U.S. Seals II (2001)

PLOT: When a former U.S. Navy SEAL chief goes rogue and threatens to strike his own home country with a nuclear missile, a team led by his former subordinate is sent to an island near Siberia to stop him.

Director: Isaac Florentine
Writers: Boaz Davidson, Michael D. Weiss
Cast: Michael Worth, Damian Chapa, Karen Kim, Hakim Alston, Marshall Teague, Sophia Crawford, Andy Cheng, Kate Connor, George Cheung

PLOT THICKENER

I’m not sure when it happened, because slow evolutions are sometimes tough to observe as they're happening. As the direct to video action market began to slump, though, American chopsocky films left behind neon, rock ballads, and the breezy comfort of Zubaz pants to embrace the modern film landscape. Instead of the ambiguous threat of rich white old guys, some films turned their gazes towards things like unsecured nuclear arsenals in Eastern Europe. One of these films even traded in the smoke-filled halls of underground fighting for a methane-rich atmosphere that prevented the use of firearms. This is the world of 2001’s US Seals II, a landmark Nu Image film directed by Isaac Florentine, and for better or worse, a film completely devoid of actual seals.

Former PM Entertainment golden boy Michael Worth plays Casey Sheppard, a righteous lieutenant in a Navy SEALs unit under the command of Chief Frank Ratliff (Chapa). Stationed in Okinawa, Japan, the two are also classmates in a martial arts school led by Sensei Matsumura (Cheung). When Casey discovers that Ratliff has killed one of their sensei’s twin daughters (both played by Karen Kim), he tries to prevent his commander from burning the remains but gets knocked unconscious for his efforts. Matsumura, overcome with grief over his daughter’s death, commits suicide, and his surviving daughter, Kamiko, blames Casey and Frank for the grave misfortune.

Years later, Casey has left his service days and the tragedy of Okinawa behind. Ratliff has also been discharged and has transitioned into a full-time position as a terrorist, and his team of malcontents has just recently kidnapped nuclear physicist, Dr. Jane Burrows (Connor), to help them launch a Soviet nuclear warhead at the United States. Unless Uncle Sam digs into its deep pockets and pays up, that is.

This sets in motion a rapid and proportionate response from the military. Major Nathan Donner (Teague) feels a sense of personal responsibility, as the kidnapped doctor was under his supervision. Fortunately, the good doctor was “geotagged” and the military determines that she’s been transported to an island near Siberia. Unfortunately, this particular island has a large proportion of residual methane in the atmosphere from years of nuclear testing, and the slightest spark would set the entire area aflame. In order to rescue the doctor and prevent a nuclear war, Donner will need a team who can defeat the terrorists without the use of firearms.

He turns to Casey Sheppard, now a civilian and metal shop worker. Initially recalcitrant at the invitation, Casey takes on the mission when he finds out that Ratliff is the man behind it all. However, he’ll only do it on his own terms, with a team comprised of his hand-picked selections. His pal, Omar (Alston) will cost a pretty penny but is just the man for the job due to his martial arts skills. Convicted felon, Finley (Southworth) needs to be sprung from a chain gang but is up to the task. And despite her bitter feelings for Casey, Kumiko relishes the opportunity to get vengeance for her sister’s death. Can this team of misfits work together to save millions of lives from a nuclear strike? Or will someone light up a post-victory cigarette and set the whole shit-house up in flames?

Holy hell, this fucking movie. U.S. Seals II is that rare kind of film that you dig from the start, before growing increasingly irritated about its cheesy technical and plot-driven choices -- swoosh sound effects for mundane movements and atmospheric methane to explain away the use of firearms, among them -- and eventually just accepting it on its own merits, wacky warts and all. A lot of people have issues with Isaac Florentine. He’s one of the best directors of action cinema in the world but also has a tendency towards distracting indulgences that border on comic book gimmickry. Aside from the aforementioned devices, his direction is good here, and he provides second unit director Andy Cheng the opportunity to craft some incredible Hong Kong style choreography that makes the cast shine. The quality of the fighting in this film is off the charts for an American movie (aside from a clumsy and poorly lit underwater scuba fight that is every bit as fun to watch as it sounds).

Michael Worth, practioner of everything from Tang Soo Do to Escrima and Muay Thai, leads a terrific cast of veteran martial arts performers. Kickboxing champion and taekwondo black belt Hakim Alston (“The Machine” on WMAC Masters) didn’t do nearly enough films given his talent and charisma, but he’s fantastic here as the team’s wild card, Omar. I was disappointed with the amount of screen time Sophia Crawford had here given her legacy in Hong Kong film, but any time you get a performer of her talent in a U.S. film, good things happen, even if she’s relegated to “bad guy’s girlfriend” status as she is here. This also marks the first collaboration between Dan Southworth and Cheng himself, and the pair went on to design action sequences for Hollywood films such as 2003’s The Rundown and 2002’s The Scorpion King. In this film, however, they’re adversaries who beat the crap out of each other with a steel chain.

All that said, the most bad-ass kills are reserved for frequent Michael Worth collaborator and former Raiderette, Karen Kim (R.I.P.), pulling double duty as twin sisters Kamiko and Nikki. First off, she skydives out of an airplane with a katana blade! She ends her fights with garish brutality, slicing one unfortunate enemy in half from skull to groin, and stabbing another while doing an athletic back bend. Being that her sister was murdered and her father performed ritualistic suicide as a result, one could probably argue that this is simply her working through her personal issues. We all take different roads in life.

VERDICT

On the basis of fight quality alone, U.S. Seals II is a top 10 American martial arts film by a comfortable margin. The actors and stunt team are all up to the challenge of keeping up with complex Hong Kong style choreography, and the direction and editing make everyone look great. Throw in some colorful characters, a brisk pace, and some leftover bones, and baby, you got a stew going. Highly recommended.

AVAILABILITY

DVD on Amazon or eBay.

6 / 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

Fists of Iron (1995)

PLOT: A single dad with an engineering degree who works as an auto mechanic decides to pursue underground kickboxing after his friend is killed. Will his drunken has-been trainers teach him enough to avoid a similar fate?

Director: Richard W. Munchkin
Writers: Sean Dash
Cast: Michael Worth, Marshall Teague, Sam Jones, Eric Lee, Matthias Hues, Jenilee Harrison, Nicholas Hill, Lelagi Togisala, Michael DeLano, Art Camacho, Nick Koga

 

PLOT THICKENER 

Recent reports indicate that nearly half of college graduates got their first job outside their field of study. Taking a longer view, around one-third of college graduates will never work in the field in which they pursued their degree. I myself went to school for alternative medicine and now I work in the legal field. Hmm, or did I go to school and partake in self-medicating which wasn’t legal? It’s all a bit foggy (much like my dorm room at the time). The central character in 1995’s Fists of Iron may have wasted his college years by getting some newfangled engineering degree, but his job as an auto mechanic gives him enough money to live on the beach (in a mobile home), drink like a connoisseur (at a dive bar), and buy expensive clothes (baggy silk shirts and suspenders). Take that, higher education!

Dale (Worth) is the young and single father to an adolescent daughter. Things with his ex-lady didn’t work out, but Dale is a stand-up guy who made sacrifices to give his daughter a stable environment. He sold a business to help put his ex and his daughter in a proper home, while he lives the dream of residing in a mobile home on the beach like Riggs in Lethal Weapon. He makes his living as an ace mechanic during the day, and spends many of his evenings at a local watering hole with his best friend, Matt (Hill), getting into skirmishes with drunken riffraff. While attending a kickboxing event at the sprawling estate of a local fight promoter, the devious Peter Gallagher (Teague), Dale playfully reminds his pal of all the fighting he’s done on his behalf. Matt’s pride gets the better of him, and when a $2,000 open challenge to survive two minutes with Gallagher’s prized monster Victor Bragg (Hues) is announced, Matt is the first to throw his name in the hat. Surprisingly, he lasts the requisite 120 seconds and takes the cash prize home, but not without cuts, lumps, and internal bleeding to go along with it.

While recouping on the beach outside of Dale’s house, Matt succumbs to his injuries during a nap. Furious and filled with remorse over the death of his childhood friend, Dale does what anyone would do: he goes to the bar to get drunk. While there, he fends off a disgruntled customer from his car garage and then confronts two old-timers who were purportedly once fighters but now like to cut loose and observe instead of engage: Daniel (Lee) and Tyler (Jones). Dale asks them for their help so he can take on Gallagher and his fighters, but they rebuke this silly notion, and Tyler even stops Dale’s punch bare-handed when the young upstart gets frustrated. Because this is a 1990s kickboxing film, this resistance only lasts for about another 10 minutes. Before you know it, the pair of former fighters are instilling their wisdom in a fresh young fighter who’s gifted, as Tyler puts it, with “an iron fist.”

Due to this being such a cookie-cutter subgenre, I was prepared to hit the snooze button on this but was surprised at how much I enjoyed the film. The hero is sympathetic given his circumstances, Marshall Teague plays a terrific and dickish villain in Gallagher, and Sam Jones and Eric Lee have great chemistry with each other and with their trainee. This is one of those cases where a film becomes more than the sum of its parts because the performances are spot-on, and there's some humor peppered throughout to make these characters relatable. Sure, there are missteps. All of Gallagher’s fighters are dressed up in the most unintimidating K-Mart-level ring gear I’ve ever seen. It really undercuts the brutality of the monstrous Victor Bragg when he’s dressed in the same loose, star-print pants and matching cut-off sweatshirt that my mom used to wear to her aerobics class. The screenwriter went a bit too heavy on exposition-heavy dialogue at times, leading to some clunky, unnatural exchanges between characters. But when a movie features a line as unabashedly 1990s as “see the girls in the flowered vests to place your bets,” it’s hard not to jump on the bandwagon despite some flaws.

In an odd bit of serendipity, we’ve now covered consecutive films featuring actresses from the television show, Dallas. Jenilee Harrison -- who famously replaced Suzanne Somers on Three’s Company and played Jamie Ewing on Dallas -- appears here as a love interest to the story’s hero, much like her Dallas colleague Charlene Tilton did in Deadly Bet (see prior post). The tangled web doesn’t stop weaving there! The actress who replaced Harrison on Three’s Company, Priscilla Barnes, appeared in Talons of the Eagle as -- who would have guessed it? -- the hero’s love interest. Before he appeared in the Kickboxer sequels as David Sloane, Sasha Mitchell played the illegitimate son of J.R. Ewing on Dallas. Andrew Stevens -- who co-starred with Karen Sheperd in Blood Chase and directed Don Wilson in Virtual Combat -- played a hustler working for J.R. Ewing. Will the chopsocky film connections to Dallas ever end? More likely, it will puzzle and enthrall researchers for centuries.

Fight choreographer Art Camacho and director Richard Munchkin have worked together eight times, starting with 1991’s Ring of Fire and ending in 2004 in one of those hilarious chimpanzee action films. Either as a result of their cinematic chemistry or the efforts of a crafty second unit director, the fight scenes in Fists of Iron look quite good. Fighters' heads and the punches that hit them snap with intensity. Just about every fight is lively, with striking and countering combinations that make sense. Different fighters have distinctive styles and their abilities are showcased by camera angles that allow the choreography to breathe. Worth’s character tests his mettle against a variety of fighting mini-bosses, all the way up to his climactic fight with Hues’s heavy-hitting behemoth. Their match is fairly entertaining while still maintaining some semblance of believability -- the strategic advice dispensed by Dale’s teachers is actually deployed in the fight itself (and by extension, the choreography) and all too often, films fail to stick to this formula. Combine that with plenty of cutaway shots to people in the crowd dressed in the finest threads this era had to offer, and I’m a happy viewer.

VERDICT

Some will gloss over the plot of Fists of Iron and conclude, “another post, another kickboxing tournament film,” and they wouldn’t be wrong. The main difference between this film from many others with a similar story, is that this film has a lot of heart. It also has a bruised spleen, broken ribs, and cauliflower ear. The fight scenes are fun, the dynamic between the hero and his teachers is entertaining, and the film has some of the most amazingly weird underground fight tournament crowd shots I’ve ever seen. Dig it.

AVAILABILITY

Amazon, eBay.

4.5 / 7

 

Trained to Kill (1989)

PLOT: Following the murder of their father, two brothers must combine their skills and train together to fight his killers. Aided only by dirtbikes, denim, and a single spiked fingerless glove, they must "prepare," "prevail," and "survive," as dictated by the rock song that plays during their training montage.

Director: H. Kaye Dyal
Writers: H. Kaye Dyal, Arthur Webb
Cast: Frank Zagarino, Glen Eaton, Robert Z’Dar, Marshall Teague, Harold Diamond, Henry Silva, Ron O’Neal, Lisa Aliff, Chuck Connors, Kane Hodder


PLOT THICKENER
About eight years ago, I went on vacation in the Caribbean and found myself toweling off on a beach in St. Thomas. It would have been easy enough to drip-dry, because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was at least 90 degrees. I observed a heavy-set man jogging back and forth along the shoreline for at least 45 minutes straight. He was sweating harder than Kobayashi speed-eating ghost peppers. Why exercise so rigorously out here? The lack of shade and the uneven ground of the sand seemed like a surefire recipe for ankle sprains and heat stroke.

Beach training has been a fixture in action cinema ever since Balboa and Creed sprinted and splashed and bro-hugged their way into our hearts back in Rocky III. We’ve actually seen it here at least once before and I have no doubt we’ll see it again, but 1989’s Trained to Kill beach training montage may have shattered the mold with a four-minute sequence focused on the film’s two half-brother heroes. It’s an exceptional mix of varied exercises like abdominal leg throws and push-ups, blatant shirtlessness, an upbeat 1980s rock song, and gripping dramatic heft. Director H. Kaye Dyal uses the song’s bridge not to show his heroes meditating, but rather to show one of the brothers sucking face with his girlfriend.

The brothers find themselves on said beach following their father’s death. Ed Cooper (Connors), fresh off covertly rescuing his twenty-something Cambodian-born son, Sam (Eaton) from the jungles of Southeast Asia, had brought his boy home to sunny California. The escape doesn’t go unnoticed, however, and enemies from Cooper’s past reconvene. Following a coordinated jailbreak from a prison van, drug traffickers Walter Majyk (Z’Dar) and Felix Brenner (Teague) are reunited with cohort Loc Syn (Diamond) and gang leader Ace Duran (Silva). Old military buddies with a shared interest in smuggling heroin back to the U.S. during the Vietnam War, they want to get revenge on the man who dropped a dime on them and got Majyk and Brenner imprisoned over a decade ago: Cooper. Their other objective is to steal a small statue believed to be in Sam’s possession -- Duran has it on good authority that it contains diamonds with a black market value of $5 million.

Sam is initially guarded due to his upbringing in a war-torn hellhole, and is just getting to know his new family members, including a brother named Matt (Zagarino). This process lasts all of about six hours before his parents are gunned down (Mrs. Cooper) and set ablaze (Mr. Cooper) during a night-time home invasion by a masked and heavily armed Duran gang. While Matt was busy necking with his girlfriend Jessie (Aliff) off in some dingy back-seat, Sam is knocked unconscious by Loc Syn, but not before revealing the location of the mysterious box he brought to the States.

An emotional funeral at sea finds the brothers at odds. Sam reveals that he vaguely remembers who assaulted the Cooper home, and Matt is pissed that he didn’t divulge this to the authorities. He believes the brothers should tell the cops what they know, let the system work and justice will prevail. Sam, however, convinces Matt that the only way to eliminate trained killers is to go on the attack and fight them like animals. The brothers enlist the help of their father’s alcoholic military buddy, George Shorter (O'Neal) and he promises to train them as quickly as he can, with no assurances of sobriety. Will the brothers be up to snuff the next time they tangle with Duran and his death squad?

The span of film genres represented by this cast is nothing short of incredible. In no particular order, we’re gifted with The Rifleman (American Western TV), Super Fly (blaxploitation), Johnny Cool (crime), Maniac Cop (horror), Jimmy from Road House (action), and even Jason Voorhees (musical romantic comedy). Everyone plays their part to perfection. The brothers are convincing as fiery upstarts hell-bent on vengeance, and Eaton in particular is a lot of fun as Sam. While older brother Matt opts for denim and Hawaiian shirts or no shirt at all, Sam is fond of what appears to be a Members Only jacket and a single, spiked fingerless glove. Homeboy won’t even take it off when he’s prepping root veggies for dinner!

The action in this film is diverse and well-executed with a romping brand of energy. We get stalking night-time action, a Japanese-influenced sword fight, wild shoot-outs, rocket launcher attacks, dirtbike chases, dirtbike crashes into cardboard, carsplosions, hand-to-hand fights, throat rips, and shark tooth slashes. During a scene in a Las Vegas casino, Loc Syn gets so lathered up by the appearance of the brothers that he pushes a waitress, knocks out two security guards, and then throws himself off a balcony and goes crashing through a poker table just because it’s more fun than taking the stairs. The climax finds the brothers baited into a complex where Jessie is adorned in ragged clothing, chained to a post-apocalyptic jungle gym, and surrounded by flames. It’s epic on a budget, but epic nonetheless.

It’s impossible to discuss this film without highlighting Loc Syn, played by former Floridian kickboxing champion and Andy Sidaris favorite, Harold Diamond. A former military man by the name of Andrew Wilson, he went insane during his service, fell under the tutelage of Duran, and started calling himself Loc Syn for no reason other than it sounded cool and provided a 50% savings in syllables over his birth name. According to George, Syn’s mind “went south” and he started killing for the pure fun of it. He’ll fill both hands with wakizashis while grinning madly, but would rather rip out your larynx barehanded or clench a shark tooth in his front teeth and slash your throat up close. To his credit, Loc Syn refuses to let his sociopathic tendencies dictate his sartorial choices. He wears an array of threads -- fedoras, steel-tipped cowboy boots, dark shades, and tank tops with designer blazers -- in letting his fashionable freak flag fly. That he has virtually no lines in the movie makes him all the more intimidating; he’s seated between diabetes and high-blood pressure at the table of silent killers.

The rest of the villains are up to the task of providing both comic relief and teeming mounds of exposition. As military major and gang leader Ace Duran, Henry Silva showed up for probably no more than two days of shooting, but spouts enjoyable lines and appears to be having fun with the material. Other than a climactic scene where he rides the skies in a helicopter and rains shotgun blasts down on our heroes, he tends not to get his hands dirty, leaving that work to the aforementioned Loc Syn, and Brenner and Majyk. The latter pair have fantastic chemistry on screen, cracking jokes when they’re not talking shop in the goofiest terms possible. While hatching their plan to take out the Cooper brothers, Majyk strokes his machine gun and coos, “I love this piece, this baby’s real hard,” to which Brenner replies, “All right, let’s rock.” Did I mention that Majyk is stroking said firearm at a strip club in the middle of the day? That the onstage stripper is dancing like she’s at a family member’s wedding and “Don’t Stop Believin’” just came on? And that Kane fucking Hodder is working the door as a mulleted bodyguard?

VERDICT
I can’t say it any more plainly: if you love weird and wild action cinema of the 1980s, you owe it to yourself to find a copy of this film. It falls into that elusive category of “films that must be rewatched dozens of times until your eyes fall out” to gain an appreciation for all the weird character ticks, imperfectly hilarious action scenes, and preposterous situations it has to offer. The cast alone might be the genre movie fan’s wet dream but the movie overall delivers in spades. Highly recommended.

AVAILABILITY
Difficult but not impossible. The film never made the leap to DVD, but VHS copies (and rips, certainly) are out there.

6 / 7