Fists of Steel (1991)

PLOT: A former boxer and Vietnam veteran is called into action after a terrorist group executes his father. The head of the group is hiding out in Hawaii, under the assumption that the prohibitively expensive airfare and living costs will keep away federal investigators.

Director: Jerry Schafer
Writer: Jerry Schafer
Cast: Carlos Palomino, Henry Silva, Marianne Marks, Kenny Kerr, Sam Melville, Robert Tessier, Alexis Arguello, Rockne Tarkington

PLOT THICKENER

So many b-grade action films of the 1980s and ‘90s have featured professional kickboxers as the lead stars, but few of them attracted strict practitioners of the sweet science. One might think that some of boxing’s finest trash talkers -- from Roy Jones Jr. to James Toney -- would have made the transition to acting in droves, but that was not quite the case. Marvelous Marvin Hagler starred in a couple of Italian b-movies (Indio, Indio 2, respectively) and Ken Norton broke into movies in the late 1970s with Mandingo and its sequel, Drum. Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini was prolific in supporting roles throughout the ‘80s, and Sugar Ray Leonard appeared in the 1997 Gary Daniels film, Riot. With more than 30 acting credits to his name, though, few boxers had the dramatic seasoning of former welterweight champion of the world, Carlos Palomino. With massive and loyal fan bases in Mexico and Southern California, he was well-positioned for a move into Hollywood. Filmed in 1988, tested theatrically in 1989, and finally released to video in 1991, Fists of Steel was his foray into action movies as a leading star.

Carlos (Palomino) is a former boxing champion, a doting father to a little girl, and a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War. He’s also a complete unknown within the American national security apparatus and its adversaries, which makes him the perfect candidate for a dangerous mission. His veteran pal at the C.I.A., Bobby Breenberg (Melville), reaches out to Carlos after his team comes into possession of a videotape that depicts Carlos’s father being killed at a terrorist camp run by Shogi (Silva), a sadistic drug kingpin and terrorist mastermind currently hiding in Hawaii. Due to information leaks and Shogi’s apparent familiarity with agency personnel, no one has been able to disrupt his activities or infiltrate his network. Every agent who got close shared the fate of thousands of innocents, and got killed. However, as an outsider, and compelled by vengeance for his father’s murder, Carlos may be the right man to cut off the “head of the snake.”

In addition to his military background, peak physical condition, and hand-to-hand combat prowess, Carlos has another ace up his sleeve: his hands were reinforced with steel, giving him exceptional knockout power (as Breenberg awkwardly dubs them, his “puños de acero”). In looking over the file on Shogi and his number-one assassin, a former KGB agent, Katrina (Marks), Carlos disregards any illusions about a quick and efficient termination of his target, stating that “[Shogi’s] gonna die slow, and mean, and hard.” His only other demand of Breenberg and his C.I.A. unit is that he work alone, with his own trusted group of friends from Los Angeles.

One of these friends puts Carlos in contact with Girl (Kerr), a big-haired singer who seems to know every shade of questionable character in the nightlife scene, including drug dealers like Saylor (Tessier). Carlos’s hope is that by scoring some narcotics, he’ll have a ticket into the supply chain, and he can then work his way up the ladder to Shogi. Will he be able to infiltrate the madman’s defense and put a stop to the senseless killings? Can he trust Girl and the other people he meets in the Aloha State? Will he be able to quickly and frequently traverse the island given the cost of gas, or instead be forced to ride a bicycle to get from one location to the next?

Hold onto your butts, this is a wild one. From the opening scene, the Henry Silva performance we failed to get in Trained to Kill is here in all of its bizarre splendor. Shogi kicks off the film with a trio of odd killing scenes. In the first, he dresses up in a baseball uniform to pummel an informer to death with a baseball bat (but only after turning on a lively dance track, and activating a disco ball and fog machine to liven things up). In the next scene, he dresses in a dentist’s outfit and drops hydrochloric acid into an agent’s open eyes. And in the final scene to cement his status as the film’s lead antagonist, he oversees the daytime stabbing of a man in a public park from the comfort of his limo. As a refined evildoer, Shogi likes death in high volume, and his booze at exactly 78 degrees fahrenheit. 

In a 1988 Sports Illustrated article published after production wrapped, Palomino and Jerry Schafer both had high hopes for how Fists of Steel would impact the theaters and the Mexican-American self-image. Palomino noted his character was “saving the youth of American from drug runners,” and Schafer believed it would “do for middle- and upper-class Hispanics what ‘The Bill Cosby Show’ did for similarly situated blacks.” Sadly, the film never saw a proper theatrical release and if its rarity on the VHS resale market is any indication, it quickly fell out of circulation on home video.

Its obscurity is exacerbated by a strangely simple issue: the title. Efforts to find it using your favorite search engine on title keywords alone will most likely lead to the 1993 Dale Apollo Cook and Cynthia Khan team-up, Fist of Steel (also known as Eternal Fist). But it could also lead to this Time-Life book about the Third Reich or even this box set of Chuck Norris movies -- yikes! These cases of mistaken identity seem appropriate for a film interested primarily in themes and issues of identity. Carlos is a Vietnam vet who gets coaxed into a covert operation by the Caucasian friend with whom he served, but once he takes the assignment, he refuses any direct help from that friend or the institution that employs him. Instead, he relies solely on his network of Mexican friends based in Los Angeles. The subtext is that for Carlos, his ethnic and social identity as a Mexican man trumps his experiential identity as a military veteran; he finds more trust and security among social peers than his operational cohorts. 

Kerr prided himself on his ability to impersonate famous women, from Cher to Barbara Streisand and more. He was a trailblazer and pioneer for the art of drag performance, and a huge star in Las Vegas, but did not identify as a woman. It’s more difficult to find that line of distinction with his character, Julie “Girl” Darcel, though. Virtually every character in the film refers to Girl with the pronouns of “she/her” and while it’d be nice to think that Shafer & Co. were attempting to strike a progressive blow for transgender equality in an era that frequently and woefully mishandled certain gender expression as deviant or evil, that good will is almost totally eroded by an unnecessary reveal in the last act of the film. Nuanced questions around gender identity on a blog about b-grade chopsocky films is a rare commentary, I’ll grant you that, but if the topic makes you uncomfortable you can always watch some Steven Seagal movies for a macho safe space. Regardless, Kerr is really good in this role, and his tense interrogation scene with Silva was a high-point for me. 

There are other identity-focused story threads as well. The C.I.A. operatives mention that Shogi is a man of ambiguous Middle Eastern origin, but Silva makes no effort to play the part in that way. As Katrina, Marks’s vaguely Russian accent comes and goes. In a scene that was clearly designed to offend as many people as possible, Breenberg dresses in brown-face and women’s clothing in order to surprise Carlos as a hotel maid, solely for the purpose of nudging him into a vacant room for a mission status report. All of this adds up to a wildly paranoid tone that presumably tries to demonstrate that things nor people are ever as they seem. The only exception is our hero, Carlos, who is definitely Mexican, undoubtedly a former boxing champ, and presumably a guy with steel joints and knuckles: “puños de acero.”

VERDICT

Fists of Steel is a surprisingly original film that stands out from the pack due in large part to the strengths of its performances. Kerr’s performance is terrific and he consistently steals scenes throughout the film. Palomino is a likable lead star capable of carrying the movie on his back, and Silva alternates between suave and unhinged as only he can. Throw in an unpredictable script, solid action, two completely bizarre book-end scenes, and you’ve got a cinematic gift that keeps on giving. 

AVAILABILITY

Difficult to find on official physical media. Seek the gray market, my friends. This film is worth it.

5 / 7

Raw Force (1982)

PLOT: A group of martial artists from a California karate club board a cruise ship destined for Warrior’s Island, a remote stomping ground for undead martial artists. Will they make it to their destination or be forced back to port on account of a norovirus outbreak?

Director: Edward D. Murphy
Writer: Edward D. Murphy
Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Geoff Binney, John Dresden, Jillian Kessner, Rey Malonzo, Ralph Lombardi, Mark Tanous, John Locke, Hope Holiday, Carl Anthony, Jennifer Holmes

PLOT THICKENER

The martial-arts-horror film is a difficult cinematic feat to pull off convincingly. The action needs to be done well enough to satisfy the chopsocky crowd, but the horror needs to have the right set-up and scares. That’s not always the most natural fit. Imagine, then, also trying to squeeze in the silly and salacious antics of a sex comedy, all set aboard a cruise ship. On paper, this shouldn’t work! On screen, it sometimes doesn’t! On a toasted bagel, it’s delicious! To hell with our pre-conceived notions, though, because filmmaker Edward D. Murphy had a vision for 1982’s Raw Force (a.k.a. Kung Fu Cannibals) that I can only assume was informed by the consumption of late-night spaghetti, Love Boat re-runs, and psychedelic drugs (in reverse order). Let’s dig in.

On an island somewhere in the South Pacific, the souls of disgraced martial artists throughout history -- some are samurai, others are Shaolin monks -- are doomed to an eternity of fantastic weather and drinks served out of a coconut. A group of evil monks living on the island (led by Filipino acting legend Vic Diaz) has determined through trial and error that by sacrificing females and eating their flesh, they can actually conjure up the island’s undead and deploy them to do their bidding. (Eating fish just made the undead twitch slightly and go back to sleep) . But while the island has plenty of undead martial artists and pure jade, it completely lacks women. An opportunistic German with a Hitlery moustache named Speer (Lombardi) employs a hippie named Cooper (Tanous) and his pals to kidnap sex workers on the mainland and fly them to the island in exchange for the monks’ precious jade. If you ever forget how the laws of supply and demand work, this is a good example to mention in your Economics class.

Outsiders have dubbed this spooky, isolated corner of the world, “Warrior’s Island,” and a niche tourism industry has sprung up around it. Ship owner Hazel Buck (Holiday) and her ship captain, Harry Dodds (Mitchell) operate a leisure cruise liner for which Warrior’s Island is a port of call on the voyage. The latest round of curious tourists includes a few handsome dudes from the Burbank karate club, Mike O’Malley (Binney), John Taylor (Dresden), and Gary Schwartz (Locke). Joining them aboard are the usual tourists, like married couple Ann and Lloyd Davis (played by Holmes and Anthony, respectively), and a couple of secretly great fighters -- Los Angeles SWAT team bad-ass, Cookie Winchell (Kesner), and a friendly guy named Chin (Malonzo).

Dodds steers the ship while squabbling with Hazel, the booze flows without pause, people pair off for random sexual escapades, husbands step out on their wives for unfaithful excursions, and everyone is having a grand old time. But when a couple of the passengers encounter Speer and Cooper on the mainland during one of the kidnapping operations, all hell breaks loose. The baddies follow them back to the ship with reinforcements and board the ship with bad intentions that have nothing to do with abuse of the buffet service. Will the cruise goers be able to fend off these party crashers? Will our heroic tourists make it to Warrior’s Island to take in the sights? Better yet, will the boat run out of ice or rum?

If you like your cinema weird and wild with a musty grindhouse stank, this is the flick of your dreams. Despite trying to stamp this flick with so many hallmarks of the exploitation cinema of the day, and doing none of it especially well, Murphy still manages to wrangle all the elements together for an enjoyable movie. It’s flawed but fun! Raw Force fell right in the middle of Cameron Mitchell’s prime check-cashing run (some will say it lasted a couple decades) but he’s motivated to steal scenes and has good chemistry with Hope Holiday, his then-girlfriend. The ship’s cast of characters are a good mix, but I can’t lie: I couldn’t tell the Burbank karate bros from each other at all, making the presence of Kesner and Malonzo -- and their high usage rates in the fight scenes -- all the more essential. The villains are mostly good. The monks are creepy, cackling, and lecherous. Speer is a terrific shit-bag villain. The weak link in the coalition, believe it or not, might actually be the army of undead martial artists. They have a decent look (dirty with the blue hue of the Dawn of the Dead zombies) but they turn out to be rather terrible and unthreatening fighters.

Before “fight choreographer” became a standard crew credit in action films, there was the catch-all “stunt coordinator” position, occupied here by Mike Stone. (Most will remember him as “Tojo Ken” in American Ninja 2; he did fight choreography for four of the films in that franchise). Outside of Rey Malonzo, I’m not sure how many members of the Raw Force cast were serious martial artists before they got to this film set, but the fight scenes are enjoyable for what they are -- energetic without being especially technical. Case in point is the cramped cabin fight between a thug wearing a helmet with a swastika while throwing around gasoline -- let's call him Gas Nazi -- and an unusually vociferous guy who will just not stay down no matter how beaten up he gets. His persistence becomes almost comical as he screams and kicks his way through the bathroom door behind which Gas Nazi is hiding out, and stuffs his head into a toilet. Did I mention there’s a nude woman strapped to the bed the entire time this fight takes place? Again, this is a strange movie.

VERDICT

I’ve made no secret about my admiration for the kitchen-sink film, that rare work of cinema that throws everything at the problem of filling a solid 80-90 minutes of screen time -- planning, money, and logic be damned. I'll even admit I have a tendency to overrate them, but I love what I love. Raw Force is yet another example of that wacky witch’s brew previously seen in films like Devil’s Express, Furious, and Demon Master, and it has just enough spooky stuff for you chopsocky heads looking to get that seasonal fix. Recommended.

AVAILABILITY

Raw Force is streaming on Amazon Prime with a Shudder subscription, but do yourself a favor and pick up the Bluray from Vinegar Syndrome.

4 / 7

Dragon Hunt (1990)

PLOT: Twin kickboxers fight for their lives as an army of misfit mercenaries attempts to hunt them down in the harsh Canadian wilderness. While the flannel is optional, moustaches are required.

Director: Charlie Wiener
Writers: Michael McNamara
Cast: Martin McNamara, Michael McNamara, B. Bob, Sheryl Foster, Heidi Romano, Curtis Bush, Ed Tyson, Charles Ambrose

PLOT THICKENER

There's a memorable scene in the 1993 action vehicle Back in Action that finds Billy Blanks's hero character fighting off an identical pair of mustachioed, Zubaz pants-wearing goofs of athletic build and below-average height. "Who ARE those dudes?!" I recall blurting out within the safety of my own stupid brain. It was only a few hours later that I discovered that these particular dudes were Michael (Mick) and Martin McNamara, Canada's own "Twin Dragons." (Ha! Take that, Jackie!) Not only had the twins made a successful living as martial arts instructors in their native country and promoted kickboxing matches all over the world, but they produced three of their own films where they were the stars. 1990's Dragon Hunt, a quasi-sequel-ish follow-up to their debut in 1986's Twin Dragon Encounter, promised double the action, double the facial hair, and approximately eight times the vanity as their first film.

In what one can only assume is an autobiographical tale, the McNamara brothers play twin Canadian kickboxing instructors named Martin and Mick. A twisted creep with a metal hand by the name of Jake (Bob) leads his private army -- er, the People's Private Army -- in framing the twins in a cruise boat hijacking. This act is not entirely without cause, as we observe via flashback that Jake is a previously vanquished adversary who lost his hand in a prior encounter of the Twin Dragon variety. If that's not bad enough, Jake contracts two attractive ladies -- played by Sheryl Foster and Heidi Romano, respectively -- to court the twins and lure them to a secluded island under the guise of a getaway vacation. Before long, the twins are captured by Jake and forced to act as prey in his own twisted version of a most dangerous game. His gang has used every method available to them, up to and including placing ads in "all the mercenary, hunting, and martial arts magazines" in order to find the best hunters, killers, and poachers in the world to hunt the twins down for a $250,000 (CAD) prize. Jake's mercenaries include expert trappers, whiteboy ninjas,  a "beastmaster" in a cowboy hat (Tyson) who owns a furry dog, and a lot of guys with terrible haircuts. The only arbitrary rule: no guns allowed. (Until the climax). Can the twins survive in the Canadian wilderness with the deck stacked against them? Will Jake get his ultimate revenge? Can the cast and crew manage only one restroom among them (per co-star Curtis Bush)?

Let’s get this out of the way: the heroes McNamara are total jerks in this film. At the start of their vacation with their lady friends, one twin snaps a girl’s bra strap while another twin mimes humping the back of the other girl’s head. While driving a boat, one twin pours a perfectly good beer all over one of the gals while she's sitting down and minding her business. The first fatal strike they make against Jake’s army is killing the Beastmaster’s dog instead of the goons for hire. Later in the film, they chase an enemy through the woods while taunting him about his weight. Maybe skull-humping, body-shaming dog murderers are celebrated as heroes in some parts of the world, but not in my house.

As the ruthless gang leader, Jake, B. Bob is both the best and worst thing about the film. His visual look strikes the right balance between loud-mouthed 1980s wrestling manager and walk-on extra in an Italian post-apocalyptic b-movie. His gruff, stilted dialogue ("trained assassins -- ruthless, fanatical, I LIKE THEM") is frequently hilarious and his incessant screaming is appropriate to match the campy tone of the film. However, his constant reliance on reciting fight songs and modified nursery rhymes is grating and not especially funny. If you thought the songs in City Dragon were an insult to the musical form, Jake's improvisations might be regarded as a cultural war crime. A certain segment of the viewing population will be entertained by these segments, and I want nothing more than for these people to fall victim to violent spasms of diarrhea while sitting in traffic.

The action builds in intensity and scale the way it should in genre action films -- Dragon Hunt gets this part mostly right. The rustic trap setting (a la First Blood) becomes more elaborate, the kills get more gruesome, and the firepower becomes louder and more frequent. The major misstep amidst all of this, though, is having two martial artists as stars and not featuring them in more than a couple of fights. Who do we have to blame for this oversight? The star martial artists themselves. One scene finds a twin battling a crossbow-wielding Curtis Bush -- the only other verifiable martial artist in the film, by my estimation -- but it's short-lived and a bit bland. The climax sees the twins deploying every weapon in their arsenal, punches and kicks included, but the fight is dogged by slo-mo and lacks any interesting exchanges or combinations. Instead of going with relative strengths -- actual fighting -- the McNamara twins oddly chose the more "Eighties!" option of traps and guns. This was the film's biggest weakness and a baffling decision when you consider the personnel.

VERDICT

Dragon Hunt is the second in three self-made McNamara films, and regardless of what you think of them from a quality perspective, you have to admire the gusto of the twins' effort. At the the end of the day, though, this story is derivative, the acting ranges from stiff to goofy, and the action isn't executed well enough to counteract the missteps in other areas. An odd, occasionally entertaining curiosity.

AVAILABILITY

The only official copies never made it beyond VHS, so eBay and Amazon are your best bet. Occasional do-gooders have uploaded it to YouTube.

2.5 / 7

A Dangerous Place (1994)

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

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

PLOT THICKENER

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

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

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

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

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

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

VERDICT

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

AVAILABILITY

Amazon, eBay.

4 / 7

Only the Strong (1993)

PLOT: A former military man returns to his old high school to find that teen delinquents reign supreme. He hopes to transform a dozen of the school’s worst offenders with an experimental class in the Brazilian martial art of capoeira. If that doesn’t work? Jazzercise.

Director: Sheldon Lettich
Writer: Sheldon Lettich, Luis Esteban
Cast: Mark Dacascos, Geoffrey Lewis, Paco Christian Prieto, Stacey Travis, Richard Coca, Roman Cardwell, Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter



PLOT THICKENER
There’s a moment in 1999’s Zoolander where fashion designer Mugatu, played by Will Ferrell, leans towards a colleague during a climactic (and cheesy) showdown and blurts, “they’re break-dance fighting.” As performance elements, dancing and fighting for the screen are more closely related than at first glance. Dance-like rhythm was a style marker in Chang Cheh’s fight choreography for his Shaw Bros. films. (And Jackie Chan might say the same about his own work). Revered action stars from Cheng Pei Pei to Michelle Yeoh and Moon Lee relied on their years of dance training in lieu of formal martial arts experience to perform their early action film roles. Regardless of whether “dance fighting” is an actual thing -- it’s not! -- those who lurk in the DTV shadows most likely got their introduction to it with 1993’s Only the Strong.

Following a tour of duty in Brazil, a United States Green Beret named Lewis Stevens (Dacascos) is honorably discharged, and then returns to his hometown of Miami, Florida. As one is want to do after a few years of military service, he visits his former high school teacher and mentor, Mr. Kerrigan (Lewis) on the job. What he sees shocks him: kids are carrying weapons, ignoring authority, getting into fights, and even dealing that sweet Bolivian marching powder. When he encounters an escalating conflict between a student and his drug-dealing older sibling (Anderson-Gunter) on school grounds, Lewis is prodded into action and shows off capoeira skills that both astound and intrigue.

Following the incident, Kerrigan goes to his peers during a teachers meeting with a proposal. Since none of their efforts to discipline or teach the students has worked, he wants to hand over the classroom reigns to Lewis for an off-campus course in capoeira. Despite some initial hesitation among the group, Kerrigan wins their approval and is cleaning up a shithole firehouse with Lewis before you can say, “weird subject matter for a montage.”

The dozen students assigned to the course are as bad as their reputations. They blare music from ghetto blasters, they wield furious mullets, and they even wear baggy pants! After a short period of adjustment, though, they’ve gone from scowling to dancing (in capoeira, the ginga). From pulling knives, to pulling each other off the ground without further incident after accidentally kicking each other in the face. From dressing like punks to dressing like male models in a Banana Republic catalog photo for casual beach wear. (Capri pants will never look tough, but at least the students look comfortable wearing them). For the moment, Lewis’s methods are working.

Old habits die hard, though. The most unpredictable of the students, Orlando (Coca), is having a difficult time walking away from the easy money that his uncle, Silverio (Prieto) provides to him through work at the local chop shop. Try as he might, Lewis has no luck in talking sense into Silverio either, despite the slumlord’s admiration for his capoeira skills. As posturing turns to violence, how will Lewis protect his new students? What about his old high school flame turned forward-thinking teacher, Dianna (Travis)? Or his mentor, Kerrigan, who’s a tough old bastard, but let’s face it, shouldn’t be messing with gangbangers? Better yet, how will Lewis protect the sanctity of the classroom and alternative teaching methods for future generations? Yes -- there’s that much riding on this.

Few chopsocky villains have taken so much interest in accelerating urban decay in his city as the treacherous Silverio. A cross between Vega from Street Fighter II and pro wrestling’s Razor Ramon (even down to the colorful vests), he’s a despicable gang leader and capoeira badass without any redeemable qualities. Prieto didn’t do much after this other than a role in Street Law (we’ll cover it), but he’s terrific here. The character of Silverio is pretty much exactly what you want in a good b-movie chopsocky villain: he says ridiculous things, acts like a prick all the time, and dresses like a total asshole. Great hair, too!

While I’ll stop short of calling Lewis Stevens dry toast, he’s surprisingly wholesome despite a few allusions to a troubled past. The educational-do-gooder-as-action-hero isn’t yet a tried and true formula and I wasn’t totally convinced by the cultural sea change illustrated here. That’s not to say that I find selfless people insufferable, but as someone who spends too much time drinking really good scotch and making poor life decisions, I sometimes have difficulty relating to them. Dacascos still gives it his all, playing the hard-ass when the kids need it, dispensing humor where appropriate, and showing off excellent form in every fight scene.

At the helm is frequent Jean-Claude Van Damme collaborator, Sheldon Lettich. I’ve always found his technique to be solid but unremarkable, and his third film is no different. He gives the fight choregraphy space to breathe and mixes in cool camera angles, overuses montages (including the requisite “progress through cartwheels” one), and juggles a lot of characters and plot points. Where he really succeeds is in the pace. I recall being underwhelmed when I first saw this movie as a teenager, but I was struck by his observance of one of the great unspoken “rules” of action cinema where something compelling -- plot development, humorous moment, fight scene, etc. -- happens every 15 minutes.

(Author’s Note: This review was finalized before learning of the passing of actor Geoffrey Lewis. He was great in this film, just as he was in so many other movies. I really do love him in everything and will miss his presence on the screen).

VERDICT
As Dacascos’s first real lead role, it’s easy to see why he’s had such a long and prolific career. On the same token, it’s a bit puzzling to me why he didn’t become a bigger star -- he’s charismatic, humorous, and a terrific on-screen fighter. All of those traits are on various degrees of display in Only the Strong, and despite the Disney-esque saccharine moments and plenty of 90s cliches, it’s an enjoyable film with interesting characters and a good redemption story. Recommended.

AVAILABILITY
DVD on Amazon and eBay.

4 / 7

American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987)

PLOT: When Marines go missing from a military base in the Caribbean, two Army Rangers are brought in as reinforcements. Before they can help in the investigation, however, they must plaster the neighborhood with "LOST MARINES" posters and raise enough money for a $10,000 reward to incentivize the local population.

Director: Sam Firstenberg
Writers: Gary Conway, James Booth
Cast: Michael Dudikoff, Steve James, Larry Poindexter, Michelle Botes, Gary Conway, Jeff Celentano, Mike Stone, Ralph Draper

PLOT THICKENER
When I publicly acknowledged in my review of the first American Ninja movie that the entire series was a shameful blind spot, it felt as if a huge Dudikoff-sized weight had been lifted off my chest. Without any fears of sentimentality coloring my critique, I could enjoy these classic films on their own merits: the limp grasp of ninja mythology, the whiteboy-in-Eastern-philosophy adventuring, the frequent fight scenes, and the lasers -- my god, the lasers. I was apprehensive, still; to break the seal of reviewing the first film was daunting considering the sequels to come. As a general cinematic rule, sequels tend to diminish in quality, but as evidenced by franchises like No Retreat, No Surrender and Ring of Fire, that rule goes out the window with martial arts b-movies. More accurately, it gets jump-kicked through the window during a bar fight.

In this case, on the other side of that newly broken window is Steve James, and he's laughing and flexing all the while. Returning to the fray as Army Ranger Sgt. Curtis Jackson, he and Sgt. Joe Armstrong (Dudikoff) have recently been assigned to a Marine base to help protect the American embassy on an island in the Caribbean. Life is good for the local Marines. They surf, chase girls, get hammered, and due to some anti-American elements on the island, must rock Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts instead of their standard uniforms to blend in. Even the base's brash commanding officer, Capt. "Wild Bill" Woodward (Celentano) is dressed for a Jimmy Buffett concert.

Because of his culturally appropriated ninja-sense, Armstrong knows something is fishy right off the bat, and it's not the local shrimp tacos. (Shrimp are technically decapod crustaceans, not fish). Jackson and Armstrong are first invited to go water-skiing by a few of the dudes from the base. Guess what? There's no fucking life jackets. The boat mysteriously breaks down and drifts ashore to an isolated island beach. The shifty Marine is all, "oh, how strange... let's go swimming everybody" and Armstrong says "I'm afraid of sharks, I'll stay with the boat." Within moments, he's attacked by a gang of ninjas who throw every manner of ninja  weapon cliche at him: the spears, the confounding net, the stars, the swords. Even while dressed in a three-quarter-length wetsuit and white cross-trainers instead of his normal ninja gear, Armstrong prevails and the gang makes it safely back to base.

Even though Woodward has no idea what ninjas are (how typical), he grants Armstrong and Jackson a week to investigate further. They have a hunch that these ninjas may be related to a spate of kidnappings of Marines. Really, Joe? You think the random beach ninjas, kidnapped Marines, and shifty Marine who ran the boat ashore and into a sabotage might be connected? As it turns out, all of these things were mere coincidences and the kidnapped Marines were actually just busy with a bunch of sex workers, the ninjas were a local indigenous culture hostile to outsiders, and the shifty Marine was actually just a terrible driver. Kidding! Joe was totally right. A local heroin kingpin called The Lion (Conway) has been using a kidnapped biological engineer to create an army of ninjas out of kidnapped Marine DNA to protect his vast drug empire. Do you see why pro-lifers are so concerned about stem cell research? This is the shit that happens.

After exploring some super-serious dramatic territory with the first American Ninja, it was interesting to see that director Sam Firstenberg could lighten the tone with the second installment. The movie is zany throughout, and pretty much everyone got the memo. Dudikoff seems a little detached -- there's only so many Blue Steel glares I can tolerate -- and he makes some odd wardrobe choices like a leather jacket and jeans tucked into his boots. (We're in the Caribbean, mind you). James pretty much steals the show once again as Sgt. Curtis Jackson, so no surprises there. Mike Stone is pretty enjoyable as Lion's main muscle, Tojo Ken, and his build-up as the most threatening physical match for the heroes is well done, if completely illogical. (During quality assurance testing, he kills about 20 of the gang's own GMO ninjas). Jeff Celentano is a little stiff as Capt. Woodward, but sports a fine moustache and owns the best line of the film: "What is this? Ninjas? Drug pushers? My men getting kidnapped and murdered? This is really beginning to get on my tits." It's funny, because he doesn't actually have tits. If he does, they're pretty small.

While the movie treads a lot of the same action territory as the first installment -- heroes get jumped by ninjas, defeat ninjas handily, rinse, repeat -- there are some distinct differences. The most egregious is that Michael Dudikoff looks pretty awful in his fight scenes. A successful fight scene, in this humble writer’s opinion, requires that the stuntman act as if he’s getting hit, but also that the principal act as if he’s hitting him. Dudikoff acts like an interpretive dancer trying to complete a field sobriety test after a dozen Pina Coladas. When he’s not flailing, or throwing a weak kick, he’s doing movements without any regard for how the stuntman is moving with him. I counted at least three instances where he “threw” an opponent despite having no grip whatsoever on them. None of this is helped by the fact that Steve James brings intensity to his fight scenes, is deliberate but not stilted in his movements, and genuinely appears to be having a good time beating up those around him. It would be easy to point the finger at Dudikoff as a non-martial artist, but I think blame should be laid at the feet of Sam Firstenberg. The Koff looked passable in the first film, so what changed? One has to assume that director was lazy with the coverage and was forced to edit his way out of it.

VERDICT
Let’s recount: decent fights, a silly story, mostly unremarkable characters, and a lead actor who I may forever refuse to embrace as a martial arts action star. When all the critical elements are sort of neutral, your film would appear to be dead in the water, but you can still win a ton of points on overall form and pacing. I ultimately enjoyed the breezy runtime because there was always *something* happening: either a fight scene, a ridiculous plot point that moved the story forward, or some display of dated fashion sense out of a modern Williamsburg farmers market. While this film seemed to signal Dudikoff's waning interest in the franchise, the rest of the crew picks up the slack. Solid.

AVAILABILITY
Wide and salty, like the Caribbean Sea. Amazon, Netflix, EBay.

4.5 / 7