Angel Town (1990)

PLOT: Gangs have taken over the streets of a Los Angeles neighborhood. While the bullets fly and the blood flows, residents are paralyzed by fear. Their best chance to survive the violence? An engineering grad student from France.

Director: Eric Karson
Writer: S. Warren
Cast: Olivier Gruner, Peter Kwong, Tony Valentino, Theresa Saldana, Frank Aragon, Gregory Cruz, Mark Dacascos



PLOT THICKENER
Cinema has demonstrated time and time again that it’s tough being the new kid in town. From Yojimbo to Mean Girls, the appearance of a new personality can throw the existing social order into chaos. Allegiances are disrupted, new lines are drawn, and all manner of conflict can arise. If director Eric Karson’s 1990 film Angel Town shows us anything, it’s that being the new kid is a lot easier if you’re a kickboxer.

French fighter and Jalal Merhi favorite Olivier Gruner stars as Jacques, an Olympic athlete, martial artist, and engineering brainiac who moves to Los Angeles to enroll in a graduate-level engineering program at a prestigious school situated near a rough part of the city. Jacques takes a bit too long getting his butt overseas ahead of the semester start -- delaying his departure to visit his dad’s grave site, and apparently have sex with his girlfriend on top of it -- because by the time he arrives in the States, all the grad student housing has filled up.

His search for room and board in the surrounding neighborhood leads him to the home of a single widow, Maria (Saldana), who lives with her teenage son, Martin (Aragon) and elderly mother. It doesn’t take Jacques long to learn of their daily struggles. Gangs go to war with each other in broad daylight. Two “cholo” gang members living in a bus near the house regularly harrass Jacques and Maria. Worse yet, the same gang, run by the villainous Angel (Valentino), is attempting to recruit Martin to join their ranks. Will Jacques be able to save Martin from the clutches of L.A. gang life? Can he work with the allies in the neighborhood -- especially the military vet in the wheelchair who’s always on his front porch staring into the void of urban decay -- to push them out for good? Most important, can he do all of this while maintaining a grade point average sufficient to remain in his master’s degree program? Man, grad school is tough! (AUTHOR’S NOTE: I attended grad school and lived in an overpriced building on a tree-lined street about an eight-minute walk from the subway -- my next-door neighbors were in an all-female bluegrass band).

Alleged Mark Dacascos appearance where....shit, is that Steven Tyler in the backseat?

While Karson had done “bigger” b-movies such as The Octagon previously, I think this was an interesting evidential artifact given that L.A. gang films were still very much in their infancy as a cinematic setting (oddly, East L.A. Warriors beat them to the punch about a year earlier). The plot point to transport a French kickboxer to Los Angeles via grad school feels shoehorned, but to his credit, Karson uses this to demonstrate the gentrifying effect that a college campus can have on the surrounding area with some pretty violent set-pieces between gangs and students. It’s not explored with any real depth, but it’s still an idea that I probably should have never had while watching a film like this.

There were at least two huge nostalgic elements that really resonated for me and helped to elevate the film. The first was seeing Big Trouble in Little China veteran Peter Kwong as Henry, Jacques’s friend and local martial arts master. It wasn’t a huge role, but he gets a good amount of dialogue and shows his martial arts skills in a few select scenes, including a fairly good climax. Henry also presides over a dojo that, by all indications, is the same filming location that Corey Yuen used for No Retreat, No Surrender! Usually, I’ll pause a film to take an arbitrary screenshot or look at an usual background player. In this case, I was comparing the aesthetic qualities of two dojo screenshots from two separate films because that’s the kind of obsessive, dedicated, insane, cinematic loser that I am.

While not quite a pre-requisite, real-life badassery was something of a premium feature of direct-to-video martial arts stars of the 1980s and 90s. Few movies featuring Don “The Dragon” Wilson made it through the first eight seconds of the opening credits without mentioning his WKO, ISKA, or WKA kickboxing championships. The same could be said of Jerry Trimble and his PKA and PKC accolades. (Kickboxing affiliations are to Roger Corman movie stars what post-nominal abbreviations are to career academics).

Look around the landscape from that era, and you won’t find many actors better suited to a life in action movies than Olivier Gruner. A former member of the French Marine Nationale with training in scuba diving, skydiving, and climbing, he would go onto various roughneck positions (e.g. bouncer, ski patroller) that paved the way for eventual professional kickboxing glory. “OG,” as he would come to be known, apparently grew tired of these tawdry skills, and added surfer and professionally-licensed helicopter pilot to his credentials later on. By all indications, this was a guy who could do it all, so why didn’t he get bigger?

Similar to fellow European Daniel Bernhardt, who took up the mantle for the Bloodsport franchise, Gruner suffered from a fairly obvious Jean Claude Van Damme problem. His films certainly never aped Van Damme’s output outright, but it’s still hard to look at his leading vehicles without thinking of his mainstream Belgian counterpart. Is there a spot for Gruner in the annals of DTV action cinema without JCVD? I would say yes, but his career arc might look a lot different had the Muscles from Brussels not happened first. Both were French-speaking Shokotan karate and kickboxing practitioners who happened to be born in 1960, both worked with Albert Pyun on dystopian action films, and both displayed a fondness for genre-hopping (though Gruner’s filmography indicates a stronger predilection for science fiction and military themes).

VERDICT
In just his first time out, Gruner is solid. He has an easygoing demeanor and despite his reputation as stiff, his dialogue never felt all that forced; I daresay he comes off as somewhat charming. Karson directs with a steady hand, but the “take back the neighborhood” elements are a bit meandering and the lack of a strong and physical villain detracted from the story a bit. The action scenes are generally pretty good and it’s a logical jump-off point for Gruner first-timers and completists alike.

AVAILABILITY
Used VHS copies on Amazon or good ol' YouTube.

3.5 / 7

Fighting Spirit (1992)

PLOT: After his sister is injured during an attempted gang rape, a young kickboxer can’t afford the medical bills so is forced into underground street fights by a sleazy crime boss. As the danger reaches a fever pitch, the only prescription is his best friend, David.

Director: John Lloyd
Writer: Rod Davis
Cast: Loren Avedon, Sean P. Donahue, Greg Douglass, Ned Hourani, Jerry Beyer, Michelle Locke, Mike Monty, Nick Nicholson

PLOT THICKENER:

You might be saying “hey Karl Brezdin, why the fuck are you calling this post Fighting Spirit when the cover art says King of the Kickboxers 2 and oh by the way, I got here by searching for Fighting Spirit anime torrents so where’s episode 7 ‘The Destructive Force of 1 cm?’” Well, hypothetical run-on question, allow me to explain.

Between 1986 and 1990, the original No Retreat, No Surrender and its two proper sequels were released. In Europe and other regions of the world, these films formed the Karate Tiger franchise (1-3.) Around 1991, King of the Kickboxers was released but was billed as Karate Tiger 4 in Europe and some other regions of the world. Then in 1992, American Shaolin was released as American Shaolin in America, but Karate Tiger 5 in Europe and elsewhere, but also as American Shaolin: King of the Kickboxers II on VHS by Academy Home Entertainment. That same year, Fighting Spirit was released under its original title in most places but eventually became King of the Kickboxers 2 when it was released on DVD in the United States. Pretty straightforward.

Fighting Spirit is the story of Billy (Donahue), a nice guy who made bad career choices and finds himself trying to make ends meet as an amateur kickboxer. While training with his coach (Nick Nicholson in a brief but hilarious cameo) he forgets to pick up his sister, Judith (Locke), following her shift at a local bar. When he finally arrives, she’s unconscious and about to be raped by a group of thugs led by Tony (Douglass), a gun dealer with an opinion of women equally as terrible as his terrible haircut. After Billy sends the thugs scurrying, a stranger appears out of nowhere and offers them a ride to the hospital. Unbeknownst to Billy, the stranger is Tony’s older brother, Russell (Hourani.) He watched the events unfold and has decided that Billy is worthy of a small investment.

After Judith’s insanely funky trip to the hospital -- director John Lloyd pairs the rush to the operating room with an orchestral disco beat -- Billy finds out that she needs an expensive surgery to save her eyesight, but he doesn’t have the funds to cover the procedure. Instead of accepting an offer of help from David (Avedon), his kickboxing friend and businessman, Billy takes money from the weird dude he just met an hour ago.

Unfortunately, there are strings attached. Billy quickly finds himself sucked into a filthy underworld where fighters compete in abandoned warehouses while rich assholes place bets and a funky wah-wah guitar track plays. Seeing unpolished potential, Russell pairs him with a fighting trainer named Murphy (Beyer) to hone his skills. While Murphy becomes something of a mentor to Billy, David is suspicious of the arrangement from the jump and encourages his friend to walk away and allow him to pay off the debt owed to Russell. Unfortunately, Billy’s pride won’t allow it.

Despite some initial success, Billy is still consumed by vengeance and begins to track down the people responsible for his sister’s attack. This lack of focus leads to a defeat and the relationship with Russell quickly turns sour. No slouch on the fighting front, David is forced to seek out Murphy for help to salvage what little remains in a desperate situation. The film’s villains do their part to make sure that no one goes unscathed. Russell is pure, hairy-chested sleaze and the glee with which Tony performs violence borders on childlike. No villain-filler here though, because both actors can fight reasonably well.

The action in this film is bonkers and the stunt team deserves a lot of credit for killing themselves to make Avedon and Donahue look great. Since their respective filmographies are so limited, I can’t say much about action directors Tao Chang and Ping-Po Chin, but almost every scene is painted with generous helpings of blood, sweat, and dust. Most of the decisive blows are given tight, slow-motion close-ups and props are used frequently and liberally.

Among several high-quality fight sequences, the standout scene for me was a pool hall brawl. Billy and David roll into the local billiards spot looking for one of the dickheads responsible for Judith’s injuries, and all hell breaks loose. The performers lay absolute waste to the set by smashing windows, liquor bottles, shelves, and every breakaway piece of furniture in sight. Avedon also incorporates some comedic touches by alternating between running his hands through his hair, standing idly with his hands in his pockets, and using props like pool cues, racks, and balls to ward off enemies. Is there an out-of-place disco beat blaring over this? Yes, there is a disco beat.

To say nothing of the awful dubbing, the terrible soundtrack very nearly derails the entire film. The music and onscreen action frequently form wild mismatches in tone, from the dramatic disco-hospital combo to the energizing disco-fight scenes and the requisite disco-training montage scene. I doubt composer Larry Strong wrote and performed these songs specifically for this film; it seems more likely that he got an arbitrary credit when John Lloyd mined a box of studio music marked “BEST IF USED BY 1982.”

The film’s gritty feel is further underscored by some visceral tones and the brutality of some of the kills. Some people get thrown from rooftops, one gets tortured in a dingy basement, others get bloody strangulation, and Avedon scores an all too-rare Martial-Artist Vomit Scene when identifying a body at the morgue. There’s even a scene where a character has each arm tied to the rear bumpers of two different cars and is dragged at high-speed before splatting face-first into a stationary car. Sleazy kills, rape as a plot point, and low production values? Cirio-sense tingling...

While no filming location is listed on the film’s IMDb page, it’s safe to assume that based on the heinous music and risky stunts that this was filmed in the Philippines. The other critical indicators include cameos from Filipino action veterans Nick Nicholson, and Mike Monty as an obnoxious drunk. While Fighting Spirit was the last of four films directed by John Lloyd, his directorial style is timeless: keep the plot loose, the violence frequent, and everything in between as unintentionally hilarious as possible.

While most of the film’s accidental comedy comes from poor dubbing and the odd music selections, Michelle Locke’s performance as the vision-impaired Judith is gut-busting. Is it ever permissible to laugh at blind people in films? Usually no, because a good script and a well-trained actor won’t give you reasons to do so. Shintaro Katsu of Zaitoichi fame or Morgan Freeman in Unleashed weren’t flailing their arms in pools or tripping over dead bodies. These are mishaps that deserve a hearty mocking even if the character can see. So it’s OK to cackle at a first-time actress trying to pretend to be blind. If you laugh at a blind person crossing a street with the assistance of a seeing-eye dog, you’re a fucking degenerate.

VERDICT:
If enough people stumble across it, Fighting Spirit has the potential to become something of a cult classic in martial-arts film circles. It must be said that for every element the film gets right -- the fight scenes and sleazy villains among them -- there are three or four other things that go dreadfully wrong (the music, the script, dubbing, set lighting, etc.) The result doesn’t make for a poor viewing experience though. On the contrary, the film’s underlying charm comes directly from its grit, grime, and random technical warts. There’s no shortage of crazy Filipino action movies out there, but for those who likes their sleaze-and-cheese with an extra helping of chopsocky, this one is worth every cent of your viewing dollar.

AVAILABILITY:
Amazon or EBay.

5.5 / 7

Showdown (1993)

PLOT: A bullied, fatherless teen seeks guidance when his efforts to make friends at a new school only make trouble. After his attempts lead to ass-kickings, a kindly janitor with a shadowy past shows him the finer points of self-improvement, self-defense, and cleaning toilets.

Director: Robert Radler
Writer: Stuart Gibbs
Cast: Billy Blanks, Kenn Scott, Ken McLeod, Patrick Kilpatrick, John Mallory Asher, Christine Taylor, Mike Genovese, Linda Dona, Brion James, James Lew


PLOT THICKENER:
Almost no cinematic story is as frequently rehashed as Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film Yojimbo. A tale of a loner arriving to a new land and being thrust into a conflict between two gangs, it has formed the basis for countless films. Released over 20 years later, Karate Kid is the story of a loner arriving to a new land and getting his ass kicked by karate-fighting bullies before being trained by a wise elder to fight. Similarly, it has countless imitators. Director Robert Radler (Best of the Best) and Billy Blanks teamed up in 1993 for Showdown, a copycat with no shame whatsoever about its inspirational origins.

In yet another film role in which his character is named Billy, Blanks plays a well-meaning police officer with a distaste for his department-issued firearm. On patrol one night, his partner, Spinelli (Genovese) encourages him to carry it while investigating a house party disturbance. When they arrive it’s the usual smattering of drunk kids, loud music, and Patrick Kilpatrick and his on-screen brother being drunken pricks. As the ruffian Lee, I presume Kilpatrick is supposed to be young here, but dude was like 43 years old when this shizz was filmed. Not totally weird, since we’ve all had our share of creepy old guys at our alcohol parties. Billy asks them to chill out, but Lee’s little brother struggles for Billy’s gun and falls to the ground, smacking his melon on the marble floor. Billy tries to shake him back into consciousness but the accident proves fatal.

Billy lets out the requisite “NOOOOOOO!” as Lee is arrested, and this moment of disbelieving grief then dissolves to a fat, naked Spinelli showering in the men’s locker room. Uh … interesting transition there, Radler. Spinelli tries to convince his partner that accidents happen and he needs to deal with the situation in order to cope, but Billy can’t even stand the sight of his own uniform and effectively resigns.

The story refocuses on Ken Marx (Scott), a Kansas-bred teenager who moves to the West coast for his senior year of high school. He’s your classic underdog: he’s short, wears dorky oversized clothes, and brings a Thermos to school. In an entertaining performance as ball-busting Assistant Principal Kowalski, Brion James introduces Ken to a madhouse of a public school where nerds, meatheads, and gangbangers all intermingle. For better or worse, Ken has a couple of other peers on which to lean during the transition.

Showdown features two spouses -- one current, one former -- of more famous people in prominent supporting roles. As Mike, ex-Jenny McCarthy squeeze John Mallory Asher is the film’s primary comic relief and Ken’s only friend. He does his best to warn Ken about the school’s various characters, including the smelly kid, the neo-Nazi clique, and Julie, the beautiful girl in math class. Played by Christine Taylor (Ben Stiller’s wife), Julie is a sweetheart but has fallen into the pattern that most attractive high school girls tend toward: she dates an asshole.

Around these parts, that asshole is Tom (McLeod), a kickboxing whiz with his own gang of jerkoff lackies. While he oozes confidence and has hair to put Flock of Seagulls to shame, Tom is also violently overprotective. His standard operating procedure: fight anyone who talks to his girl. Ken doesn’t get the message, which leads to several beatdowns that leave Ken bruised and his spirit broken.

Billy, now working as a janitor, finds the teen in the aftermath of one of these confrontations and eventually teaches Ken how to defend himself. In assuming the role of the tough but soft-spoken guru, Blanks seems far more natural and relaxed dramatically than when playing cops or former special forces soldiers. His usually stiff line delivery is mostly absent and while he’s a quality action lead, he’s up to the task as a strong supporting character here. The only downside is that Blanks keeps the lid on his trademark fight screams and awesome facial expressions. There’s also an interesting behavioral nuance to flesh out his character; he’s often tinkering with random electronic circuitry. To what end, though? A time machine? Robot? We never find out, but Billy has bigger fish to fry. Namely: illegal fights and his past. (Neither of which are fish, but everything is better fried.)

Years after the house party incident, Lee is a changed man. He has well-kempt facial hair and stylish turtlenecks. Once an obnoxious drunkard acting a fool, he’s now a stoic and feared martial-arts sensei who teaches that “successs is control” and “control is success.” Fuckin’ genius. Tom is his top pupil and a regular competitor in Lee’s illegal underground matches and his right-hand chick, Kate (Dona) actively recruits new talent for the festivities. Unfortunately for them, Billy catches wind of their venture and aims to put an end to it.

Unlike most other movies aping Karate Kid, Showdown has some semblance of self-awareness and knows what kind of territory it occupies. During training, Ken is cleaning toilets under Billy’s supervision. He stops and concludes that, based on these unorthodox Miyagi-lite training methods, he’s learning martial-arts techniques. Not so, Billy says, you’re learning humility. I call bullshit on this: it’s just a way for Billy to get Ken to do his shitty janitorial work.

The film nearly chokes on its own saccharine sentimentality but Blanks manages to dislodge the blockage with several kicks to the diaphragm. While the action isn’t spectacular, it’s passable. Blanks and legendary stuntman James Lew have a fairly entertaining fight which sees them lay waste to a high school drama set. While they're few and far between, Kilpatrick's action scenes are scripted competently enough to mask his lack of martial-arts training. Instead, Kilpatrick goes the pro wrestling heel route with his character by playing to the crowd, gouging eyeballs, throwing opponents into guardrails, and using his belt to whip fallen opponents. Not very sensei of him, but it works.

Aside from the maudlin overtones, my biggest criticism with the film is the music. The film's main score sounds like something that would play over the opening credits of a TGIF sitcom in 1990. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned to dig rock tracks or orchestral scores during my fight and training montage scenes but keyboard arrangements don’t cut it. They make these scenes a lot less dramatic and not even the occasional sax line can save them. You throw some stabby synths or squealing guitar in there and the movie instantly takes on a more brutal ass-kicking tone.

VERDICT
While not a great movie, Showdown is a personal sentimental favorite from my formative years and one of the better Karate Kid clones of its era. It does nothing new but Radler is a competent director, it has some fun moments, and there’s enough action to keep your attention. Even better, there are legitimately good performances here. As the villains, Kilpatrick chews up all kinds of scenery and McLeod is sufficiently dickish as the thirtysomething attempting to play a high school bully. Asher is a total cornball but stops short of being outright obnoxious and as mentioned, Blanks is great as the mentor and father figure. Kenn Scott is a reasonably sympathetic central character and his martial-arts skills are adequate (as an aside, he went under the latex shell to play Raphael in TMNT: Secret of the Ooze.) He also sorta looks like mini-Ben Stiller all jacked up on Pixie Sticks so maybe his brand of short, dark, and handsome is what prompted Christine Taylor turn to her future hubby’s show on MTV and say “He will be mine. Oh yes, he will be mine.”

AVAILABILITY
Your best bet is VHS but you might luck into an out of region disc on Amazon or EBay.

5 / 7

China O'Brien (1990)

PLOT: After an accidental shooting, a big city cop quits the force and returns to her rural hometown to find an evil network of businessmen and crooked officials plotting a power grab. Somewhat predictably, they discard their plans after she bats her eyelashes and asks them in a cutesy Southern drawl to help her fix a flat tire.

Director: Robert Clouse
Writers: Robert Clouse, Sandra Weintraub
Cast: Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Keith Cooke, David Blackwell, Patrick Adamson, Steven Kerby


PLOT THICKENER:
Humid Southeast Asian jungles. Maximum security prisons. Sparsely populated rural American towns. What do all these things have in common besides a lack of wi-fi hotspots? They’re all popular locations for action films. Unlike the more exotic settings, the small town is often perceived as warm, friendly, and familiar. It is positioned as a place to which those from the same humble beginnings can return to rest their heads after long tours of globetrotting, war, or big city prosperity. Of these small-town action flicks, too few have had female martial-artists in the lead role. Cynthia Rothrock, titular star of Robert Clouse’s 1990 film China O’Brien, kicks that disparity right in the throat.

O’Brien is a martial arts instructor and tough-as-nails cop in an unnamed big city. She strikes fast, kicks hard, and shoots straight. Unfortunately, the latter of those is what lands her in trouble; during an off-duty altercation she shoots an armed assailant who happens to be a minor. Wracked with guilt, she resigns from her post, vows to never again use a firearm, and heads back to her quiet hometown to escape the city’s hectic pace and its alternating odors of urine, garbage, and fresh-baked pizza.

The first stop on her return home is the local police department, where her father serves and protects as town sheriff. She instead finds his second-in-command, Deputy Lickner (Adamson). While he possesses none of the same charm or dramatic chops, Adamson undoubtedly attended the Joe Spinell School of Bad Skin and Wispy Facial Hair. In addition to his kindly nature, he sports a sweaty mullet and some equally unkempt sideburns. But if cinematic history has taught us anything, it’s to never trust a supporting character with a moustache.

While continuing her search, O’Brien comes across old friend and flame Matt Conroy, played by frequent Rothrock collaborator Richard Norton. It’s unclear as to how this Australian martial artist joined the U.S. Special Forces only to end up in Hicksville, U.S.A. as a high school teacher jogging with his students, but the important thing to remember is -- HOLY SHIT LOOK AT NORTON’S STUBBLE. Serious Don Johnson action going on there.

O’Brien’s next stop is the local watering hole, the Beaver Creek Inn. Owned by a local businessman by the name of Sommers, it’s a good place to grab a drink and solicit a prostitute before getting in the inevitable bar brawl. Unfortunately for O’Brien, small-minded rural intolerance rears its ugly head as a former classmate (i.e. sex worker) finds her use of multisyllabic words to be insulting, and the bartender derides her “chop suey” fighting when the tension boils over into violence. Over dinner that night, she finds out from her father that the Inn and many other parts of town have been rotted to the core as the result of Sommers’ influence.

During the bar scrum, we’re introduced to a mysterious drifter named Dakota (Cooke). An avid dirtbiker and arcade game enthusiast, he also wields what looks like a medieval hand vice designed to prevent masturbation. How he’s able to play Asteroids with it is a total mystery. We learn in time that it’s actually a permanent fixture of his hand after being irreparably mangled years ago by Sommers’ goons. (IMDB SEZ: Cooke’s hand was legitimately broken before China O’Brien started filming and was written into the story.) Throughout the rest of the film, Dakota trails China and proves righteous by helping her during moments of danger.

That danger comes in the form of the Sommers Gang of Evil Hick All-Stars. Apart from his legitimate business dealings, Sommers is involved in judge-buying, cop-corrupting, meth-making, lady-torturing, and many other hyphenated criminal activities. Worse yet, after unceremoniously forcing Sheriff O’Brien out of his job, Sommers is chomping at the bit to install one of his cronies as the new head lawman. China and friends refuse to allow that to happen and she announces her intent to run for her dad’s old position.

The back-half of the film resembles 1972’s The Candidate if Cynthia Rothrock were cast instead of Robert Redford, and had more choreographed violence and car bombings and less thoughtful commentary on American politics in the age of television. China O’Brien demonstrates that elections are not won or lost because of canvassing, parades, and populist ideology but rather on voter trust, hard work, and turning every campaign rally into a full-contact martial arts demonstration.

Despite the obviously low budget, veteran martial-arts director Robert Clouse does a fair job of filming the action and giving the fight choreography room to breathe; cuts are in the flow and he uses a good mix of shots to blend movement together. While the villainous stuntmen in the film offer little resistance and even less martial-arts prowess, their collective timing is good and their falls are convincing, thereby making the heroes of the film look sufficiently bad-ass. There’s something oddly satisfying in watching Rothrock beat the shit out of obnoxious drunks and crooked rednecks, and Norton and Cooke are as great a supporting cast as you could get for an action movie at this time. Norton utilizes some brutal arm-based takedowns and even mixes in a few pro wrestling moves (ex. cross-body block, dropkick) while Cooke gets to show off his athleticism and kicking prowess, broken hand and all.

Perhaps lost in the excellent fisticuffs is the film’s rather subversive subtext. I’d argue that China O’Brien is a cinematic treatise on the dangers of firearms; inciting incident aside, none of the heroes fires a weapon in vanquishing their well-armed adversaries and O’Brien explicitly mentions more than once that she’ll never pick up a gun again. The film isn’t overly preachy on this point, but it does allow Rothrock and company to focus on the strengths and virtues of their respective martial-arts crafts instead of trying to match the firepower of the opposite side.

VERDICT:
If I theoretically told you that a film was filled with drinking, politics, fighting, and car bombs, you’d likely assume it was about the Irish Republican Army. Fortunately, China O’Brien is all of those elements and a bit more and is really just a fun romp of an action movie. You can tell that Rothrock, Norton, and Cooke are enjoying the material and Clouse directs with a steady hand in making a tidy and well-paced cult actioner. Of her American films, this is almost definitely Rothrock’s best as the lead performer.

AVAILABILITY:
Flailing in dreaded Save limbo on Netflix and will cost you a pretty penny on Amazon if purchased new. Your best route is to buy used, buy VHS, or the *cough* YouTube clips *cough*.

5.5 / 7

Under the Gun (1995)

PLOT: Over the course of a single evening, a nightclub owner is thrown into a pressure cooker of maladies: gangsters, corrupt police, drugs, marital problems, double-crosses, a red-eye flight to Mexico, and a really persistent pimp. Fortunately, all of these issues can be resolved through kickboxing.

Director: Matthew George
Writer: Matthew George
Cast: Richard Norton, Kathy Long, Robert Bruce, Peter Lindsey, David Serafin, Ron Vreeken, Roland Dantes


PLOT THICKENER:
Multitasking has almost always been trumpeted as a virtue. Whether it’s attending a conference call while manipulating pivot tables in Excel, or drinking a gin and tonic and smoking a cigar while getting a lap dance, multitasking allegedly makes life easier and more efficient. Is the ability to complete several tasks during the same time frame ever a bad thing? If you’re a disgraced hockey player turned nightclub owner named Frank Torrance, abso-fucking-lutely.

Played by legendary Australian facekicker Richard Norton, Torrance has a lot on his dinner plate: the baked potato of uncertainty, the skirt steak of deception, and the grilled asparagus of bad luck. His backstory is not entirely uncommon: he was a successful pro hockey player sentenced to a year in prison after refusing to testify in a teammate’s drug trial. Following incarceration, he utilized his business acumen to open a nightclub backed by capital from the Italian mob and is now forced to run errands for them, usually drug deals. If I recall correctly, this describes nearly half of the NHLPA 93’ roster for the Sega Genesis.

The film opens with Frank closing a heroin deal with a crew of Triads led by Filipino action legend Roland Dantes and things quickly go awry. After pummeling the Asian gang members in a tornado of splinters and China White, Torrance walks away from the wreckage with the drug money and the stash. His plan is simple: screw over the Triads and his mafia backers, steal the drug money, falsify a purchase ledger so he can sell his club to an interested buyer, and oversee completion of the club’s expansive renovations in time to board a plane to Mexico with his wife later that night. As fate would have it though, there are a few sugary bumps along the road in this cakewalk.

Since the club opened, Torrance has had his old hockey teammate Harry (Lindsey) on staff as head of security. To repay this compassion from a guy who did a prison stint over his drug scandal, Harry has devolved into a stuttering and aloof junkie. So despite the mutual loyalty, it’s no great surprise that Torrance hires a fellow ex-con named Tom (Serafin) who expresses interest in working as a bouncer. Can he be trusted? In an effort to save time on the background check and payroll set-up, Torrance instead kicks his ass to test his mettle and Tom passes with flying colors. This was practically the same hiring process at Papa Gino’s when I was 15 years old.

Meanwhile, a businessman named Linpow pays a surprise visit to the club with his accountant in tow, and they want to close the deal to buy the property. Only problem? Frank’s accountant has the business ledger and has gone missing. To stall the proceedings, Torrance entertains his company with a premium blend of booze and a blonde, gyrating woman.

Unsurprisingly, the surprises don’t end there. Triad enforcers come to the club looking for revenge and the stolen drug money, the gyrating woman’s pimp gets progressively more agitated, and an old police friend named Lisa Krause (Long) shows up to warn Frank about a corrupt cop with a vendetta (and a swanky eye-patch -- yarrrrrr!) Inevitably, all of these elements boil over in a climactic goulash of bullets and blood.

Martial-arts film plots in the West are notorious for being either riddled with cliches or needlessly convoluted. Rather uniquely, George takes the most direct path to both: in combining so many cliches he achieves convolution. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because he weaves the different threads together well and the film’s pace kept me invested throughout the runtime. In keeping the plot points fairly shallow, George is able to avoid getting bogged down for too long in any one of them, and he uses the action very effectively to flesh out the film.

It goes without saying that I like my action like I like my women: consistent, creative, and extremely violent. That said, despite the fact that it goes without saying, Under the Gun is one of the hottest women I’ve seen. At least this week. The action quotient runs high and Norton brings a ton of experience to the table in choreographing each fight sequence. While most of the other actors are bulkier and therefore not as quick, Norton and Long still put their skills to good use and shine. Norton in particular has some choice moments using props like mops, pipes, and lamps to fight off enemies. There’s even a portion of a fight in the club’s alleyway where Norton predates a set-piece used in Ong-Bak by a good eight years. After walking through a puddle of freshly-spilled cooking oil, he voluntarily puts his feet into a burning fire and starts fire-kicking the shit out of his adversaries.

Norton isn’t all flash and fire, though. I’ve admittedly not seen a ton of Richard Norton starring vehicles outside of his work with Cirio H. Santiago where he played a brooding loner in various post-apocalyptic wastelands. Elsewhere, he’s been cast as the gwailo villain, one half of a tandem, or a supporting character in an action ensemble cast. Under the Gun is very much Norton’s movie though, and it gives him a chance to show off some humorous touches and acting chops. When the scene requires it, his demeanor fluctuates from sarcastic to serious, frustrated to exhausted, enraged to relieved. He also strikes a blow for every consumer burned by shitty airline service by first expressing agitation (“Bitch!”) then anger (“Fucking bitch!”) to a snooty customer service rep. He’s not going to win any Oscars for his dramatic skills, but Norton’s Frank Torrance is a more fully-formed character than we’re used to seeing from him specifically and martial-arts films in general. For an authoritative lead performance from Richard Norton, this film is a great place to start.

Did I mention he kicks a dude while his shoes are on fire?

VERDICT:
In the end, Under the Gun is the portrayal of one man for whom the ability to multitask ultimately betrays him. If he had instead renovated his club on Monday and Tuesday, then sold the club on Wednesday, and fucked over the gangs on Thursday before flying to Mexico later that night, he could avoided such an action-packed mess. He also could have taken advantage of Thursday airfare rates, which are typically cheaper than flying on Fridays. Lesson learned here? Don’t procrastinate.

AVAILABILITY:
In permanent "Save" limbo on Netflix, but this shouldn't cost you more than $10 on Amazon.

5 / 7

Breathing Fire (1991)

PLOT: Michael Moore is your normal single dad juggling the balls of life with both hands: raising two teenage sons, being an awesome kickboxer, coping with memories of ‘Nam, and organizing bank robberies.

Directors: Lou Kennedy, Brandon Pender, Brandon De-Wilde
Writers: Wayne John, Raymond Mahoney
Cast: Jerry Trimble, Jonathan Ke Quan, Eddie Saavedra, Bolo Yeung, Ed Neil, TJ Storm, Drake Diamond

PLOT THICKENER

If you’re one of the millions of people who’ve pined to see Bolo Yeung dressed in full drag and later fight Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, then 1991’s Breathing Fire is here to make your filthy fantasies come true. The film is not unlike a fine jambalaya or any entree where you have free range to throw as much random shit in as you want. When cooked down and allowed to thicken, Breathing Fire is one of the most slapdash absurd action movies you’ll ever see.

Case in point, the film starts off with a shadowy figure seated at a table full of hundreds of fake plastic foods. Using a knife, he saws off a fake pepperoni from a fake pizza and kisses it.

Right.

Jerry Trimble stars as the villainous pepperoni-kissing Michael Moore. Calm down, conservatives: he’s not lampooning the populist documentary filmmaker. By day, Moore is a dedicated father to his adopted son, Charlie (Ke Quan) and his preferred son, Tony (Saavedra). After dropping the kids off at their latest karate tournament, he transforms into the leader of a gang of bank robbers.

After donning a clever disguise consisting of a moustache, a walking stick, and dark sunglasses, Moore and his friends launch into action. Each of his other four partners plays an crucial function during the operation, perhaps none more important than Thunder (Yeung), who stands in line with the customers while dressed as a mild-mannered 250-lb. Chinese grandma. Despite a firm warning, the teller goes for the alarm but gets punched for his efforts, the customers freak, people get fucked up, and the mayhem gives Thunder an opening to rip off his lady wig and rip out some poor banker’s hair.

Bolo is an absolute fright dressed as a woman, and I don’t know why his character opted for granny attire. The other disguises required nothing more than a moustache or a sports-coat. Thunder either lost a bet or just feels more liberated beating people up in a dress.

On the periphery in this latest burglary is Moore’s Vietnam combat buddy, Peter Stern (Diamond). As the bank’s manager and Michael’s tenuous insider ally, he’s a reluctant participant but offers up the vault’s code when Thunder pays him a visit in the men’s john. For this valuable contribution, Thunder slams Peter’s head in the bathroom door and then dunks his face in a toilet bowl of his own urine. That’s what you get for letting the yellow mellow, hippie.

The gang stashes the loot in a vault at a steel refinery, and we then discover the reason for the fake plastic pizza. Moore uses it to make an imprint of the vault’s keys on the underside of the pizza, destroys the originals, and then distributes each pizza piece to the gang members. Only after things have settled down and and the group reconvenes will everyone get their share. Most will find this plot device not so much clever as it is indicative of fake foods being easy props to come by for a low-budget film production.

That night, Peter returns home to his wife and daughter and they react in horror to his facial welts and urine odor. He’s like, “whatever, just another Wednesday” and retires to his study to pack away his piece of fake pizza. He gives his daughter, Annie, an envelope and tells her to go mail it and gives his wife the pimp-hand when she suggests they call the police. On her way to the mailbox, Annie is distracted outside by wandering swans in bow-ties and party hats and is luckily absent when Moore’s gang pays a visit to the Sterns’ front door. Not surprisingly, they kill Peter and his wife. Did I mention this all happens on his birthday?

 The intended recipient of the aforementioned envelope is David Moore, an alcoholic mechanic who sleeps under newspapers at his workplace and drives around town in a 1988 Ford Molester Van (S Series). When Annie visits him to drop off the letter, he’s puzzled by the piece of plastic pizza and the plot thickens when a few goons posing as cops stop by and ask for Annie. Action ensues and the flood of danger prompts Dave and Annie to drive off to a safe-house: his brother Michael’s pad. (Dun dun dun!)

Michael and David, via clumsy flashback, reminisce over their Vietnam days and we see how Michael came to adopt his Asian son. Apparently, if you killed someone in combat, it was common decency to adopt their orphaned children and bring them back to America. After spending his tour of duty fighting Viet Cong enemies, Michael thought it appropriate to name this Vietnamese boy “Charlie.”

At any rate, the teenage brothers are excited to finally meet their Uncle Dave and express interest in mooching off his fighting wisdom. In time, he begrudgingly teaches them how to punch phonebooks and watermelons and sweat a lot while having their shins hardened by bottles and bricks. Among other quality opponents, they test their new skills against some dwarf bartenders and a fat, clumsy gang member living with his blind mother. (Tony and Charlie can be real assholes).

As all of these unstable elements collide, Michael gets increasingly paranoid and evil, Charlie goes through a brief identity crisis, Dave gets progressively drunker and more suspicious of his brother, and Thunder stands around killing life with his cold stares and pectoral flexing because he’s Bolo Motherfucking Yeung.

The action scenes in Breathing Fire are fairly good. The fights are fast, fluid, and choreographed well. While horrible editing usually sinks these scenes, it somehow enhances them here. Bolo is fantastic, Trimble is his usual kick-happy self, and Ed Neil was a really pleasant surprise. Apart from the great climax, there’s a hokey but enjoyable dance-club brawl, two little people who clearly studied the book on Comedic Midget Wrestling Moves, and no less than ten people flying through glass panels or breakaway tables.

 

The film was helmed by three directors, and while this might be a clever way to disperse the blame for a shoddy production, it’s an efficient way to divide up the day’s work. Kennedy: you take the scenes with the robotic line delivery where the actors fail to emote properly. De-Wilde: you film the scenes where someone is getting thrown through glass. Pender: shoot the oily training scenes and the unnecessary tournament fights in the middle school gymnasium. Of the three, only Pender would continue a career in film production, and with credits like UWF Fury Hour producer and Steele Justice sword fight coordinator, it’s not hard to see why.

VERDICT:
While Breathing Fire is dogged by poor production value, it’s easily the best film to utilize random movie props clearly stolen off a studio lot. The unintentional comedic highs of the movie are among the best ever filmed in the American martial-arts genre; in an ocean of schlock, this is no easy feat. All the requisite trademarks of a fine Gruyere punchfighting film are here: bad editing, weak writing, visible mats, training montages, cardboard boxes, a random dance/exterior painting scene from TJ Storm, awesomely bad line delivery, and convoluted plot points. This film is an absolute rip-roaring treasure of action cinema. Go queue this up now, put the beers on ice, and invite over all your friends.

AVAILABILITY:

Amazon, Ebay, Youtube, Netflix.

6 / 7

King of the Kickboxers (1991)

PLOT:
There are two main types of family dramas in cinema -- those with tearjerking human conflict and those with kickboxing. You should be able to guess which camp 1990's King of the Kickboxers falls into. If you said “both,” give yourself a silver star for being half right.

Director: Lucas Lowe
Screenwriter: Keith W. Strandberg
Cast: Loren Avedon, Billy Blanks, Keith Cooke, Sherrie Rose, Richard Jaeckel, Jerry Trimble


PLOT THICKENER:
Two American brothers leave an arena following the elder’s victory in a championship kickboxing match in Thailand. While the younger Jake is worried that the locals are pissed about a foreigner winning, the older and wiser Sean is all “STFU Jake, they just wanted a good fight. You’ll learn these things when you’re older and you understand the cost of razors and free markets and the warm caress of a woman.” During the ride home, they come under attack from a gang of thugs led by the villainous Khan, played by future fitness guru Billy Blanks. Why? Because apparently, the locals are pissed that the American won. After a thorough beatdown, both brothers are left for dead, but only one actually dies.

A decade later, Jake is an undercover New York City cop with a penchant for purposely blowing his own cover to force confrontations with criminals. In the aftermath of the most recent incident involving an impressively mulleted dealer played by Jerry Trimble, the lieutenant gives Jake a harsh reprimand. But Jake knows that the means are secondary as long as the bad guys get put away and we get that sweet delicious oil. To get the loose cannon out of his hair, the lieutenant wants to send him to Thailand to infiltrate the martial-arts snuff film underground. Because of the traumatic events of his youth, Jake balks at the proposition. He takes the case file home anyway, perhaps hoping for a misplaced episode of the Arsenio Hall Show on one of the videotapes.

As Jake and his dog watch a film from the file that night, he laments the waste of time that is straight to video martial arts films. This made me question how I choose to use my free time. But an actor in the film catches his eye and he pauses on a close-up of a menacing and familiar face. He reflects deeply, like Michael Keaton in the first Batman film when a televised statement from the Joker triggers the traumatic memory of a young Jack Napier fatally killing Bruce Wayne’s parents in front of him and we all feel the boyhood tragedy of future Batman. But Jake’s epiphany isn’t so much dramatic or heartfelt as it is an insert of the first ten minutes of the film. A phone call from the lieutenant snaps him out of this trance and Jake angrily reneges; he’s taking the assignment and he’s going to Thailand. With his master out of the country for the next several weeks, the dog makes plans to hump every piece of furniture in the apartment.

It doesn’t take long for Jake to impress his brash arrogance upon everyone he meets after arriving in Bangkok. He makes contact with a grizzled vet from Interpol but scoffs at any suggestion that he’ll follow a pre-heated plan from some covert stooges. Later, a neighborhood kickboxing academy accommodates his unwelcome visit and he repays their hospitality by pummeling several students. He even has the gall to interject when a gang of thugs has a whimpering American girl cornered in an alley. He gains their trust by feigning interest in a gangbang then wins the confidence of the distraught victim by beating up the miscreants. We learn that that the woman, Molly, is not unlike so many other American girls who dream of fashion shoots, Paris runways, and fame but end up in Thailand as sex slaves in high-waisted pants.

Why was she fleeing in the first place? Because an evil snuff film production company forced her into a hotel room rendezvous with Khan, their biggest star. Rather than subject herself to poorly acted martial artist sex, she smashed through a bathroom window and fled. This was apparently not an anomaly. It's widely-known that Khan has had a long streak of bad luck closing the deal. Even with sex slaves.

So the film bosses try to keep Khan as happy as they can by duping talented fighters into thinking they’re starring in exciting films when they’re really just chum for a vicious Great White shark of a man who is actually black … or Afro-American, if you prefer. I’ll give you a few seconds to have your mind blown by the mixed metaphor of kickboxing sharks with afros.

The constant need to replace dead talent with new talent leads the film bosses to notice Jake’s tussles around town. But they’re not the only nipples who have perked up as a result of his brawling ways; an advanced fighter from the kickboxing academy has been trailing Jake and confronts him about Khan. In a gesture of goodwill, he kicks Jake’s ass to show him that his fighting sucks and then directs him to get training from an alcoholic master named Prang who lives in a remote hide-out with a chimp. It’s a weird relationship, but it’s the 90s – who are we to judge?

Prang (Keith Cooke) is your classic martial arts film archetype who has infinite fighting wisdom but is content to get shitfaced all the time. Like any drunkard, he is prone to rambling incoherently and tries to convince Jake to “hear the sound of one hand clapping.” But what he lacks in communication, he makes up for in physical training. He prepares Jake for Khan’s trademark kicking combo using a swinging set of logs (y’know – because they’re just like a person’s legs.) And requisite Groinalyzer: check.

Following his training, Jake gets in on the local underground fighting action and finally makes contact with one of the snuff film representatives. He agrees to appear in the company’s pending production but is unaware that Khan’s recent suggestion that their films should involve more “tension” and “people” means that the classical acting motivation methods of “kidnapping” and “murder” are going to be utilized.

On the day of the film shoot, Jake shows up to a set inspired in equal parts by Beyond Thunderdome and not having enough money left in the budget for metal and settling for bamboo. He makes quick work of a few scrubs before being confronted by Khan. The final showdown unfolds much like one would expect: there’s a lot of grunting, one-liners, Billy Blanks shirtlessness, and both guys drooling uncontrollably while getting hit in the face.

VERDICT:
Following No Retreat, No Surrender 3, King of the Kickboxers was the last film in what could have been a long and rewarding marriage between Loren Avedon and Seasonal Film Corporation. Avedon was one of the most talented American screen martial artists of that time and his quickness was a good fit for the Hong Kong-style fight choreography which marked that subset of films. While he’s done many films since, Avedon never looked better from a fighting perspective; the final blowoff between he and Blanks is arguably the best fight scene of either actor’s career and while no one will confuse it for the climax of Drunken Master II, it’s an eminently watchable showdown. This also marked a rare villain role for Billy Blanks and the film does a good job of portraying him as a legitimately cold-hearted bad ass, wooden dialog delivery aside. It’s got kicking, ‘splosions, drunk gurus, comedic chimps, and glorious late 80s hair and fashion and is a must-own entry in any B-action movie collection.

7 / 7