Guyver: Dark Hero (1994)

PLOT: A young man possessed by weaponized alien armor known as the Guyver travels to a mysterious archaeological dig site that may hold the key to explaining its origins. It may also hold around 800 million barrels of salted caramel, a candy lover’s dream.

Director: Steve Wang
Writers: Steve Wang, Nathan Long, Yoshiki Takaya
Cast: David Hayter, Kathy Christopherson, Christopher Michael, Bruno Patrick

PLOT THICKENER

You know that old saying about how “clothes make the person?” Somewhat true! Certain articles of clothing can make you feel cool and confident. Yet other outfits will make you feel like a bargain-bin Mayor McCheese on a casual Friday. Somewhere between these two ends of the fashion spectrum is the sort of clothing that can make you feel like you can jump really high, perform lethal martial arts moves, and shoot lasers out of your chest. But what if this clothing -- hell, let’s call it armor -- couldn’t be removed at all? What if it was actually part of your body and you were merely hosting it? This is the premise of Bio-Booster Armor Guyver, a Japanese manga series from the 1980s and 90s that was adapted for the American film screen twice by filmmaker Steve Wang: first in 1991 under the title, The Guyver, and again just three years later as Guyver: Dark Hero.

Sean Barker (Hayter) keeps waking up violently in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. Night terrors? Consuming sugar too close to bedtime? Yeah, close. Some time has passed since the Guyver, an alien bio-armor, took over his body. It has a mind of its own and activates at random, turning Sean into a lethal fighting machine. Sure -- it was useful when he was battling the Cronos Corporation, a nefarious group trying to locate the Guyver for its own evil means, but now it’s just cramping his style. On the one hand, it lets him fight large criminal enterprises with relative ease, but on the other hand, he can’t go to the grocery store to shop for soup ingredients without worrying about the Guyver taking control of his faculties and blasting the produce section to a pulpy mess.

While watching a local news story about some mysterious killings near a covert dig site, Sean notices footage of cave paintings that correlate to the notebook sketches he’s been compulsively doodling in his waking hours. He takes a taxi to a general store -- like most of us did before Google Maps -- seeking help to identify a non-specific location he’s curious to visit. Once there, he meets Cori Edwards (Christopherson) a researcher buying a case of cheap beer for her archaeological dig team. Initially reluctant because of potential stranger danger, she finally agrees to take him there based on the intrigue of his notebook sketches. She fibs to the dig organizers on his behalf and Sean is suddenly lending a hand in their efforts.

In time, he begins to discover the objectives for the dig, the shadowy sources of its financing, and the various intentions of some of the so-called “researchers” on the project. The mysterious killings, previously attributed to wildlife or even a werewolf, may be the work of Zoanoids, the monstrous shape-shifting battle forms that comprise the Cronos Corporation. Will Sean find the source behind the Guyver? Can he defeat Cronos and the Zoanoids and rid himself of the Guyver once and for all? And will the persistent lower back pain he experiences after consecutive hours of shoveling respond better to a heated pad or deep tissue massage? Maybe a little of both?

The last few Octobers, I’ve made a concerted effort to focus on movies that feature some sort of monsters, spooky elements, and schlocky gore. Prior to watching it, I had no idea that Guyver: Dark Hero would satisfy all these criteria. While I’ve never seen the first one -- by all indications, this is the stronger of the two efforts -- the sequel stands on its own as an enjoyable romp that requires little pretext or understanding of the source material. At its core, this is a film about a man who is unable to control his body and the misdeeds that result from its strange powers. Anyone who has eaten at Chipotle can probably relate.

The creature design of the various Zoanoids might seem familiar to those viewers who have watched any number of Kamen Rider or Power Rangers episodes, but what threw me for a loop was the amount of blood and gore during the fight scenes. It was a minor but effective touch that upped the shlock factor and raised the stakes within the story (who wants to see a vanquished enemy dissolve out of a composite shot?!) The spectacle of violence may even make you disregard the fact that the action scenes are unevenly distributed and the fight choreography is a bit inconsistent.

The fight scenes are quite good for the most part, even with the obvious performative restrictions of bulky costuming. Fight choreographer Koichi Sakamoto and his Alpha Stunt Team certainly deserve credit for that. There’s some goofy stuff -- surprise wrestling moves, a plodding splash-fight in the water, and Guyver killing an enemy with his random laser titties -- but all of it is forgivable in the context of this cinematic universe. What can’t be ignored is staging your climactic fight in a cave with a bunch of stalagmites and stalactites and not incorporating them into the choreography at all. Friggin’ Cliffhanger got it -- why didn’t this film?

Even with all the fun stuff Wang puts in the mix, the film’s excessive run-time -- over two hours -- was nearly a deal-breaker. It drags quite badly in spots and the narrative gets bogged down by attempts to translate what I assume were frequent panels of Sean’s internal monologue strewn throughout the series. It’s chatty to a fault and the script tries to juggle too many secondary plot points and character motivations.  Fans of the original manga series or the initial anime adaptations might appreciate it, but I think viewers approaching the film without that context may risk becoming disengaged. There’s a better film somewhere in here if the filmmakers had left around 20 minutes of narrative fat on the cutting room floor.

VERDICT

If, like me, your introduction to the pairing of Sakamoto and Wang was the non-Gosling Drive (1997) your expectations might have been set artificially high, but the cool stunt shit is here along with plenty of wacky visual touches. The acting performances are serviceable but you’re watching this movie for dudes fighting in elaborate creature suits. They’re aren’t many American tokusatsu (“monster”) films out there, even fewer good ones, and Guyver: Dark Hero might be the best.

AVAILABILITY

• DVD or VHS (Amazon, eBay)
• Streaming via Amazon Prime

3.5 / 7

A Dangerous Place (1994)

PLOT: A teenage martial artist is thrown into a world of theft and risky behavior while investigating the death of his older brother. Will he find out the truth? And what sorts of cool swag will he accumulate in the process?

Director: Jerry P. Jacobs
Writer: Sean Dash
Cast: Ted Jan Roberts, Corey Feldman, Marshall Teague, William James Jones, Erin Gray, Mako, Dean Cochran, Jason Majik, Erin Gray

PLOT THICKENER

The 1984 film The Karate Kid had a lot going for it. Pat Morita was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Mr. Miyagi. It featured a charming teenage protagonist with tangible, relatable problems. It set the blueprint for high school gangs of martial arts meatheads. But you know what The Karate Kid movie was missing? A murder subplot! That’s the dropped ball that director Jerry P. Jacobs tried to pick up with 1994’s A Dangerous Place. That ball is covered in blood and pomade from Corey Feldman’s pompador.

Ethan (Roberts) and Greg (Cochran) are two teenage brothers living with their single mom, Audrey (Gray). One might expect the younger Ethan to be the troublemaker when, in fact, it’s Greg who finds himself hanging out with the wrong crowd. As of late, he’s been skipping karate class at the Lions dojo to hang out with the Scorpions gang, a group of suburban karate street toughs led by Taylor (Feldman). The crew goes on joy rides during random weeknights, stealing cars, dirt bikes, electronics, and whatever else catches their eyes -- they run wild with impunity and look cool doing it. (“How come all the best looking girls in school hang out with the Scorpions?") Because they have dirt bikes and nice televisions. Duh!

While Greg hangs with them socially and has represented them in illicit sunset beach fights, he’s not quite a “made” member of the group. After coaxing him into a night-time domestic burglary, the Scorpions turn on Greg when he has a crisis of conscience mid-act. During a physical struggle, Greg gets maced, falls down a flight of stairs, and dies accidentally. How do Taylor and his impressionable friends with behavioral problems respond? If you answered, “they report the accident and serve their time,” you win a prize! The prize is immaculately wrapped and decorated with ribbons. You tear the wrapping paper off to reveal a gift box. The box contains a framed picture of Greg’s prone body hanging from the basketball net at the high school gymnasium. Yep -- these pricks staged his death to look like a suicide. Enjoy your prize, by the way.

Ethan refuses to believe the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death. What about his bike? Never recovered. What about the bruises on his body? Unexplained. Against the wishes of his Sensei (Mako) he wants to infiltrate the gang to find out the truth about that fateful night. He first brawls with a Scorpion member in the cafeteria during lunch to demonstrate his toughness. He slowly befriends the most sympathetic Scorpion member, Eddie (Jones). Finally, he shows up to the Scorpions’ dojo to spar, and later arranges a competitive fight between the Lions and Scorpions to win the approval of the wicked Sensei (and English teacher) Gavin Smith (Teague).

This was my first foray into the action film career of Ted Jan Roberts and while I’m nearly two decades beyond the targeted demographic for this film, I can say that 12-year-old me would think he was pretty cool shit. He’s sort of like Daniel Larusso with Cali mall swagger in place of New Jersey wisecracking. A Jonathan Taylor Thomas with karate skills, if you will. His on-screen fighting is solid and believable, and in a post-Ernie Reyes/Kane Kosugi world, that’s all you can ask out of an adolescent martial arts film star. In terms of screen presence, he’s perfectly fine for this material and the filmmakers wisely avoid the trappings of any sustained emotive drama. Ethan is angry and inquisitive, not depressed and weepy. It’s a bit unnatural since these family members barely react to the sudden death of a brother and son, but this is a movie about teenage karate vengeance, not therapy sessions and brooding introspection.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the contributions of Corey Feldman as the treacherous Taylor. It would have been simple to follow the blueprint of Billy Zabka as Johnny Lawrence in the Karate Kid and play him as a volatile, testesterone-fueled jerk. Instead, he portrays Taylor as sleazy and calculating. Feldman’s fighting technique doesn’t match the skills that his character’s black-belt rank might suggest -- do you really buy his lethal mastery of eagle claw? -- but fight choreographer Art Camacho makes it work regardless. His character’s cold unpredictability and absence of fear of consequences is what makes him tick. Throw in an out-of-time greasy pompador hair style and an everyday affection for black fingerless gloves, and he’s a weirdly memorable 1990s martial arts douchebag.

VERDICT

A Dangerous Place has Corey Feldman popping wheelies on a dirtbike across a baseball field during live game-play while wearing a red gi and black fingerless gloves. What more do you want? Run out and impulsively put some discretionary income down on this film, like the foolish, emotionally distraught teenager you never were.

AVAILABILITY

Amazon, eBay.

4 / 7

Death Match (1994)

PLOT: A dockworker's friend goes missing after participating in underground fights to the death. To be more accurate, though, they fight to the death only occasionally. Other times, they just break appendages or fight until one guy gets too tired and falls asleep in the ring.

Director: Joe Cappoletto
Writer: Curtis Gleaves, Bob Wyatt, Steve Tymon
Cast: Ian Jacklin, Martin Kove, Matthias Hues, Michele Krasnoo, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, Eric Lee, Peter Cunningham, Ed Neil, Jorge Rivero, Richard Lynch.


PLOT THICKENER:
I had this post ready to go earlier in the week, but after reading similar coverage over at Comeuppance Reviews, the events of the past 10 days or so made me rethink my jump-off point of positioning Death Match as a DTV answer to The Expendables that happened years ago. Suffice to say, there have been a lot of movies in the martial arts b-movie catalog that stacked their casts with recognizable names. Shootfighter, to name one, featured Martin Kove, Bolo Yeung, John Barrett, Kenn Scott, Hakim Alston, Gerald Okamura, and William Zabka in its cast. That’s enough action b-movie talent to choke a horse! (To be fair, Bolo alone would be sufficient for the task of horse-choking).

Director Joe Cappoletto’s 1994 film Death Match is like Shootfighter on cocaine and redeemed IOUs. He either had a ton of friends in the business or a vast, filthy collection of blackmail material -- this is an incredible cast. So what if there’s no Brian Thompson or James Hong? We get appearances like Eric Lee as a hotel proprietor, Conquest star Jorge Rivero as a crime boss, and pro wrestlers Tony Halme and Debra Micelli as random muscle for short action scenes. Richard Lynch. A dwarf in a do-rag hitting a gong before matches. Benny “The Jet” Urquidez. Two minutes of Ed Neil from Breathing Fire fighting No Retreat No Surrender’s Peter “Sugarfoot” Cunningham. This sort of fanboy casting might be the closest we’ll ever get to Tarantino directing a DTV kickpunching homage.

Death Match stars Canadian kickboxer Ian Jacklin as a dockworker named John Larson. He and his friend Nick Wallace (Hill) are winding down their shift and shooting the shit. When Nick approaches who he assumes is the foreman to collect their paychecks, he's stopped by a bodyguard. A massive brawl ensues and the pair of friends is forced to kick ass. During the skirmish, a broken crate reveals a stash of guns and the heroes make a break for it before things get too heavy.

They head to the local bar to pound beers and lament the loss of their jobs. This is the third time they've lost employment together since moving to Los Angeles! John speculates that he may head north to find work, save money, and head back to college. Nick has other ideas. He recently met a dude at the gym who runs underground fights and they pay handsomely, or at least enough to cover a small studio apartment and the occasional trip to Whole Foods.

The aforementioned dude is Paul Landis (Kove) and as far as crime bosses who are into designer glasses, and own lots of blazers, and have a pool, and enjoy red-rope licorice, and think that crystals give them magical powers, and credit their “edge” on the competition to the use of computers, he’s a tough customer. He’s flanked by right-hand man Mark Vanik (Hues), a smooth-talking hulk who’s a little oversensitive about his hair (he beats up anyone who refers to him as “Goldilocks”). In addition to their underground fight ring, the duo also sells illegal firearms -- like any sound businessmen, they offer multiple products to create more marketing opportunities and diversify their customer portfolio, Procter & Gamble stylee.

Business comes at a cost, which Nick soon discovers first-hand when he fails to kill his opponent during a fight. The crowd voices their disappointment, and no, Nick, they are not mispronouncing your name as “Booowallace.” Landis and Vanik confront him in the locker room about closing the deal and whatever happens next is anyone’s guess, because Nick disappears and John is left with only questions about the whereabouts of his friend and former co-worker.

This is the point where our filmmakers crank the “film noir undertones” knob up to 11, but the knob breaks off at 6 and the machine starts smoking and sparking and then everyone has to evacuate the building because it’s on fire. John cruises around L.A. on his motorcycle and meets all sort of odd characters holding different pieces of the puzzle. Who’s on his side? What does the foxy journalist really want? Why is Michele Krasnoo playing her character like she’s a 12 year-old boy who just bought his first Dr. Dre album?

For the most part, this film delivered the goods. It was well-paced, the characters were interesting, the acting was competent, and the action was solid. I’ve groaned in the past about the constraints of tournament and/or underground fight movies, but I couldn’t find much to malign here because the main story thread was compelling and it moved at a good clip. The fights themselves take place in a variety of settings with all sorts of variables: in a cage, with sticks, on the streets, with boxing gloves, inter-gender, in bars, and even on a military ship. There’s a date montage inter-cut with a training montage, a villain obsessed with crystals and early-90s computer technology, turtlenecks, bolo ties, and strategic conversations while characters are getting massages. Cappoletto went down the fucking martial arts b-movie checklist and ticked all the boxes. Does that make it a little “paint-by-numbers”? I guess, but he colored within the lines and has a creative palette.

VERDICT:
When the novelty of interesting casting choices has worn off, what’s left? That’s the question this or any film which makes a spectacle of its ensemble cast is forced to answer. Fortunately, the filmmakers crafted Death Match as a pacey underground fighting story with film noir flourishes. The fight choreography won’t blow you away, but Ian Jacklin brings improved charisma to the screen, Martin Kove is hitting his rich asshole villain stride with another good performance, and all of the players -- martial artists and otherwise -- fulfill their roles admirably. Recommended.

AVAILABILITY:
VHS, Region 2 DVD, or YouTube.

5 / 7

The Killing Machine (1994)

PLOT: A man regains consciousness after more than 200 days and discovers that he’s really good at killing people professionally. Will he play ball with the covert government agency overseeing his every move? Will he use his skills to freelance? Or will he switch careers and become a dental hygienist because it’s expected to see a 38% growth in employment over a 10-year span?

Director: David Mitchell
Writer: David Mitchell
Cast: Jeff Wincott, Michael Ironside, Terri Hawkes, David Campbell, Calista Carradine

PLOT THICKENER:
Do you remember the first time you tasted ice cream? What about your first kiss? The first time you got punched in the face? Your first public urination arrest? Memory is weird. Somewhere in between life’s milestones and the stuff so horrifying that we can’t *not* remember, is a void filled in by some combination of hearsay and creative imagination. But what if you woke up one day and couldn’t remember a damn thing? What if your name, your surroundings, and the last 15 years of life were a fuzzy blur? David Mitchell and Jeff Wincott teamed up to explore this concept in 1994’s The Killing Machine, aka The Killing Man, aka the film Christopher Nolan wishes he had made with Memento.

The film starts with a close-up of a human eye shooting open. A human head is wrapped in bandages and a prone body lies in bed under a hot spotlight. A voiceover asks, “How long has it been? Where am I? Who am I?” The answers, provided by shady covert agent Mr. Green (Ironside) are: 250 days, can’t say, and Harland Garrett, in that order. Garrett (Wincott) is furious at Green’s elusive responses and lashes out constantly. Perhaps his behavior is due to the psychological conditioning? (He’s exposed daily to violent movies). Maybe it’s the facility’s food? (Fucking terrible). Or maybe it’s because he’s an amnesiac professional killer, brought back from near-death by the covert facility’s medical team.

After running Garrett through a variety of tests evaluating his mental and physical capabilities, Mr. Green sends him off to New York City for new business. Only after carrying out a number of lethal assignments will he be freed from the grip of Green and the covert company. Upon arrival, Garrett wanders the desolate urban streets and struggles with his identity as a professional killer. At one point, he teeters on the edge of a building ledge and stares into the abyss below. Thankfully for him and us, he comes to his senses and in the next scene, he’s getting wasted at a strip club. It’s practically a PSA for suicide prevention.

As events unfold, not everything is as it seems, and not everyone is who they claim to be. In short, it’s the martial arts film noir of your dreams. There’s smoke, shadows, chain-smoking, characters with shady motivations, and lots of scenes in vast, empty rooms with high ceilings. It has Michael Ironside chewing up the scenery, a wild “knife-cam” sequence, and the most overt AIDS conspiracy plot line this side of a Kanye West outburst.

With PM Entertainment films, you tend to see familiar names appearing in the credits, but it’s slim pickings here. There’s not a James Lew or Art Camacho to be found. Rick Sue, who played minor roles in movies such as TC 2000 and Tiger Claws, unlocks the “martial arts advisor” achievement here. To that end, the fight sequences are competently choreographed and well-shot for the most part. Some viewers will take issue with director David Mitchell scattering them throughout the film, but I’d argue that despite the scarcity, the fights occur in logical contexts. The real headscratcher was a fight towards the back-end with Garrett and Mr. Green’s main muscle. Mitchell opted to edit it down to a slow-motion yell and grimace fest peppered with POV shots. The result is probably the goofiest scene in the entire movie despite the prior occurrences of a visible boom mic, a double scrotum squeeze, and a dialog exchange that would make Aaron Sorkin slow-clap:

NURSE: I'm a nurse.
WINCOTT: Why are you here?
NURSE: To have sex. With you.

I don’t expect that anyone will confuse David Mitchell, Canadian director of b-films, for David Mitchell, British comedian and one half of That Mitchell and Webb Look. But if you swapped them, how amazing would that project have been? I don’t know if he’s done much comedy, but as the best actor of his subgenre, Jeff Wincott at the center of any Mitchell and Webb sketch would be cinematic gold. Wincott as a contestant on Numberwang? Shut up and take my money!

It should be said that Ironside and Wincott are both terrific in their respective roles. While Ironside plays the kind of character you’ve seen him play in dozens of other films, his casual menace and command of the screen is invaluable to such a low budget affair. Wincott is equal to the task, capturing his character’s shifting moods with relative ease with the added bonus of kicking heads in during the fight scenes. This film actually marked the onscreen reunion of the pair, as they appeared together about 15 years earlier on an episode of the Canadian family-drama, The Littlest Hobo. The series re-imagined Lassie as a stray German Shepherd who wanders from town to town helping people in need. Sort of like Kung Fu meets Rin Tin Tin meets Jesus-as-canine.

VERDICT:
If you walk into a room full of 100 people and ask: “what’s the best Jeff Wincott movie?” the answers are going to be all over the map. Some will say Last Man Standing, others will say Mission of Justice, a few folks will rep for Martial Law II, and at least ten people will say “OH MY GOD WHERE’S THE FUCKING BATHROOM” because IBS affects something like 10% of the population. I’m not sure if The Killing Machine is likely to make its way into that conversation, though. It’s a bit thin on martial arts and action set pieces, but has some weird flourishes in style and narrative that support a case for this being one of the better crafted Jeff Wincott action vehicles.

AVAILABILITY:
Amazon, Netflix, EBay, YouTube.

5 / 7

One Man Army (1994)

PLOT: A martial arts instructor returns to his hometown after the death of his grandfather only to find that corruption has taken root. Will he dispense vigilante justice and let the heads roll, or run for public office and get a shiny sheriff’s badge?

Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Writer: Daryl Haney
Cast: Jerry Trimble, Rick Dean, Melissa Moore, Dennis Hayden, Paul Holmes, Yvonne Michelle, Nick Nicholson, Jim Moss, Ned Hourani









PLOT THICKENER:
Before 1973’s Walking Tall was remade into a middling action vehicle for Dwayne Johnson in 2004, its premise had already been ground into dust by knockoffs and mimicry. 1980’s Defiance borrowed a bit from the Joe Don Baker classic and Robert Clouse cribbed from it rather liberally for 1990’s China O’Brien. Not to be outdone by some rinky-dink outfit like Golden Harvest Company, Filipino action auteur Cirio H. Santiago went back to the same well to make 1994’s One Man Army. He trades one blonde for another by reuniting with Jerry Trimble, and that’s not Jerry Trimble of Jerry Trimble Helicopters, but rather Jerry Trimble, the PKC WORLD KICKBOXING CHAMPION. Sorry for the all-caps text, but the box art and opening title sequence really got into my head.

Trimble plays Jerry Pelt, a martial arts instructor who receives a phone call so urgent that he takes it on the red phone in the dojo’s inner office. The news is terrible: Grandpa Pelt, the man who raised him, is dead. Continuing in the proud tradition of martial arts teachers driving total shitboxes, he packs up his rusty Volkswagen Bug and departs for his hometown. As soon as he crosses the county line, a group of boozehounds in a pickup truck run him off the road, damaging his car. He rectifies the situation only a few minutes later in the greatest gas station action sequence since The Jerk, and we’re off to the races.

Upon arrival to the sad and poorly attended funeral, he’s greeted by an old flame: high-powered attorney Natalie Pierce (Moore). Against the backdrop of this misery, though, Jerry re-establishes some old connections. He and Natalie share some dessert that night, his grandfather’s German Shepherd, Hank, is still barking up a storm, and old friend and local roughneck Eddie Taylor (Hayden) arrives with an invitation to catch up over a few rounds of brew.

During his night out on the town, Jerry discovers that things aren’t the way they used to be. He and Eddie arrive at the local watering hole to find it overrun with topless prostitutes cavorting with clients out in the open. In the bar’s backroom, bets are placed on unsanctioned full-contact fights. How did things get this bad? Not without a certain local sheriff named Pat Boze (Dean) turning a blind eye and a crime boss named Sharperson (Holmes) giving him a cut of the profits.

After a string of suspicious incidents involving arson, assaults, and human trafficking tunnels, Jerry decides to run against Boze for sheriff and clean up the town for good. With Natalie’s legal expertise, Hank’s knack for biting and disarming potential gunmen, and Jerry’s ability to rally crowds during montages with patriotic music, the campaign is well-equipped for the political meat grinder. It won’t be easy, though. Sharperson’s influence runs deep, and Boze and his crew are coked out of their minds with easy access to firearms.

While the plot points are tired and silly at times, I ended up enjoying One Man Army quite a bit. The film’s pace sucked me in immediately and the solid cast kept me engaged. Similar to Live by the Fist, this checks in under 80 minutes and Santiago wastes no time in establishing his hero with the gas station fracas around the five-minute mark. With his laid-back manner and easygoing delivery  -- he hails from Kentucky -- Trimble is a good fit as the righteous local hero. Character actor Dennis Heyward was cast perfectly as Jerry’s grizzled friend, and B-film veteran Dean is both intense and menacing as Pat Boze.

No stranger to the action genre -- she was the unfortunate victim of a bacon grease torture by Robert Z’Dar in Samurai Cop -- Melissa Moore is pretty solid, sharing most of her screen time with Trimble. While I’m not going to complain much about topless scenes, 66% of her nude scenes are completely (and hilariously) out of context. For instance, during a conversation about the sheriff’s race during a windy and overcast picnic, Natalie suddenly strips down and goes skinny-dipping to test Jerry’s courage. When he follows suit and jumps in, we know we’re dealing with a bad-ass motherfucker. He didn’t even wait for a full hour after lunch before swimming.

In Live by the Fist, Santiago did well to match Trimble up with a few legitimate martial artists at the back end of the film, escrima practitioner Roland Dantes among them. Dantes is absent from this production, and unfortunately there was no one to really take his place in what should have been the best stretch of fight scenes in the film. I spotted who I believe was an uncredited Ned Hourani fighting Trimble on a rooftop but the fight lasts under a minute, and no one else in the story is built up as a physical threat to Trimble’s character. This was a missed opportunity, because Hourani can hold his own during extended fight sequences, as evidenced by his work in Blood Hands and Fighting Spirit. The choreography is cookie cutter, but Trimble lives up to his reputation as one of the best kickers of his sport and the stuntmen sell pretty well.

VERDICT:
If you enjoyed Live by the Fist, this is another enjoyable Filipino action romp from the same actor and director duo. The amount of heroic dog scenes with the German Shepherd are on par with the Benji and Rin Tin Tin franchises, so this might be something you can watch with the nieces and nephews. Just be sure that you get them to sign affidavits forbidding them from telling their parents about the voluminous amounts of cocaine use, boobs, gunfire, and kickboxing they’ll see in the rest of the film.

4 / 7

Operation Golden Phoenix (1994)

PLOT: A security expert transporting a rare medallion is violently betrayed by his partner and set up to take the fall for the theft of this and other Middle Eastern treasures. Looks pretty dire, but it’s nothing that a clever disguise of a hat and moustache can’t fix.

Director: Jalal Merhi
Writers: J. Stephen Maunder
Cast: Jalal Merhi, Loren Avedon, James Hong, Karen Sheperd, Gary Foo



PLOT THICKENER:
Depending on where your interests lie, Operation Golden Phoenix is either a preparedness exercise conducted in California with special attention given to emergency events like earthquakes and terrorist attacks, or Jalal Merhi’s 1994 directorial debut. In either case, you’re dealing with a potentially disastrous scenario.

Merhi plays Marc Assante, a private security expert charged with escorting a recently unearthed bounty of rare and ancient Middle Eastern artifacts. His partner is Ivan Jones (Avedon), an affable kickboxer with a competitive streak (surprise!) The film opens with the two partners embraced in an intense arm wrestling match before Jones gets a call from Mr. Chang (Hong), a greedy criminal mastermind. Based on the cryptic tone of their conversation, there’s no guesswork about their intentions.

Later that night, Assante and Jones are driving a van full of shiny knick-knacks when they find their first checkpoint blocked off by a group of cars. After mostly failing to ram through it, Assante leaves the vehicle and starts shooting dudes and squinting a lot. A group of fake cops appear on the scene and before Assante is knocked out for resisting arrest, he sees Ivan gunned down. When he regains consciousness, the van has been blown to bits, the treasure is gone, and he’s under arrest.

As Assante spends the next several hours getting grilled by cops about the missing artifacts and beating up other inmates in his holding cell, Mr. Chang and Jones are celebrating their incredible coup. The crown jewel of the haul is a rare medallion which, when combined with its counterpart, shows the way to an even greater stash of loot in Lebanon. It doesn’t take long for a phone call to ruin their high spirits, however. Mr. Chang lambastes his partner in crime for leaving Assante to the cops instead of leaving him for dead. Only seconds after being denied bail, their patsy outmuscled his captors and fled into the crowded and eerily polite Toronto landscape.

Just after he escapes police custody and needs to flee the country, Assante happens to have a girlfriend who works as a wig (and mustache) master at a location theater production company. A little too convenient, but in a career full of bad turtlenecks, ponytails, and banana hammocks, it leads to the silliest look Merhi has ever sported: a gray moustache, a big mop of salt-and-pepper hair, and a fedora. Had he simply rolled with it for the rest of the movie, this could have been a pantheon film. Did I get a screen capture of this amazing get-up? Alas, I did not, for you must experience it for yourself (i.e. I can’t currently do screenshots for VHS titles).

As the principals leave Toronto and the focus switches to the pursuit of treasures and vengeance in Beirut, we begin to understand the purpose of this film: it’s a tourism commercial. Footage of the country's exciting car rallies, ancient landmarks, and bikini-clad beach-goers paints it as a popular destination for world travelers in search of exotic luxury. While it’s an obvious love letter to Merhi’s home country, it's also a giant middle finger to the audience. The story introduces characters of no consequence, Assante behaves in completely illogical ways, flaky double-crosses commence, and the action escalates in frequency, if not quality.

As one might expect from a movie in the Film One catalog, the action is hit or miss depending on who’s involved. The inciting incident where Assante is set up is notable for the heavy usage of slo-mo, squibs, and even a rare and vaunted vansplosion. All good signs. During that same scene, however, the stunt driving is done by a middle-aged man in a baseball cap. Loren Avedon was not that man. This lack of effort is redeemed by a scene later on in the film where Ivan Jones fights off a group of surprisingly well-conditioned archaeologists, one of whom challenges him briefly in a rare shovel fight. The scene ends rather hilariously as a man screams after getting kicked off a high wall, but only falls about three feet to the ground. We get the requisite close-up of his crumpled body anyways.

The climactic fight scene between Avedon and Merhi might actually be the latter’s best screen fight ever. That’s not saying a lot, but Avedon sells his offense admirably and throws some decent kicks as well. The fight is less about the choreography than the environment though; they do battle at a sprawling temple complex in what I believe to be the Great Court of Baalbek which houses some of the best-preserved ruins of the Roman period. Even if the editing isn’t so hot (it isn’t), the shots for this scene are composed really well and it’s rare that we see structures of this size and scale photographed this nicely for a martial arts b-movie. In that sense, it’s unique and legitimately interesting from a visual standpoint.

Following a string of popular lead hero roles, this marks the very first lead villain role for Loren Avedon. Despite not having much to work with on the page, he does a fairly good job with the Ivan Jones character. Perhaps because he lacks the brawny physical stature to play a more menacing bad guy -- Matthias and Bolo come to mind -- Avedon brings conniving and sleazy qualities to the role and they fit the character to a T. The film’s opening arm-wrestling scene sets up the rivalry between Ivan and Jalal, and the former’s reluctance to actually kill his partner despite numerous opportunities suggests competitive advantage more than cold-hearted malice as his initial motivation. His misdeeds from that point only escalate in treachery, so it was a decent character development to watch unfold. Mild, but it was there.

On the flipside, I can only guess that Karen Sheperd just really wanted to go to Beirut for a few weeks of fun in the sun. She’s not given a whole lot to do here and her character, the sister of a princess who owns another medallion, felt like a late addition to the story. She does have a fight near the back-end of the film, so it’s made to feel important, but it has none of the visual impact granted to the Merhi-Avedon battle and it didn’t appear that her opponent was a trained martial artist. Certainly not one of her better roles.

The film’s shaky ambitions on “epic-ness” is best encapsulated by the trailer and its uniquely awful voice-over. I won’t embed it here but I’d invite you to check it out on YouTube and behold the incredible amounts of random SAT words and cliches apparently strung together during the throes of a peyote binge. If, by some unholy miracle, the nonsensical priest from For Hire and the guy who wrote this voice-over copy met and collaborated, the output would tear a wormhole in the cosmic fabric of this world that would consume and destroy all meaning in the English language. Books would burst into flames. People would be forced to communicate through a crude Morse code of grunts and drool. It’d be worse than Sarah Palin and George W. Bush trying to answer Google interview questions.

VERDICT:
Some things in life are consistently obvious. The sky is blue, water is wet, and Jalal Merhi stars in vanity projects and surrounds himself with more talented actors and martial artists. As evidenced by his Lebanese descent and the choice to shoot a good portion of the film in Beirut, Operation Golden Phoenix was obviously a labor of love. To Merhi’s credit, the footage of his homeland is composed fairly well. Dramatically, he isn’t completely atrocious here -- though he comes pretty close -- and the film as a whole is much more ambitious than his usual work. Overall though, it struggles to find any real rhythm or momentum, and the action isn’t done well enough to elevate it above below-average action film fodder. For Merhi, Avedon, and Sheperd completists only.

AVAILABILITY:
At this time, VHS only. And for you serious film freaks out there, Laserdisc.

3 / 7

Parole Violators (1994)

PLOT: A cop-turned-vigilante named Miles Long arms himself with a video camera to catch parolees in criminal acts in order to send them back to prison. That’s right: in this film, hero is spelled A-V-N-E-R-D.

Director: Patrick G. Donahue
Writer: Patrick G. Donahue
Cast: Sean Donahue, Pamela Bosley, Rey Garcia, Michael Kiel, Mike Donahue, Kerry Casey




PLOT THICKENER:
There are some action films which exist on a plane of reality which defies any semblance of rational human behavior or thought. I’m not talking about movies where the hero with a six-shooter never runs out of bullets, or even the hero who has the great fortune of being attacked by thirty dudes, but by no more than one at a time. I’m talking about movies where the hero strains spaghetti on his counter instead of in his sink, and gets hit by two speeding cars before bounding off into the woods like a fucking deer. Really only one movie fits the bill: the action opus from father and son stunt team Patrick and Sean Donahue, 1994’s Parole Violators.

It would be disingenuous on my part to fail to give credit where it’s due; I first caught wind of this film from the always cordial and knowledgeable Big Willie from the Gentlemen’s Guide to Midnite Cinema. As the podcast’s listeners chased down copies, the film’s trailer began making the rounds via Twitter and Facebook updates before finally landing as a “Cool” post at Badass Digest in mid-April.

After acquiring the film, I was admittedly disappointed by the lack of a bombastic opening sequence. Instead, we get a picturesque shot of the Golden Gate Bridge as the credits roll, followed by a conventional convenience store stick-up. As I’m prone to do in judging action films by the first few minutes, I mentally prepared myself for what I expected to be a film on or around the quality of most PM Entertainment fare. Something with flash and fire and a few memorable moments or characters, but nothing revelatory that approached Arizal-levels of low-budget action genius. Literally seconds after processing this embryonic letdown of a thought, two characters got hit in rapid succession by the same moving car. What unfolded over the next 70 minutes made me chuckle at the silly impulsive cinematwat who judged this film by that first five minutes. While not a pure martial-arts film, Parole Violators is a terrific piece of action cinema.

Former cop and current television show host Miles Long (Fighting Spirit’s Sean Donahue) is a somewhat divisive and shadowy figure among local law enforcement. Some police love that this anonymous “video cop” makes their jobs easier by catching recently paroled criminals regressing to their criminal ways and providing physical evidence to boot. Others, such as Long’s cop girlfriend Tracy (Bosley), find the rumor that he moonlights as a videotaping vigilante both unusual and risky. While his tactics are ethically and legally questionable, they’re effective. He pursues every flavor of low-life, from grizzled stick-up artists to car-jackers. But one recent parolee stands heads and shoulders above the rest.

The villainous Chino, played by first-time-never-again actor Rey Garcia, has just been released from prison several years after being busted by Miles for sexual assault on a minor. His thuggish buddy Toos (Kiel) greets him upon his release and Chino immediately declares his intent to never again do something to put himself behind bars. In his words, he’s “a changed man.” Well, aside from his love for illegally young girls, which he makes sure to reiterate when his buddy questions his sexuality. Beyond the fact that he likes his women young, the only thing we know about Chino is that he has beer on the brain. No matter the situation, he voices his desire to “get a beer” at every opportunity. Just got out of prison? Let’s get a beer. Just evaded capture by throwing a six year-old girl from a moving car? Let’s get a beer. Just had a beer? Let’s get a beer. So how does a reformed sex offender who never wants to go back to prison commemorate his regained freedom? If you said: “he gets a beer,” you’re only half-right. He starts trying to kidnap little girls again.

Miles catches wind of Chino’s release and antics and it’s not long before the bad blood between them starts to boil again. Rather than stay clear of illegalities, Chino and friends go after Tracy’s daughter, inviting the fury of a certain former police officer who lists videography as a hobby. Despite the reputation of kiddie-touchers in the prison community, Chino still manages to lure a former cellmate and his biker friends into aiding his evildoing by dangling the hated Long as a potential reward. It could be said that the line of ex-convicts who want to beat the shit out of Miles Long is ... miles long. (Author’s note: Paused for collective groan).

Most would say that you don’t watch an action movie for the acting, but this film begs to differ. While the dramatic performances are more entertaining than they are good, in a film like this, it works to perfection. Miles and Tracy have an early exchange in a police car garage which requires the actors to yell an entire conversation over the screeches and constant banging of auto work. Later on, an actor sells a shotgun blast to the torso by murmuring “I’ve never been shot before” while softly moaning like an eight year-old who ate too much Halloween candy. There’s also an off-beat and hilarious discussion on the relative strength of birds as a female character writhes around and licks her lips while exposing some prominent camel-toe to her captors... in the back of a pickup truck. (Yes, this happened). So while the frequency and intensity of the action scenes are the film’s obvious strength, the inept acting and incredible dialogue are what enhance the film’s already sky-high rewatch value.

From a directorial standpoint, the elder Donahue is a steady veteran presence and the film is paced quite well. For the most part, the action sequences are competently shot, one of the highlights being an outstanding “empty warehouse” shootout scene. It’s quite literally an orgy of squibs and dudes falling from the rafters. These stunt falls are plentiful, but the one that tops them all has Long falling off a boulder and through about six different tiers of trees before landing chest-first on a branch, only to fall down another cliff before landing with a splash in a shallow riverbed. Fortunately, he shakes off the effects of this 80-foot fall in time to immediately kill two bikers with a knife. As mentioned previously, Violators contains a plethora of high-speed car vs. human body collisions which also need to be seen to be believed. The hand-to-hand fights are a bit short for my tastes but are accented with plenty of blood splatter, falls through windows, and good “baseball bat striking a head of lettuce” sound effects.

Aside from some continuity errors, the only other technical gripe I should note is the clunky editing, some of which appears to have been done to erase all spoken obscenities. I’m dubious on the real necessity of editing “motherfucker” to “mother--” when your film consists of bloody heroes decimating a gang of skinhead bikers with various automatic weapons in order to kill a crazed child molester … but that’s just me.

VERDICT:
In an age where the stuntman has been supplemented or even replaced outright by CGI chicanery, Parole Violators is a refreshing and rewarding watch for action aficionados. Between the epic falls, window smashing, and brutal car hits, this is some of the most insane cinematic stunt-work you’ll find in an American-made actioner and easily the best I’ve seen from a film specifically reviewed for this blog. The lack of clean and crisp fight choreography might leave some martial-arts purists cold, but viewers willing to trade off a bit of chopsocky for pure over-the-top action will want to add this to their collections.

AVAILABILITY:
Since Bottom Line Studios disappeared, exceedingly rare. You might be able to find a gray market copy on DVD.

6 / 7

Angel of Destruction (1994)

PLOT: Go to the review of Blackbelt from last week. Find all references to “Don Wilson” and replace with “Maria Ford.” Add ice. Shake lightly and strain into a glass. This cold delicious liquid is called Angel of Destruction.

Director: Charles Philip Moore
Writers: Charles Philip Moore, Paul Maslak
Cast: Maria Ford, Charlie Spradling, Jimmy Broome, Antonio Bacci, Jessica Mark, Timothy D. Baker, Chanda, James Paolelli, Bob McFarland




PLOT THICKENER:
Every once in a while, after I’ve just poured my morning cup of coffee, I like to stare out my window and listen for the sound of a cinephile birthing an actual cow after reading about the latest studio plans to remake a beloved film. While it seems like the remake epidemic is yet another modern outgrowth of corporate greed, it’s been going on for decades. The practice may piss off the hardest of hardcore fans, but it’s an easy way for filmmakers and studios to repurpose financially lucrative intellectual property or improve upon forgotten originals. So it should be no great surprise that writer and director Charles Philip Moore jumped at the chance to remake his 1992 breakout film Blackbelt... in 1994.

As in the Don Wilson vehicle, the plot revolves around a pop singer attracting unwanted attention from a serial killer and seeking out protection. This is no ordinary pop singer, though. Moore attempts to atone for the pop music sins of Blackbelt, not by hiring professionals to improve upon the terrible songs, but by having the actress playing pop-star Delilah (Mark) take off her top while performing the terrible songs. This sounds shameless and exploitative -- and it is -- but it makes for some visually bizarre set pieces. The best, which the killer admires from a hooting nightclub crowd, finds a curvy blond onstage, strapped to what looks like an electric chair. Delilah, in nothing more than red lingerie, “croons” a few bars of her new single and when the music reaches a crescendo, the chair explodes in a display of smoke and pyrotechnics as the crowd cheers. Then the tops come off. It's a formula that seems to work.

Unbeknownst to her adoring public, Delilah is carrying on a relationship with her blond companion, Reena Jacobs (Chanda), while also sleeping with her manager, Danny (Paolelli). On top of that, her mobster record label owner (McFarland) just might kill her for an insurance policy if she fails to resign with him. If those elements weren’t dangerous enough, a crazed military veteran named John Sweet (Broome) is stalking Delilah and leaving a trail of severed fingers and dead sex workers in his wake. Who in the world has the balls to take on someone so sadistic?

Rather fortunately, Delilah finds those balls hanging from Brit Alwood (Spradling), a bad-ass private investigator whose fondness for dark aviators is second only to her love for giving piggish men free vasectomies with kicks to the crotch. Her toughness runs in the family too; Brit’s younger sister, Jo (Ford) is a tough-as-nails undercover cop who finds it easiest to rough up the scum of society while dressed in fashionable jeans and tube tops. While Brit initially takes Delilah’s case, it’s Jo who ends up performing the grunt work of protecting her. The saucy Internet rumor posits that the role of Spradling’s character was diminished due to her refusal to partake in a specific scene we’ll discuss in a couple of ‘graphs.

Along for the ride in the investigation of John Sweet is a cop named Aaron, played by first-time-and-never-again actor Antonio Bacci. He doesn’t bring all that much to the party other than imparting clunky exposition and looking average during fight scenes, but he does sport a great mustache. He also has a love scene with Maria Ford before collecting his paycheck, so it would appear he left the industry on a high-note... assuming you consider awkward martial-arts movie love scenes to be a high note. (NOTE: I do).

While Seinfeld has taught us many a lesson, few are as valuable as the notion of “bad naked” (episode: “The Apology”). I’m sure everyone had the best intentions in putting Ford in nothing but a thong for her late-night fight with a half-dozen thugs in Delilah’s mansion. I mean, topless kickboxing sounds good in theory ... doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the net effect is about as erotic as shredding tax documents. It’s not that I don’t find Ford to be attractive but it’s hard to ignore the hurricane of Aquanet, grunting, and high-kicks. So while it’s certainly possible the filmmakers were trying to de-sexualize the female form with this scene, they achieved one of the most gloriously campy scenes ever captured in the martial-arts DTV genre.

Pointing out flaws in a movie like this is a bit counterproductive, but it also highlights why the film is so enjoyable. A music video shoot for Delilah consists of nothing more than her and Reena taking their tops off and lip-syncing in a room full of mannequins. Yes, the mannequins are both blindfolded and naked. At one point, Bacci actually calls Ford by "Maria" instead of her character's name and I'm not sure why Moore felt this didn't require a second take to nail down. I don't recall any visible boom mics, falling dummies, or landing mats during stunt falls, but this being a Roger Corman film, it does have that classic air of low-budgeted, balls-to-the-wall, "let's shoot this fucker!" methodology. More than the technical misfires, I found the weakest element was the casting of Jimmy Broome and the reworking of the John Sweet character. The guy looks like a proper creep and his violent behavior is weird enough to cement the character as a psycho, but you take a lot off the table in downgrading from a physically imposing martial-artist like Matthias Hues. He's no Brando but he's proficient at playing the hulking monster and would have been a more formidable opponent for Ford. 

The differences between the fight choreography in Blackbelt and those created by stunt coordinator Ronald Asinas for this film are minimal. However, there are a few elements which elevate the action in Angel of Destruction above that of its source material. Its very liberal approach to the destruction of props and sets during the hand-to-hand fight sequences -- a staple of Filipino action films of this era -- always wins me over, and the stunt crew makes Ford look great. The climax also trades the “one vs. many” fight of Blackbelt for a fun build-up marked by ‘splosions and healthy amounts of gunfire.

Going from the hard-kicking Wilson to Ford might seem to be a downgrade, yet there’s something inherently enjoyable about watching  our heroine getting into bar fights with bigger opponents and gunning down would-be assassins without batting an eyelash. On top of that, Ford is a good actor and conjures up the necessary contempt for her adversaries that Wilson sometimes lacked in his facial expressions and line delivery. Jo's violent interrogation of one of Sweet's military buddies on a public street in the middle of the day is a hilarious scene and quite possibly Ford's best in the film. Well, aside from the fight where she smashes some dude's head through a fish tank.

VERDICT:
It's rare that a cinematic remake improves upon the original, but Moore nails the landing on this one. It makes me wish Maria Ford had done more Filipino action movies and less erotic thrillers, but she really shines in this one. If Blackbelt can be described as a studious, church-going star athlete, Angel of Destruction is the younger sister who drinks whisky before fighting strangers. In other words, she’s a bit crazy, but also more unpredictably fun.

AVAILABILITY:
Amazon or EBay.

5.5 / 7