markov and Nadia. Mason
is captured after revealing the truth to Markov and Ableman has to
brand Nadia on the neck with a hot poker before Markov will finish
his research. After Markov is killed trying to grab a gun away from
his traitorous female assistant, Mason must get Nadia out of the
building before it explodes and then across the border out of Russia.
It won't be easy! Unbelievably bloody and violent, THE
NINJA MISSION, directed by Mats Helge (who also made the
horror films BLOOD TRACKS
[1985; using the name "Mike Jackson"] and THE
FORGOTTEN WELLS [1989] and directed several other action
flicks with a ninja theme, including EAGLE
ISLAND [1986] and RUSSIAN
TERMINATOR [1989]), is a strange film to pigeonhole. When
you think of ninjas, Sweden doesn't remotely spring to mind, but this
film contains so much violent imagery, including people getting shot
in the head, impaled with flying stars, sliced with swords, riddled
with bullets (filmed in slow-motion, used for good effect in some
scenes) and a truly disgusting scene of a guy throwing-up in his gas
mask (after breathing poisonous gas) and then falling down, his face
flopping around in the vomit while he dies. Hanna Ploa also exposes
her breasts within the first ten minutes of the film (unfortunately
the nudity ends there). As far as ninja action goes, there is
precious little after the opening moments until the finale, where
they assault the Russian compound. The preferred method of violence
here is gunplay, which is all well and good because the ninja martial
arts violence seems to be a couple of lame fights and a few instances
of swordplay, including a very nasty decapitation. I did like the
explosive dart guns that were used in the finale. When the dart would
hit a person, it injected a fluid into their body, causing them to
explode a few seconds later! The body count in this film is pretty
high (way over 100 on-screen deaths) and the dubbing, while
noticable, is adequate and matches the actors' lip movements (it
looks as if most of the actors were speaking English anyway), even if
there is some questionable dialogue ("You are talking crap!"
"Hey, go fuck an Eskimo!"). You can tell this is a Swedish
flick because nearly every male character (with the exception of
Mason) sports bushy beards and moustaches. We're not talking Ingmar
Bergman here, but it is a wild way to spend 95 minutes. Also starring
Bo F. Munthe, John Qvantz, Sirka Sander, Wolf Linder and Leo
Adolfson. The Swedish DVD on the 24 Bilder label is fully uncut and
the way to go if you have an all region DVD player. The VHS version
on the Media
Home Entertainment Release is the R-rated edition and is cut and
missing much of the extreme gore (including the decapitation and the
vomit scenes).. Not Rated.
NINJA
PHANTOM HEROES
(1987) -
Ninja master Morris is smuggling arms into Hong Kong during the
Vietnam War and Army prisoner Ford is freed to stop Morris, because
the C.I.A. trained him to "overcome evil". So begins
another one of director Godfrey Ho's (using the name "Bruce
Lambert") patchwork martial arts flicks for producer Tomas
Tang's Filmark International production company. When in Hong Kong,
Ford (who is given the code name "Condor") meets new
partner Christine (code name "Yellow Bird") and together
they fight Morris' ninja men. Meanwhile, in the old footage, Allen,
who works as an enforcer for a local godfather, wants out of the
Mafia, while his friends Baldy, Boney and Fatty want in. Allen is
also in love with another godfather's daughter, Jane, which makes his
predicament even harder, since Jane's brother, Alvin, has a severe
dislike for Allen. When a third godfather takes a major arms deal
with a Middle East country away from Morris and
Allen's godfather, the godfather orders Allen to kidnap the rival
godfather. Allen lets Boney attempt the kidnapping, but it backfires
and Boney is kidnapped and forced to make an incriminating audio tape
that could put Allen and his godfather in prison. After Allen kills
Boney for screwing up, he goes to Boney's cousin Bert to make amends,
but Bert gets killed instead when he is attacked and stabbed to death
by a motorcycle gang loyal to the third godfather. We then learn that
Ford and Morris were once partners during the Vietnam War, illegally
supplying arms to the VC gooks. They were both caught and imprisoned,
but Morris escaped and fled to Hong Kong, where he became an arms
dealer to the highest bidder. Now, when they fight, Ford turns into a
ninja wearing a camouflage ninja outfit and Morris turns into a
white-uniformed ninja (Morris' ninja men wear black). When Alvin
kills Allen's godfather, Allen goes on the warpath and kills Alvin
and all his rivals with a sawed-off rifle, before being killed
himself. The finale finds Ford fighting Morris and his ninjas in a
park, using swords, exploding stars (one black ninja, seeing a star
stuck in his upper torso, says "Uh oh!" just before
exploding into little bits), grenade-firing spears, flying silver
plates, a flying sawed-edged bell and a rocket-firing umbrella!
Quite simply, this film is the pits. It doesn't even contain the
retarded charm and crazy scenes that most of these Godfrey Ho
cut-and-paste films usually offer. For a film that's supposed to be
taking place during the Vietnam war, there sure are a lot of 80's
fashions and cars on view. The only martials arts present in this
film are in the newly-shot scenes and those come few and far between.
The old footage seems to come from some unreleased Hong Kong crime
thriller from the early-to-mid-80's. The only excitement in this
footage comes pretty late in the game, when Bert is attacked by the
motorcycle gang and spends the rest of his screen time with a huge
knife sticking out of his stomach. The rest of the old footage is
slow and confusing until the massacre in the finale, where Allen
kills nearly everyone with his unusual rifle while Baldy and Fatty
come to the rescue, with disasterous results. The final fight between
Ford and Morris is pretty funny, as is the abrupt ending (Ford's
superior, finding out he was betrayed by his superior, storms out of
the office saying "I quit!" while his crooked superior
lights a cigarette. THE END!?!), but it's just too little too late.
This is by far the worst Godfrey Ho film that I have seen. If you've
seen any, you know that is a bold statement. One unintentionally
funny sight gag comes in the beginning, when we see "U.S. Army
Munitions Dump"
hand-painted on a white sheet and flung over a fence. It's supposed
to make us believe that it's actually a real munitions dump, which is
a howl, because I believe you don't go around advertising that fact!
Starring Joff Houston, John Wilford, Christine Wells, Glen Carson,
George Dickson, Allen Leung, Dennis Shek, Dinny Yip and Bob Cheng. A Trans
World Entertainment Home Video Release. Not Rated.
NINJA:
SILENT ASSASSIN (1987) -
Lenny is caught with a sack full of bagettes stuffed with heroin in
Paris by Interpol agent Alvin (who quotes the famous "five shots
or six?" line from DIRTY HARRY
- 1971). Under intense questioning, Lenny (who uses nearly half a box
of Kleenex to mop his sweaty brow) agrees to testify against drug
kingpin Rudolph (Stuart Smith), who also happens to be a ninja. When
Rudolph finds out about Lenny's treachery, he goes into ninja mode
and slices up Lenny and a couple of Interpol agents. Rudolph sends a
couple of his ninjas to kill Alvin (Alphonse Beni) and his wife Donna
((Mandiere Nathalie) on their fourth wedding anniversary. There won't
be a fifth
as the ninjas kill Donna, but Alvin (surprise!) turns into a yellow
ninja and kills the two intruders. Rudolph makes a hasty retreat to
Hong Kong and Alvin follows him there to get retribution. Yes, this
is the beginning of another of director Godfrey Ho's cut-and-paste
martial arts flicks featuring newly-shot footage of Richard Harrison
as "Ninja Master Gordon" intercut with footage of some
unreleased Hong Kong martial arts flick, usually with hilarious
results. The Hong Kong footage is about a guy named Edmond, who is
out to avenge the death of his father at the hands of crime boss
Tiger. Tiger works with crooked Interpol agent Norman (Grant Temple),
who is also working with Rudolph. Alvin gets Gordon and fellow agent
John Lee (Ricky Shaw) to help him find and kill Rudolph. Edmond finds
a friend in female motorcycle chick Vivian, who helps him track down
Tiger, but first they must fight hordes of his men. Edmond is
searching for a man with a panther tattoo (a witness saw the tattoo
on Edmond's father's killer), so he goes around ripping off the
shirts of guys looking for it, which always gets him in trouble. In
the conclusion, Edmond and a friendly cop capture Tiger after a
bloody battle and Gordon and Alvin battle Norman and Rudolph "to
the death". All the bad guys get their's in the end (and in the
front, too!). This Ho-directed fiasco, produced by Joseph Lai
and Betty Chan for their IFD Films & Arts Ltd. production
company, contains much more new footage than is normally found in
these patchwork films. Over 40% of the film is the newly-shot
footage, most of it scenes of Alvin, Gordon and John Lee fighting
ninjas in the same park location, interspread throughout the film. As
in most of these films, all the ninjas, both good and bad, wear
headbands with the word "Ninja" written across the front,
just in case we don't confuse them with firemen or fry cooks. The old
footage contains some pretty good stunts, such as when Edmond jumps
over two cars trying to run him over (he does get hit by another car
later on and it looks real painful) or when he takes a slo-mo dive
off a bridge to avoid some of Tiger's men. In the new footage, both
Richard Harrison and Alphonse Beni portray yellow-clad ninjas and the
way you can tell them apart (besides Beni being a Black man) is that
Harrison wears a red sash and Beni wears a blue one. As with all
these films, the dubbing raises a chuckle or two, such as when Edmond
says, "Take off your shirt!" to every guy he sees or when
Vivian warns Edmond, "If you look at my tattoo, I'll kill
you!" and then Edmond aplologises and tells her that he didn't
know she was a woman! The new footage contains such sights as
watermelon burning (yes, you read that correctly), ninjas that can
disappear and reappear at will and the ninja's favorite weapon of
choice: a silver boomerang! This is entertainment for the brain dead.
Also starring Paulo Tocha, Edmond Yau, Vivian Lee, Tattoer Ma,
Geoffrey Brown, Scott Smith and Peter Kjaer. An Imperial
Entertainment Corp. Release. Not Rated.
NINJA
SQUAD (1987) - Another one of
director Godfrey Ho's ridiculous cut-and-paste martial arts actioners
that he made for Joseph Lai's IFD Films & Arts Ltd. production
outfit. The film proper (i.e. the old footage) is about a man called
Billy, who returns home after ten years of martial arts training with
Ninja Master Gordon (Richard Harrison, in badly matched new footage).
Billy returns just in time to see gangsters trying to force his
mother and brother out of their home. A fight ensues and Billy beats
the crap out of them, which pisses off the local crime boss, who
happens to be using Billy's sister as a drug mule (are you able to
follow this?). Meanwhile, in the newly-shot footage, Ninja Master
Gordon is called-out by evil ninja master Ivan The Red (Dave
Wheeler), who tells Gordon that he will kill one of Gordon's good
ninjas every day until Gordon accepts his challenge of a fight to the
death. Of course, Gordon refuses at first, so every twenty minutes or
so we see Ivan The Red (who, true to his name, wears a red ninja
outfit) killing a good ninja in short fight scenes. Back to the main
plot, Billy starts helping the local population
fight the Boss, while he gets closer to saving his sister. The Boss
retaliates by sending some men to Billy's house and shooting it up,
killing his mother. Billy (who talks about joining the local police
force, but never seems to find the time to do so) teams up with a
local cop to avenge his mother's death and finally find his sister.
Complicating matters is the fact that Billy's girlfriend, Lisa, is
the daughter of the local police chief, who hates Billy's guts with a
passion and wants to arrest him for the rash of ninja killings in
town. Billy gets drunk at a bar and goes home with Ivy (a woman he
saved from a purse snatching earlier in the film). That night, some
of the Boss' men break into Ivy's house and kill her, but Billy gets
away. After Ivy's dead body is discovered, the police chief orders
Billy's arrest and he must avoid the police dragnet while he takes
down the Boss' organization one man at a time until he rescues his
sister. Gordon, meanwhile, receives a message (delivered via a golden
boomerang!) from Ivan The Red: The headbands of all the good ninjas
he has killed! Gordon finally says enough is enough and has a
showdown with Ivan in the finale (Gordon wears a stylish purple ninja
ensemble). Billy also has a showdown with The Boss (his first name is
Larry!) in a ship's graveyard. Billy kills him, saves his sister and
is shot dead while surrendering to the police. This is standard
Godfrey Ho kookiness. This time he's taken some unreleased 80's
Filipino action film and spliced-in footage of Richard Harrison and a
bunch of other Caucasian actors fighting in the same park that can be
viewed in most of Ho's other patchwork films (he must have saved a
bundle by not hiring a location scout). Richard Harrison, who has
appeared in dozens of these Ho-directed abominations, usually with
the word "Ninja" in the title (Harrison swears that Ho
duped him and thought he was only signed on to do about four films, a
claim I find highly dubious since none of Harrison's scenes seem to
have any type of connecting narrative), has even less to do here than
in most of these films. His only fight scene is the final battle and
he spends most of his screen time walking around reading letters and
death threats. As with all of these films, the dubbing (by an
Australian crew) is atrocious and hilarious. My favorite scene comes
when some of the Boss' men have Billy trapped on a dock and the head
bad guy gives Billy till a count of ten to give himself up. It goes
something like this: "...6...7...8...9...9½...your last
chance! I tried...10!" You gotta love it! My favorite
character is Ivy, who sounds like she grew up in Alabama and then
moved to the Outback. There's enough fighting and gunplay here to
keep your eyes occupied but, even if you were born with half a brain,
your mind will be saying, "This is retarded!" NINJA
SQUAD does not reach the delirious ineptitude of Ho's SCORPION
THUNDERBOLT (1985)
or NINJA TERMINATOR
(1986), so why bother? The music soundtrack is nothing but stolen
cues from other films and albums. One obvious stolen track is Mark
Knopfler's "Going Home", the theme music from the film LOCAL
HERO (1983)! Also starring Eduardo Martinez, Anita Roman,
Celia Luis, Silvia Rod, Tim Alden, Kevin James McHugh, Karl Tulloch,
John M. Marshall and Eric Redner. Originally released on VHS by Trans
World Entertainment and available on DVD (in a fullscreen print)
from Crash Cinema as part of their "Ultimate Ninja
Collection". Not Rated.
NINJA
TERMINATOR (1986) - This
is one of Godfrey Ho's most entertaining (and, by default, one of his
looniest) cut-and-paste martial arts flicks starring Richard
Harrison. The film opens in Japan, with Harry (Harrison) and two
other ninjas delivering pieces of the Golden Ninja Warrior statue to
their Master, who puts the pieces together and then transforms into
the Supreme Ninja, whose skin
becomes impervious to swords (A disbelieving Harry takes a swing of
his sword to his Master's arm to put the claim to the test. When the
sword bounces off his arm with a metallic clanging sound, Harry seems
satisfied). Harry and his cohorts, Baron (Jonathan Wattis) and
Tomache, each steal a piece of the statue and disappear and their
Master doesn't take it too well, telling his followers to get the
pieces back no matter what it takes. Two years later in Hong Kong,
one of the Master's ninjas kills Tomache and retrieves one piece of
the Golden Ninja Warrior. In the rejiggered old footage (of some
unreleased Hong Kong action flick), now-crime syndicate boss Baron
(in ineptly inserted new footage) orders his head henchman Tiger Chan
(Wong Chen Li, in a ridiculous blonde pageboy wig) to retrieve the
body of Tomache from his brother Ikaza and sister Machico. Baron
believes that the body of Tomache, along with his piece of the Golden
Ninja Warrior statue, will give him great powers (I know it doesn't
make an ounce of sense, but just go along with it and quit asking
logical questions!). Hong Kong muscle Jaguar Wong (Jack Lam) is
assigned to protect Machico after Ikaza is murdered and gets into
several martial arts fights with Tiger Chan's goons. Meanwhile, Harry
dons a camouflage ninja outfit and battles his Master's red-clad
ninjas every fifteen minutes or so. Jaguar falls in love with
Machico, so when she is kidnapped by Tiger's men, he must let himself
be captured and tortured in order to get close to Machico. When that
doesn't work (when does it ever?), Jaguar kidnaps Tiger's girlfriend,
Lily (Nancy Chan), and offers a trade. Things don't go according to
plan (when does it ever?), as Jaguar must fight to save Machico's
life. Harry gets into a memorable ninja fight in the finale that's
priceless for the look on his face in the final shot. And remember
folks: "Born a ninja, die a ninja!" While the
description of the film doesn't sound too promising, it's Ho's wild
visuals and flair for the absurd that will win you over. NINJA
TERMINATOR has enough weirdness for a dozen films, such as
when Harry's female friend (Maria Francesca) is cooking him a dish
called the "Drunken Crab" and she spills the live crabs all
over the kitchen floor and screams in terror. Harry's response is to
impale one of the crabs with a ninja throwing spike and laugh (as we
watch the poor crab hobble around with a spike in it's shell!). Harry
is later visited by a toy robot at his front door and it tells him
that he has three days to return his piece
of
the statue to the Master. A few short seconds later, Harry's
Garfield The Cat telephone (which also makes an appearance in Ho's DIAMOND
NINJA FORCE [1986]) rings and the Master's head ninja
(played by Philip Ko, who also directed his fair share of
cut-and-paste for producer Joseph Lai, such as ANGEL'S
BLOOD MISSION [1988]) gives Harry the exact same warning,
just in case the robot didn't make itself clear! The film contains
zero logic (we are led to believe that the entire Golden Ninja
Warrior statue gives the owner powers of invulnerability, but both
Harry and Baron seem to have the same power just by owning pieces of
it), but there's enough brain-scratching action on view, including
Jaguar's many martial arts fights (he certainly likes to punch and
kick his opponents in the crotch a lot), the Harrison footage (which
is funny as hell) and spotting the terrible integration of old and
new footage. The final martial arts battles between both Jaguar and
Tiger (which takes on a beach, where the heavy-footed Tiger ends up
buried up to his waist in the sand after performing a high jump!) and
Harry, Baron and the Master's head ninja, who all bring their pieces
of the statue and duke it out for ownership, using swords, flying
stars and multi-colored whistling smoke grenades, are works of
demented art. I especially liked the scene when Harry is the last one
left alive after the head ninja commits hara-kiri by blowing himself
up, which seems to take Harrison, the actor, by complete surprise, as
if someone forgot to tell him that a loud explosion was about to take
place behind him. The look on his face is priceless. Not to be
confused with GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR
(1986), another pastiche martial arts flick directed by Joseph Lai
(that opens with an abbreviated version of Harrison's closing battle
from this film). Also not to be confused with a 70's Chinese martial
arts film retitled NINJA TERMINATOR.
Also starring James Chan, Simon Kim, Henry Lee, Keith Mak and Gerald
Kim. Originally released on VHS by TWE
as part of the Sho Kosugi-hosted "Ninja Theater" line of
martial arts films and then released on VHS by Anchor
Bay Entertainment and on British DVD by Hollywood DVD Ltd. (the
print I viewed), which is fullscreen and crops the action
dead-center, reducing some of the scenes (including a conversation in
an office) to nothing but empty space as both people on the left and
right sides of the screen are completely out of frame. Not Rated.
NINJA
THE PROTECTOR (1986) -
"Born a ninja, die a ninja." So begins another Godfrey
Ho-directed pastiche combining footage from an unreleased Hong Kong
martial arts flick and newly-shot footage featuring Richard Harrison
and other Caucasian actors. Harrison stars as Jason Hart, the leader
of a squad of cops trying to bring down Bruce (David Bowles), the
leader of a gang of money counterfeiters and also an evil red ninja.
Jason is also secretly a ninja (he wears a camouflage ninja outfit
here), who captures (or kills) members of Bruce's ninja force and
anonomously calls his comrades with a location where to pick them up
(One handcuffed ninja says to Jason's squad member Andy [Andy
Chorowsky], "Only a ninja can defeat another ninja!" when
he asks who handcuffed him. Andy simple replies, "What's a
ninja?"). The Hong Kong footage is reworked to make it seem like
Jason has an undercover cop named Warren (Warren Chan) working for
one of Bruce's
associates to gather more information on the counterfeiting ring. He
works as a fashion model (!) for an agency run by Susan (Vera Wang).
He gets into many fist fights, his girlfriend Judy (Morna Lee) gets
raped and his brother David thinks Warren has turned into a thug.
Meanwhile, every 20 minutes or so, Bruce sends another one of his
ninjas to kill Jason, but fails every time. Jason and his men set up
a sting in a park to nab $2,000,000 in phony bills. The crook gets
away, but Jason turns into a ninja and captures him, handcuffing him
to a tree so Andy can find him. Susan's jealous boyfriend Four Eyes
(Mike Tien), also a Bruce associate, beats Susan with a belt when he
finds out she has made love to Warren. He also sends Judy a photo of
Warren and Susan making love. Judy leaves Warren and David is
accosted by Four Eyes' men. In the finale, Warren and David defeat
Four Eyes and Jason and Bruce fight each other on motorcycles (a
joust involving nunchucks and swords) and then on land, where Jason
kills Bruce. Jason proudly proclaims over Bruce's dying body, "I
am the champion of the ninjas!" The story goes that
director Godfrey Ho hired Richard Harrison to star in a couple of
films, but after filming them, cut them up into pieces and created
about two dozen films like this one. Why release two films when you
can release twenty-four? Richard Harrison was supposedly so
disappointed with Ho's trickery, it is said that it led to him
quitting acting in the early 90's because his reputation as an actor
was permanently tarnished. I don't know if all that's true, but these
films have a retarded charm that can't be denied. All these films
contain ninjas that appear and disappear in a puff of smoke;
exaggerated sound effects; they all have at least one rape scene
(this one does contain more nudity than normal, though); the same
white cordless phone is seen in many of these films (in INSTANT
RAGE [1988], it is used as a walkie-talkie!); the
intercutting between old and new footage is obvious and, in some
cases, hilarious; the dubbing is equally preposterous and funny; and
some of the newly-shot fight scenes are outrageous and
gravity-defying. NINJA THE PROTECTOR
was originally presented as part of TWE's NINJA THEATER,
hosted by Sho Kosugi ("And now, one of the finest martial arts
films ever made is presented for your enjoyment."). It's the
only Godfrey Ho film that was part of that package. The rest were
more traditional Chinese martial arts films. TWE, along with Imperial
Entertainment, released a slew of these cut-and-paste flicks in
the 80's, that were either produced by Joseph Lai (like this one) or
Tomas Tang. Godfrey Ho now teaches filmmaking at a college in Hong
Kong. I wonder if any of his graduating students have tried talking
Richard Harrison out of retirement? Also starring Clifford Allen,
John Ladalski, Philip Ko, Joyce Chow and Yvette Chang. The credits
also list Jackie Chan as a co-star (and the German DVD
even goes as far as to put his face on the cover artwork and his name
above the title!), but I highly doubt that it's the same Jackie Chan,
because I couldn't spot him in the film. A Trans
World Entertainment Home Video Release. Also available on DVD
from Crash Cinema Media as part of their "The Ultimate
Ninja Collection" line. Not Rated.
RAW
FORCE (1981) - A
group of passengers on a cruise end up stranded on Warrior's Island, a
treacherous place inhabited by exiled martial artists and a group of
cannibal monks with the power to raise the dead (what a
combination!). The passengers, including an L.A. S.W.A.T. team member
(Jillian Kesner) and four male martial artists, not only run afoul of
the island's inhabitants, they also interfere with a white slaver's
business of selling young girls to the monks in exchange for baskets
of raw jade. The monks eat the young female flesh and gain the power
to raise dead martial artists from their graves (the cruise ship
director calls the island, "The Potter's Field of Kung
Fu."). While the passengers try to find a way off the island,
they must endure gun battles, kung fu fights (with both the living
and the dead), cannibalism and the nasty laughing monks (led by
Filipino horror staple Vic Diaz). It all ends on a happy note, as
most of them escape in the white slaver's plane (he is eaten alive by
a school of piranhas) while an end scrawl reads, "To Be
Continued...". This is terrific B-movie stuff. It has loads of
nudity and plenty of bloody action, including impalements,
explosions, an axe to the back and a decapitation. Star Cameron
Mitchell (NIGHTMARE
IN WAX
- 1969 and countless others) seems to be having a good time here and
doesn't walk through his role as he has done many times before.
Co-star Geoff Binney also appeared in the kung fu comedy HOT
POTATO
(1976), while Jillian Kesner was the star of Cirio Santiago's FIRECRACKER
(1981) and also appeared in her husband Gary
Graver's
awful ROOTS
OF EVIL
(1991; Kesner died in 2007 of a staph infection, a little over one
year after her husband Graver passed away). She was a pretty thing!
Jennifer Holmes also co-starred with Mitchell in the abominable film THE
DEMON (1979/1981).
Director Edward Murphy later made the forgettable actioner HEATED
VENGEANCE
(1984). RAW
FORCE
(also known as SHOGUN
ISLAND
and KUNG FU CANNIBALS)
is that rare example of a mixture of genres that works well on
nearly every level. I was expecting a lot less and was pleasurably
surprised with the result. A Media
Home Entertainment VHS Release. Also available in a DVD/Blu-Ray
combo pack from Vinegar Syndrome.
Rated
R.
THE
RETRIEVERS (1981)
- When Daniel (Lenard Miller), part of a CIA operation to kidnap
a Latin American bigshot, witnesses the slaughter of the man's wife
and kids by one of his comrades (Randy Anderson), he quits and writes
a book about his exploits. The CIA then employ
electronics expert Tom (Max Thayer) to help capture Daniel and stop
the book from being published. When Tom sees one of his CIA cronies
kill Daniel's mother, he helps Daniel's sister Janice (Shawn Hoskins)
escape with the transcript. Tom is now also one of the hunted and he
must try to keep himself and Janice alive as well as finding a
publisher that will print the book. Tom must fight his way through
several close calls (including the murder of his girlfriend , where
he graphically blows the brains out of the assassin's head by shoving
a pistol in his mouth) before he finds a publisher (Roselyn Royce)
who will print the book. She sets up a shop where they plan to flood
the city with copies of the book, using a hidden printing shop
employing bums and illegal aliens (called "wetbacks" in the
closing credits!) as labor. They finish printing the books and must
come up with a way to distribute it before the Company stops them.
The Company closes in on their printing shop and Tom, Janice, the
bums and the illegal aliens fight them. Will Tom, Janice and Daniel
prevail? Filled with badly-staged martial arts scenes (apparently
everyone in this universe can do kung-fu, from the local janitor, to
the bums and illegal aliens), bloody shoot-outs, intentional and
unintentional comedy, pot smoking, a fat man (Harry Shapiro) who
likes to eat apples, snippets of gore (including the
previously-mentioned brain splattering and a servant's head cut off
by hedge clippers) and the occasional appearance of a boom mike,
Director/Producer Elliott Hong (THEY
CALL ME BRUCE?
- 1982) throws everything in except the kitchen sink and, while some
of it sticks, most of it falls flat on it's face. For some reason
which I can't put my finger on, it's highly watchable though, and a
good choice for fans of this genre who aren't too discriminating. A Vestron
Video Release. Rated R.
REVENGE
OF THE BUSHIDO BLADE (1978) -
Pretty decent, although talky, Philippines-lensed revenge actioner.
On March 2, 1945, a platoon of American Rangers and a squad of
Filipino soldiers raid a Japanese outpost somewhere in the
Japanese-occupied Philippines. After killing the Japanese commanding
officer (Butz Aquino), a group of soldiers, led by Cpl. Steadman (who
is due to be court-martialed for unknown offenses once this raid is
over), gang-rape the CO's wife while his young son watches
helplessly. When Steadman's commanding officer stops the rape,
Steadman shoots him and then shoots the Jap wife, having his two
cohorts, Dante Salazar and Mike Sills, cover-up the murders by saying
the Jap wife shot their commanding officer and Steadman had no choice
but to shoot her. When the Americans leave the outpost, the young boy
walks around in a state of shock while screaming out
"Bushido!" over and over. Flash-forward to March 27, 1978,
and the young boy is now a 40 year-old man named Tamon Matsuda
(co-producer Leo Fong; KILLPOINT
- 1984), who lives in San Francisco and plans on getting even with
the soldiers involved in his parents' deaths; those same soldiers who
are now gathering in Manila for a reunion.
The soldiers, 33 years older (and played by different actors),
include: Sam Hacker (Cameron Mitchell; LOW
BLOW - 1986), who saved Tamon's life when he was a boy; Mike
Sills (Philip Baker Hall; BOOGIE NIGHTS
- 1997), who is now a hopeless alcoholic; Dante Salazar (Charlie
Davao), now a famous, over-the-hill Filipino martial arts movie star;
Frank Washington (Stack Pierce; TRANSFORMED
- 2003), the only black man in the platoon; Raul Amante (Vic
Salayan), the local Chief of Police; and, of course, Steadman (Hal
Bokar), who is still as racist and vulgar as ever. Tamon arrives in
Manila and, after watching the remnants of the house where he lived
as a small child being bulldozed under, sets out to get justice with
a Bushido sword, first beheading Quantaz (Kim Ramos), who, as a young
boy, led the Americans to the Japanese outpost. While Hacker and his
old squad get into drunken trouble (usually thanks to Steadman and
his racist or misogynistic rants), Tamon continues his killing spree,
murdering Dante Salazar (by snapping his neck) while pretending to be
the Stunt Coordinator on his latest film. Tamon kills Mike next
(another sword decapitation) and Raul finally puts police protection
on Hacker, Frank and Steadman when Tamon is finally unmasked and his
motives revealed. Tamon manages to bypass police security and kidnap
Steadman and brings him to an explosives shed on his parents' old
property. Tamon invites Hacker to plead for Steadman's life, but once
Hacker discovers Steadman's role in Tamon's mother's rape and murder,
he walks away while Tamon blows himself and Steadman to pieces.
Hacker turns to Frank and Raul and says something so deep, I had to
rewind several times just to make sure I heard it right (No, no. I'm
not gonna tell. Watch it for yourself!). While nothing
spectacular, REVENGE
OF THE BUSHIDO BLADE (also known as THE LAST REUNION
and NINJA NIGHTMARE)
contains enough bloodshed and laughable human drama to keep most
viewers entertained. Director/editor Jay Wertz (this is his only
directorial effort) and screenwriter Donald G. Thompson ladle-on the
stereotypes, making many of the Americans drunks, rapists or racists
(or all three) and all the local Filipinos experts in martial arts.
While making Cameron Mitchell a drunk may seem like art imitating
life, the only actor here who makes any impression is Philip Baker
Hall as the eternally soused Mike Sills. At least there is a valid
reason for his character to be drunk and the scene where he confronts
Tamon in his hotel room and gladly gives up his life (his decapitated
head is left on a serving tray in Steadman's hotel room), is the only
instance of real acting in the entire film. There are some other
stabs at relevancy, such as when the adult Tamon tours the
Philippines and its WWII landmarks (while gunshots and exploding
bombs are heard on the soundtrack), but it all rings hollow and seem
to be nothing more than padding when taken in context with the rest
of the film. Still, REVENGE contains enough violence and
unintentionally funny lines of dialogue to keep genre fans amused.
Filipino staple James Gaines portrays a young Frank Washington and
Charlie Davao Jr and Larry Salayan portray their fathers' younger
selves during the WWII scenes. Also starring Chandra Romero, Joe Mari
Avellana, Galen Thompson, Rob Stuart, Hope Holiday, Paul Le Clair and
Paul Bailey. Originally released on VHS by Prism
Entertainment (as NINJA NIGHTMARE) and available on
widescreen DVD by Code Red/Media
Blasters as part of their RAREFLIX.COM
TRIPLE FEATURE VOL. 3 using the REVENGE OF THE BUSHIDO BLADE
moniker (although the actual print bears THE LAST REUNION
title). Rated R.
THE
ULTIMATE NINJA (1986) - When his
ninja master is killed by the evil ninja Victor (Bruce Baron) and his
men, Charles (Stuart Smith) is annointed "Leader of the Red
Ninjas" by his dying master and is put in charge of returning a
mystical statue called the "Black Ninja Warrior" that
Victor stole. So begins another one of director Godfrey Ho's
hilarious cut-and-paste martial arts flicks, which mixes newly-shot
footage with some Thailand action film. The old footage concerns a
guy named Jimmy (Sorapong Chatri), who is out to take revenge of the
murder of his father (when he was a child) by a man known to everyone
as "Boss" (his name is really Roger). Jimmy practices
martial arts every day with his uncle, until they both think he is
ready to defeat the Boss. Jimmy's mission also has a second agenda:
He must also find his long-lost brother Johnny and unknown sister,
both whom he became separated from when their father was murdered.
Also in town are two mysterious strangers,
who show an interest in the Boss as well as Eagle, the town's kung
fu teacher who supplies trained men for the Boss. Meanwhile, Charles
is practicing the "supreme power of the Golden Ninja" (it
has something to do with joining two pieces of a golden statue
together with nothing but the power of his mind), while fighting
members of Victor's black-clad ninja gang every twenty minutes or so.
Back in town, Johnny gets fired from his job waiting tables and asks
Sarah, Eagle's daughter, to teach him martial arts. It's at this time
we learn that Sarah is Eagle's adopted daughter and is actually
Johnny's sister. The finale finds Jimmy, Johnny and Sarah facing off
against the Boss and his men (the Boss carries one big-ass axe!) and
Jimmy kills the Boss (The Boss says to Jimmy while he's lying there
dying, "It's OK. I know you killed me now!") while Charles
and Victor fight each other at Devil's Valley (it looks like a public
park), using swords and various other weapons that could only exist
in the screenwriter's (in this case it's Godfrey Ho) fertile
imagination. Charles gets the better of Victor as he does a backflip
off a picnic table! The entertainment value in pastiche films
like THE ULTIMATE NINJA
comes not from the story and acting, but rather from the goofy
visuals of the newly-shot footage mixed with the hilarious new
dubbing over the old footage, usually done by British or Australian
voice talent, and this film (produced by Joseph Lai and Betty Chan
for their IFD Films & Arts Ltd. production company) doesn't
disappoint. It's pretty disconcerting to hear such lines as: "Why
are you such a klutz?", "See ya, big boy!" and
"We're gonna kick your ass and blow you outta town!" coming
out of the Asian actors' mouths (Klutz? I know Jews like Chinese
food, but would they travel to China to get it? I think not.). The
new footage shows Charles wearing a headband with the word
"Ninja" written on it (a sight in most of these films),
while the bad guys wear headbands with skulls on them, so we don't
confuse them with a local Boy Scout troop. Some of the highlights
include Charles throwing a letter up in the air and slicing it with
his sword repeatedly until confetti falls like snow, The Boss' wife
saying to him, "Roger, you hurt bad?" when he has two huge
knives sticking out of his stomach and the final fight between
Charles and Victor, which is a series of sped-up and reversed
footage. Co-star Bruce Baron recently said in an interview that all
of the Caucasian actors never knew that the footage they shot would
appear in multiple films, as they were all paid to only star in one
film. Baron sarcastically calls the team of Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai
by the term "Whore and Lies". He's very bitter about being
tricked into starring in all these films. I guess I would be, too, if
I didn't find these films to be such an unintentional hoot. Also
starring Anne Aswatep, Pedro Ernyes, Timothy Nugent, Rick Jenkins,
Peter Ramwa and Jack Wong. A Trans
World Entertainment Home Video Release. Not Rated.
UNDEFEATABLE (1993)
- Jesus Christ! Just when I've given up all hope for director
Godfrey Ho (CLASH OF THE NINJAS
- 1986), he turns around and makes highly enjoyable sleaze like this.
When Anna (Emille Davazac) leaves her abusive husband, martial arts
champion Stingray (the amazing Don Niam and his mullet of doom), he
becomes a serial killing madman, kidnapping and killing every woman
he sees (thinking
she is Anna) and also killing the men they are with. His preferred
method of death is a snapped neck with a side order of eye-yanking.
When Stingray kills college student Karen (Sunny David), her sister,
waitress and underground fighter Kristi Jones (Cynthia Rothrock),
goes on the warpath looking for the person responsible. Kristi begins
getting into fights with every man she meets, looking for the killer,
which pisses off cop Nick DiMarco (John Miller), who is also looking
for the serial killer. After much fighting between themselves, Kristi
and Nick join forces. They get a break when they talk to Anna's
psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Simmons (Donna Jason), who tells them of a
client she has who has an abusive husband that is a martial artist.
The rest of the film is a series of fights between Kristi and some
underground fighters, Stingray and everyone he thinks is Anna and
cumulates in a truly amazing finale where Kristi and Nick fight
Stingray in a warehouse. Storywise, this isn't much of a film, but
the action and fights scenes in this are unbelievable. Godfrey Ho
(here usung the pseudonym "Godfrey Hall") fills the screen
with non-stop carnage, including a fishtank full of eyeballs, a naked
woman stuffed in a freezer and Don Niam's bug-eyed performance as
Stingray. I guarantee that his acting ability will leave you in
stitches, as he spouts lines like, "Don't leave me Mommy. I'll
be a good boy!" and "Time to come home now, Anna!". I
also love how everyone in this film knows martial arts, even the
psychiatrist! Cynthia Rothrock gets to show off her nimble body and
skills in several martial arts scenes and John Miller (who also
starred with Rothrock in Ho's HONOR
AND GLORY - 1992) does the best he can with his role as a
high-kicking cop. Ho saves the best for last, though, in the
warehouse finale. After viewing it, if you're not laughing your ass
off, you don't have a pulse. Nick's final line in the warehouse fight
is a classic of hysterical proportions. If you like a film full of
good stunts, bad acting and some of the funniest dialogue you'll ever
hear, this is the film is for you. Also starring Ricky Yuen, Jerald
Klein, Michael Walter and William Buckley. A Fox Home Entertainment
Release. Rated R.