Angelfist (1993)

PLOT: When her kickboxing covert agent sister is mysteriously murdered in the Philippines, an American cop heads overseas to bring the killers to justice. Contrary to popular belief, justice is not a hip upscale Manila restaurant, but rather a fair and reasonable application of law.

Director: Cirio Santiago
Writer: Anthony L. Greene
Cast: Cat Sassoon, Melissa Moore, Michael Shaner, Roland Dantes, Cristina Portugal, Tony Carreon, Henry Strzalkowski, Joseph Zucchero, Jim Moss






PLOT THICKENER
There are few performances in film that can be described as truly chameleonic. Few characters are conceptualized in such a way as to grant us access to the various layers of their personalities. Denis Lavant’s Monsieur Oscar in Holy Motors comes to mind, as does Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. After viewing the Corman-produced, Santiago-directed 1993 action film, Angelfist, I think we can add Cat Sassoon and her character of Kat Lang to that same elite group. Over the course of roughly 80 minutes, she encompasses a wide variety of flavors and colors. She’s a cop, she’s a kickboxer. She’s white as a sheet, she’s tanned to the color of an indoor basketball. She’s dressed in her Muay Thai best, she looks like a backup dancer for Paula Abdul.

A rugged and experienced cop, Kat is cleaning up the mean streets of Los Angeles when she receives word that her kickboxing sister, Kristie (Birzag) has been murdered in Manila. Kristie captured the murder of a U.S. military man on film, and a terrorist group called the Black Brigade responded a little harshly. One airplane transition later, and Kat is knocking down doors and beating up random Filipinos in a search for answers. The local Manila police are useless and paranoid, and the U.S. embassy is no help at all due to constant protests and pressure from the local population.

With the assistance of a shallow himbo nicknamed Alcatraz (Shaner), Kat talks her way into a meeting with her sister’s former fight trainer, Bayani (Dantes). Only after winning his respect during a sparring contest is she able to set the wheels in motion for a break in the case. In order to uncover more solid leads to chase, she enters the local ladies karate tournament in which her sister took part. Upon joining their ranks, she not only catches the attention of her sister’s friend, Lorda (Moore), but also last year’s champion and secret brigadier, the standoffish, Bontoc (Portugal). Will Kat avenge her sister's death? Who are her true enemies and allies? Why do the fight organizers call this thing a "kubate" instead of a "kumite?" And why does Kat's skin tone vary so wildly by time of day and lighting? 

So, about those action scenes. The tournament fighting is marked by extremely repetitive strikes and an almost complete disregard for defense and blocking. Moore and Sassoon, in particular, are guilty of awkward fight stances in which they curl their arms up close to their bodies while kicking, almost in an effort to conceal something -- a strange choice given the sheer amount of toplessness throughout much of the film. Cirio makes sure to combine said toplessness with an actual fight, putting Kat in the crosshairs of would-be assassins who raid Alcatraz’s apartment as she’s fresh out of the shower. In the absence of technical sheen, the stunt players sell HUGE for Sassoon and others. Enemies go screaming and flailing through walls and tables. Any piece of furniture that isn’t nailed down gets incorporated and smashed to pieces.

Sassoon gets all of the bits to put her in position to win our hearts and look awesome. Our introduction to the Kat character involves her jumping through a window with an uzi to waste a bunch of drug dealers. She wins the respect of Bayani by whooping him in an eskrima sparring match. She also takes a three-story fall from an apartment window that sees her smash through multiple levels of scaffolding to the street below. No one will ever mistake her for Moon Lee or Karen Sheperd in terms of ballsy action scenes, but I’ll put it this way: I’d wear a t-shirt with the visage of a growling Kat Lang for virtually any occasion. Even if it was a tank top!

It’s impossible to discuss this film without noting the untimely death of its star. Sassoon had a purported five-picture contract with Roger Corman, but was unable to see it through (I’m still anxious to see her Bloodfist franchise appearances). Discarding the minor transgressions of occasional duckface and dated wardrobe, most would agree that whether it’s an awkward love scene, a rompy fight, or long shots of her smoking a cigarette, Sassoon brings a palpable zest to the film. She’s clearly committed to this role and she got the memo about its tone; that effort is observable and lasting. Given the timing of her death in 2002, it’s difficult to say whether she would have weathered the erosion of the DTV action market that affected so many other stars in the early 2000s. Still, Angelfist is a unique time capsule that features Sassoon at her best, which is to say fierce, tanned, and mysteriously shiny.

Knowing that Corman took an active interest in creating “feminist exploitation films” -- using female protagonists as both asskickers and objects of lust -- I’m interested to know if viewers feel that Angelfist achieves this odd label. I’m undecided. The ladies here fight and snarl and save the day, but they also stand around awkwardly and navigate detachable shower heads over their nude bodies during inexplicable transition scenes. They’re terrorized by captors and pushed bare chest-first into blocks of ice, but they also deliver dialogue that earns the film a passing grade on the Bechdel test. Is Bontoc considered a villain because she’s part of a terrorist network, or because she never disrobes? There’s some serious contradictions at work here and I’m frankly not intelligent enough to sort it out. Maybe the Internet’s first aspirational expert in the subgenre of nude kickboxing movies, Keith over at Teleport City, can render a decision on this. Inquiring minds want to know.

VERDICT
Despite its flaws -- acting and originality among them -- Angelfist is a very entertaining film. It observes the loose but effective “action beat” rule where *something* interesting happens approximately every 10 minutes. (Even if it does nothing whatsoever to push the story forward or distract us from the arbitrary nudity). Despite her limitations as a peformer, Sassoon is ferocious and convincing as an action movie heroine, and the stunt team makes everyone look good. A fine effort from Cirio Santiago and something of an unheralded gem from the Concorde-New Horizons canon.

AVAILABILITY
Angelfist is at the ready on DVD or VHS.

4 / 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

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

Live by the Fist (1993)

PLOT:
Ex- Navy SEAL John Merill is imprisoned in the Philippines for a crime he didn’t commit. Upon incarceration, he experiences the horrors of the Filipino prison system, which combines rampant racism and police corruption with a frightening lack of adobo chicken. (Delicious, by the way).

Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Writer: Charles Philip Moore
Cast: Jerry Trimble, George Takei, Vic Diaz, Ted Markland, Roland Dantes, Laura Albert, Romy Diaz


PLOT THICKENER:
In Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index list, the Republic of the Philippines was ranked 134th out of 178 countries surveyed. For perspective on this, if corruption came in overly elaborate ice cream flavors, the Philippines would be Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. This is not to say the country is unsafe or undeserving of your tourist dollar. Just make sure you don’t end up in Filipino prison -- that place is like Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream with Gummy Bears.

Because of his ability to churn out virtually any type of genre film, Cirio H. Santiago has endeared himself to exploitation film fans for all eternity; he’s done Vietnam war films, blaxploitation films, martial arts films, and post-apocalyptic action films. In Live by the Fist, Santiago includes all the character ingredients integral to a compelling prison action movie: a corrupt warden, played by Santiago regular Vic Diaz; dueling gangs cut along ethnic lines; and the wise prison elder, played by George Takei. All of them factor heavily in the fate of the Bolera Prison Colony’s newest resident, American longshoreman and ex-military man John Merill.

After he stops a woman from getting raped at a shipping yard by a gang of thugs (only to watch her get killed by them anyway) Merill gets cold-cocked and the goons plant the bloody knife on him. He’s convicted and arrives to prison a mostly innocent man, but Warden Acosta (Diaz) has heard that song before, and he doesn’t like it. (He’s more of a Paul Anka fan). A cranky old fellow, his only joy in life comes from his lizard terrarium, his samurai swords, and a swanky tiger tapestry.

Since Merill killed a thug named Chavez who had friends on the inside, a Filipino faction led by Alvarez (Romy Diaz) wants to kill him. The constant need to defend himself draws unwanted attention from the security staff, who regard Merill as a nuisance and a troublemaker. While he has relatively low stature as a “whiteboy,” slightly less as an American, and even less as someone who wears a sharktooth necklace, he has fighting skills unmatched by any other inmates. For this reason, the caucasian contingent wants him to join their crew. Led by an ex-Navy man named Sacker (Markland), these trashy whiteboys do the same things they were probably doing before prison: smoking dope, drinking moonshine, and giving the Asian population a really hard time for being Asian. Merill rebuffs their recruitment efforts and prevents Sacker from beating on an innocent old man; as a result he’s targeted by yet another group of assholes.

Despite his lone wolf status, Merill isn’t entirely without acquaintances. While he and other prisoners break up rocks on what appears to be the set of Dune Warriors, Stryker, and Equalizer 2000, a younger Filipino inmate attends to them with a cask of water. In time, he and Merill even grow comfortable enough to have a mildly homoerotic water fight. Speaking of fights, Merill’s cell-mate fucking hates them. Played by Star Trek legend and television veteran George Takei, Uncle Coronado is the prison’s conscience and having noted various abuses over the years, believes the inmates should be fighting the system instead of each other. An avid reader, he’s soaked up the prison’s law book collection and has been furtively writing letters to a human rights organization for assistance. He and Merill befriend each other, though Merill isn’t interested in the plight of the prisoners or the rampant internal corruption so much as he’s obsessed with getting the fuck out of Filipino prison.

Throughout the story, there’s a lot of backstabbing, fighting, unlikely bedfellows, and sweat. (The latter two are unrelated, by the way). Takei does what he can with the material he’s given and turns in a solid performance marked by downtrodden rage. Character actor Ted Markland is reasonably dickish as Sacker and sports the best skullet this side of Hulk Hogan. Vic Diaz is wonderfully sleazy as the corrupt warden and Romy Diaz is equally sleazy as gang honcho Alvarez. Though he’s dubbed, he has some incredible facial mannerisms aided by a supremely bushy moustache.

Wisely, Santiago chose not to go down the road of challenging American History X for “most brutal rape scene set in a prison shower.” Partly because he’d already satisfied the attempted rape quota in the film’s first scene, but mostly because Jerry Trimble is a much better fighter than Edward Norton, and therefore better at not getting raped. However, there is a fight scene set in the showers that was every bit as revolting as forcible sodomy. Merill uses common sense by wearing shoes to the washroom, only to have some assholes throw him into the shower’s draining trough. You remember that trough in college? Snots, pubes, ass-water, etc. -- shit was nasty! I would hope Merill asked for some bacitracin from the prison’s medic after swimming in that filth.

Despite the title of the film, Trimble does a great deal more kicking than fisting … err, punching. While the fight scenes are well-shot and the stuntmen make Trimble look good, the choreography on the whole is a touch repetitive. There are really no other fighters on Trimble’s level so we’re treated to him dominating revolving groups of henchmen in virtually every action scene, save for one. Toward the end of the film, Trimble crosses paths with the prison’s main guard, played by Filipino b-movie actor Roland Dantes. While many may be unfamiliar with Dantes’s work (myself included), his career was dotted with several choice action roles highlighting his expertise in arnis, the Filipino martial art of stick-fighting. Dantes breaks the sticks out against Trimble’s kicks but there’s not much to write home about; the visual impact of stick-fighting has its limitations, especially when filmed in low-light on a Santiago budget.

Last, many great films are further elevated by their respective musical scores; David Shire’s piano work on 1974’s The Conversation and Anton Karas’s zither-based score for 1949’s The Third Man immediately come to mind. I would be hard pressed to exclude Nicolas Rivera’s electric guitar score for Live by the Fist from these same distinguished annals of film history. He uniquely bends each composition to the onscreen drama: there are confrontational electric guitars for the fight scenes, morose electric guitars for the death scenes, brooding electric guitars for suspenseful scenes, and despondent electric guitars for the sad, emotional scenes. Anyone who’s ever said that that the human condition can’t be adequately illustrated through the sound of squealing electric guitars has never seen Live by the Fist.

VERDICT:
The first of three collaborations between Trimble and Santiago, Live by the Fist satisfies many of the basic tenets of the b-level martial arts film: a lot of fight scenes, character actor screen presence, an entertaining supporting cast, and fairly awful production value. Somehow, it makes for a reasonably engaging film despite its obvious limitations. At a tidy 77 minutes, you could certainly do worse, though I was a bit disappointed that Trimble dropped the mullet for this one. For his more fierce follicle performances, seek out The Master or King of the Kickboxers.

AVAILABILITY:
Readily available via Amazon and Netflix.

5.5 / 7