Macho Man (1985)

PLOT: A boxer and a karate champion join forces to destroy a gang of heroin dealers in Nuremberg. Fortunately for the local tourism board, they fight only in bars and streets and away from the Schöner Brunnen and the Frauenkirche.

Director: Alexander Titus Benda
Writer: Alexander Titus Benda
Cast: Rene Weller, Peter Althof, Bea Fiedler, Jacqueline Elber, Michael Messing

PLOT THICKENER

At least a decade before organized mixed martial arts provided a platform to answer questions such as “who would win in a fight between a kickboxer and a really overweight sumo wrestler?” a somewhat obscure 1985 film from West Germany sought to provide clarity to a similar proposition, with a slight sartorial spin. (“Who would win in a fight: a guy with moustache in a fur-collar leather jacket, or a tall dude with a mullet in leather pants and a white scarf?”) Macho Man puts real-life boxer, Rene Weller, and karate expert, Peter Althof, in a tiny wardrobe closet and shakes it vigorously to see if they’ll fight. They do, but not in the way you’d expect and not necessarily against each other! This is one of Germany’s only contributions to the golden age of action b-movies; we’re in "tiefschnitt" territory, you might say. Or is it schwacher hintern territory? I always mix those up.

I’ll begin by answering two questions right off the bat that I know most of you are asking. No -- this movie has nothing to do with legendary pro wrestler “Macho Man” Randy Savage or the Village People song of the same name. And no -- this boxing actor is of no relation to the dude who played RoboCop. Sorry to be so negative, but facts are facts (unless they’re alternative facts)!

The streets of Nuremberg, Germany are being flooded with heroin by a dangerous drug gang headed up by a dude who looks like a sleazy, coked out version of John Ritter. One of his main dealers, Tony, is after a young woman named Sandra (Fiedler) because she had the audacity to help one of her best friends (e.g., Tony’s customer) to get clean and sober. One night, as Tony and his thugs assault Sandra and try to forcibly inject her with heroin on a poorly lit street, a local boxer named Dany Wagner (Weller) just happens to be driving home from practice and sees the fracas. He pummels the thugs and makes the save, but he also makes a mortal enemy in Tony and the other dealers. During the drive to her home, Dany invites Sandra on a date.

Shortly thereafter, Dany goes to a local bank and his path crosses with Andreas (Althof), a local karate school instructor making a routine deposit of dojo funds. The two fighters jointly thwart an attempted bank robbery by two goons (the getaway driver is beaten and captured by Andreas’s karate comrade, Markus, played by Michael Messing). And wouldn’t you know it: Sanda just so happens to work at the office of a medical doctor who treats a number of area athletes, including Andreas himself!

The blonde karate master initially sets his romantic sights on Sandra -- they attend a boxing card together where Dany is the headliner, unbeknownst to them -- and the story teases a love triangle. That is, until first-dan karate student, Lisa (Elber) flies into town on her private jet in search of private lessons, and begins to steal Andreas’s gaze and heart. The destiny of all four characters converge on a fateful night at the local disco, where Dany and Sandra are grinding out a glittery, denim-laden dance of seduction. Lisa and Andreas arrive with his karate posse in tow, and sparks of jealousy fly between the two men who are macho. (Is it jealousy over Sandra? Or jealousy over Dany’s amazing denim jump-suit? Inquiring minds gotta know). Recognizing the possibilities, Lisa goads Andreas into challenging Dany to the ultimate style vs. style match.

Will the two random fighters make good on following through with the fight of the decade? Or will the looming threat of the heroin gang derail those plans and get everyone hooked on China white? And what is Benda trying to say about the “macho man” archetype as a manifestation of toxic masculinity and the male gender as it relates to violence and sex? Ha, just kidding. Nothing much.

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, plenty of b-movie production houses formalized the practice of bringing seasoned competitive fighters into the filmmaking game as leading actors; this extended overseas as well. When this film was released, Weller was an accomplished professional boxer on the European scene but would only do one more film after this during his initial foray into movies (more on that in a minute). As a former heating engineer, jeweler, and goldsmith (and wow! … cocaine dealer?) we’ll have to assume his many varied interests were simply too consuming for a full-time career in acting.

In 1991, a half-decade after Macho Man was released, a German court forced the filmmakers to remove all of Weller’s sex scenes with Bea Fiedler from the film, per his request. (Surprising to see a professional boxer get beat to the punch by such a significant margin, but I digress). We’ll never know the extent to which this experience may have soured him on movies, but apparently not so much that he could resist the urge to come back for Macho Man 2, which is a real, actual thing being crowdfunded and made in 2017 for reasons I can’t understand (the website is in German and I literally can’t read it). On my big list of analogies I never expected to make, “Macho Man is to Germany as Samurai Cop is to America” was very close to the top.

Between the karate sparring, board (and rock!) breaking, boxing bouts, and the rumbles between our heroes and the various villains, the fighting scenes in this film are a mixed bag. The karate and boxing exhibitions, while broadly impressive on an athletic level and well integrated into the montages, aren’t likely to move the needle for most fight film fans. (How many close-up shots of boxing footwork are too many? This film doesn’t care!)

Where Macho Man really hits, however, is with its approach to street fights and bar brawls (one is preceded by a heroic watch synchronization scene). Consciously or not, Benda takes a few pages from the 1980s Filipino and Indonesia action movie playbook and made these fights dirty, smashy, and trashy. Breakaway furniture, strikes to the balls, and flailing strikes are just some of the tricks the filmmakers deploy to keep things chaotic. Throw in flowing scarves, crisp leather, and macho shit-talking in the German language, and the result is a unique and enjoyable blueprint that can be continually used without getting stale. Truly wunderbar!

VERDICT

If anyone ever doubts the pervasive influence of machismo-laden 1980s American action film at a global scale, one need look no further than Macho Man for evidence. The various fashions of the era -- the haircuts, the facial hair, the clothing -- mark it as an artifact of not just a particular time, but also a particular place. The Bavarian flavor here is extra funky, and almost entirely unique to the genre (the 1979 West German film Roots of Evil preceded it by a good six years). Recommended.

AVAILABILITY

For our pals in Europe, pick up the PAL DVD! For everybody else, dig in on YouTube.

4 / 7

Force Four (1975)

PLOT: When an ancient African artifact is stolen by criminals, four of New York City’s best martial artists are hired to recover it. Can they rely on the city’s metro system to get the job done or will their efforts be derailed by service delays and random detours to Queens?

Director: Michael Fink
Writers: Leonard Michaels, Janice Weber
Cast: Owen Watson, Warhawk Tanzania, Malachi Lee, Judie Soriano, Sam Schwartz, Wilfredo Roldan, Sydney Filson

PLOT THICKENER

Just like you never forget your first love, you never forget your first brush with Warhawk Tanzania. When I first watched Devil’s Express a few years back, I was sad to learn he only had one other movie credit to his name. Not like, listening-to-Joy-Division-in-a-dark-room sad, but sad enough to trawl the weirdest corners of the Internet to find it. Made in 1974 and released the following year by director Michael Fink, Force Four (a.k.a. Black Force) featured a handful of prominent and legitimate NYC martial artists of the day, including Warhawk. While it lacks the zany tone of Devil’s Express and remains obscure even by C-grade blaxploitation film standards, it’s an interesting artifact that portended what “could have been” for a group of New York City martial artists eager to enter the vast world of 1970s NYC filmmaking.

This film opens with a man carrying a briefcase walking down a city street. He's assaulted in broad daylight by a group of men and the briefcase is stolen. We learn about its contents when a mystery caller phones his martial arts master pal, Jason (Watson), to put together a team to find it. In short order, Jason assembles a team comprised of his best students: Adam (Tanzania), Eric (Lee), and Billy (Soriano). The martial artist friends discover that the briefcase contained an ancient African fetish artifact, the sort of priceless mystical art object pursued equally by shady black-market dealers and distinguished museums alike.

They immediately hit the streets to work their personal networks throughout the city for any information on who might have organized the robbery (for that gritty NYC feel, Fink shoots these sequences in a cinéma vérité style set to upbeat R&B music). On multiple occasions, their investigative efforts raise the hackles of various neighborhood toughs, and the heroes are forced to defend themselves during street brawls (while also fighting against the natural discomfort caused by their slim-fit bell-bottom trousers). Clearly, someone in the city is trying to discourage their sleuthing, but who? Will Jason and company locate the object before it gets sold to the highest bidder? And is there any scene in this film that isn’t filled with a joyous, funky, back-beat?

Similar to how companies like Concorde-New Horizons brandished screen fighter credentials (e.g., “PKA Lightweight Champion”) in their films’ title sequences, this movie spells out each actor’s blackbelt dan level to legitimize their skills (and nearly two decades before it was cool!) To really nail the point home, our heroes are introduced through an extended kata demonstration sequence to highlight everyone, capped by Jason extinguishing some candles using a wakashizi (short sword). This footage also serves to undermine any and all legal claims to ownership of the “Rocafella Diamond” hand gesture (pro wrestler Diamond Dallas Page sued Jay-Z in 2005 over infringement, who later filed for a trademark) because Warhawk definitely beat them both to the punch.

When I say something like, “the action in this film is solid for its era,” that’s usually my nice way of saying that: a) the choreography isn’t up to today’s standards; b) the fighters weren’t sure how to fight for the camera; or c) the filmmakers didn’t know how to shoot fight scenes.

So, the action in this film is solid for its era. I won’t belabor the reasons for why this film does or doesn’t satisfy the aforementioned criteria, but these were certainly capable martial artists. The  intricacy of those opening kata demos didn’t consistently carry over to the larger-scale fight choreography. There are some good exchanges between the main actors and those who I'd assume were dojo colleagues or students -- one guy even gets punched *up* into a tree! -- but the “selling” of the fight scenes is inconsistent among the stunt performers. Nearly everybody is fighting in bell-bottom jeans and platforms shoes too, so maybe we can chalk some of these hitches up to “sartorial limitations.”

It’s impossible to discuss the film without acknowledging the role that music, courtesy of actual R&B band, Life, U.S.A. plays throughout the film. They’re featured prominently during a “live” performance at a gangster's pool-side soiree that precedes the Force’s invasion of the estate, and they have several tracks that play throughout the movie, especially during scenes where the Force members are working the streets and shaking down various characters for information. Were one or more members of this band friends or family members of the filmmakers? Did production company Landfall Systems, Inc., pull some sort of power play and force their involvement as a condition of the funding? The music is very much of the time period, so it’s not exactly out of place, but it also drowns out some admittedly terrible ADR work during several scenes. No doubt, movies can benefit from music in a general sense, but the way in which it was included in Force Four had a tendency to distract from what was happening on the screen.

This speaks to the film’s bigger problem, which is pace and padding. There’s chemistry and comradery among the main players, yet so few scenes that actually highlight this dynamic. The primary plot device of the stolen African artifact is well-suited to put the wheels of the story in motion, but the first act of the film relies a lot on extended takes of the heroes walking and talking, while the last third of the film is unnecessarily convoluted with plot twists. Far too often, there are short bursts of action or plot development followed by longer stretches of not much happening at all. You can get away with a lack of production sheen or solid acting, especially for films from this time and genre, but missteps in scene setting and sequencing in an 82-minute movie can really amplify a film’s problems.

VERDICT

This came out two years after Three the Hard Way and just a year after Black Belt Jones, two seminal Jim Kelly films that set a pretty high bar for 1970s action movies with blaxploitation genre elements. Black Force doesn’t reach those heights, but it featured real-life martial artists performing their craft on-screen. When you consider the rise of the Dolemite (1975) franchise and other films like it -- non-fighters attempting a poor facsimile of martial arts to often comical effect -- local, genuine martial artists carrying a film and fighting on-screen was a rare treat. For the Warhawk Tanzania completist in all of us!

AVAILABILITY

VHS. Also currently streaming on Prime.

3 / 7

Ninja Busters (1984)

PLOT: Two unemployed friends join a martial arts school to meet girls, but must first contend with a fierce trio of enemies determined to confront them: discipline, maturity, and self-respect.

Director: Paul Kyriazi
Writers: Sid Campbell, William C. Martell
Cast: Eric Lee, Sid Campbell, Gerald Okamura, Carlos Navarro, Dalia Gutierrez, Nancy Lee, Frank Navarro, Juan Morales, Fumiko Takahashi, Harry Mok

PLOT THICKENER

It’s a rare thing in film or television to see a full-grown adult suddenly decide to start training in martial arts as a plot point (Seinfeld’s Kramer is an obvious exception). In most films, any portrayal finds a professional fighter training in the run-up to a big match or a hero who is depicted as a bad-ass from the very beginning. In both of these cases, his or her first entrance into the dojo (or dojang, for the taekwondo-inclined) occurred years beforehand. In Paul Kyriazi’s 1984 action-comedy Ninja Busters, two adult friends join a karate class after making a joint New Year’s resolution to make positive changes in their physical well-being. Just kidding. They join a class to meet women.

Bernie (Lee) and Chic (Campbell) are two pals who work together at a San Francisco warehouse owned by a purported crime boss. They’re fired (and beaten up) after snooping around some crates marked with a cryptic dragon symbol, and then beaten up again during lunch when they argue with some local bikers. After licking their battle wounds on a long walk, they observe a lesson through the window of a local karate school. Not only are the students great fighters, but most of them are women. In short order, the two friends join the school for all of the wrong reasons.

The school’s Master (Okamura) and primary teacher, Romero (Carlos Navarro) are shocked by the behavior of their new students. Aside from being lazy and undisciplined, Chic and Bernie won’t stop hitting on the advanced students, Kathy (Gutierrez) and Tina (Lee). Romero is inclined to give these idiots the boot, but the Master sees value in their presence; the teachers have an opportunity to learn the virtue of patience through a dogged effort to reform them. Will the masters succeed and turn these slobs into fighting machines? Can bikers, ninjas, street gangs, karate students, Vietnam vets, and black separatists peacefully co-exist? And is it possible to have too many amazing turtleneck sweaters in the same movie?

The success of the 2012 Alamo Drafthouse re-release of Miami Connection established a demand for slick, modern presentations of lost action films of the 1970s and 80s. The market responded with subsequent releases of films like 1984’s Furious (once only available on VHS), 1982’s Raw Force, 1990’s Killing American Style (previously unreleased) and the 26-year action odyssey, Dangerous Men. While it shares an earnestness and the “lost” quality of the aforementioned titles, Ninja Busters otherwise bears little resemblance. For starters, it’s a comedy that aims to be intentionally funny; you won't get much ironic enjoyment here. Kyriazi was also on his third feature film, after having cut his teeth in the film departments at both San Francisco State University and the U.S. Air Force. He got good production value out of the filming locations, so the limitations of its budget aren’t as visible as in other, similar films.

The comedic tone of the film is not unlike a lot of comedies of the 1980s; sometimes the jokes work, and other times the try-hard humor is a poor fit by today’s standards. Campbell, in particular, had a tendency to overdo the physical comedy bits, and much of the horndog behavior -- from 30+ year-old adults, no less -- came off as forced. (That the ladies at the martial arts school put both schmucks in their place for their stupidity helps to dilute the awkwardness, somewhat). On balance, the frequent deadpan humor and occasional visual gag tended to work the best, e.g., when the guys leave the dojo for a long run only to return with pizza sauce and regret all over the faces. We've all been there, amirite?!

Despite the emphasis on comedic elements, this didn’t necessarily carry over into the action choreography and manifest itself as full-on slapstick. A good majority of it is straightforward, honest martial arts. One sequence set in a junkyard -- where gangsters, ninjas, black separatists, and our heroes fight it out in a free-for-all brawl -- makes clever use of tires and swinging doors in the choreography. The film has a proper climax set in Romero’s Latin night club, and the fight choreography has a nice, flowing pace on the whole. Kyriazi worked with Lee and Okamura previously for 1981's The Weapons of Death, and it certainly shows in the action sequences.

VERDICT

As a film that attempts to blend elements of a prototypical 1980s comedy with martial arts, Ninja Busters is in a category all its own. There’s no doubting the earnestness that went into the performances and the filmmaking, but one’s mileage may vary because the humor is emphasized over the action, and falls flat at times. Despite this, it’s an interesting curiosity of the genre and definitely worth a watch.

AVAILABILITY

The Bluray release from Garagehouse Pictures can be had at Amazon and your finest online retailers.

4 / 7

The Master Demon (1991)

PLOT: One master demon. One severed hand. Ranchera music. One mesh half-shirt. Eight gallons of blood and make-up. Blend until smooth and then bake for approximately 81 minutes, or until set.

Director: Samuel Oldham
Writer: Samuel Oldham
Cast: Eric Lee, Gerald Okamura, Sid Campbell, Steve Nave, Ava Cadell, Kay Baxter Young, Tony Halme, Art Camacho

PLOT THICKENER

Among vampires, zombies, and men who are also wolves, demons can get lost in the horror movie mix. Cinematic representations of demons have ranged from frothing (Lamberto Bava’s Demons), to possessive and Assyrian (Pazuzu in The Exorcist), and even slapstick (The Evil Dead series). In his 1991 film, The Master Demon, director Samuel Oldham sought to expose a few of the traits conspicuously absent from the demon’s cinematic lexicon, freakishly high cheekbones and the ability to levitate gardening tools among them.

Centuries ago, there existed the White Warrior (Lee), a swordsman with an incredible mane of hair worthy of lead guitar duty in Motley Crue or Warrant. His primary adversary was the Master Demon (Okamura), a hideous underworld martial artist with a mastery of black magic. During a bloody mano-a-mano confrontation as part of the “Dragon Wars,” the White Warrior severed the Master Demon’s hand, disappearing him back to the world from which he came. The White Warrior, near-death from his wounds, brought the hand to a nearby monk, who performed some incantations and placed it under lock and key in a wooden box. To ensure the Master Demon never regained his powers, he couldn’t be allowed to become whole again.

Many years later, the White Warrior has been reborn as Tong Lee, a great martial artist but otherwise regular guy who likes mesh half-shirts and Mexican food. Similarly, the Demon Master walks among the living as shipping magnate (and art collector), Kwan Cheng. After a thief makes off with a certain ancient wooden box on exhibit in an art gallery, the two are drawn back into conflict. While reading from a sacred book, Cheng inadvertently conjures up the powerful Medusa (Baxter), another force from the underworld, who admonishes him for allowing the remains to be stolen before fatally breaking his neck. She tracks the wooden box back to a private investigator named Cameron Massey (Nave) who randomly received it from a crooked art dealer with a knife lodged in his head. (Who put it there? Medusa, of course!) The resulting scrum at Cameron’s apartment draws the attention of not only Tong Lee, but also the cops! Investigating detective Wayne Besecker (Campbell), Cameron, and Lee, are suddenly thrown together as humanity’s last hope against a resurgent Master Demon, Medusa, and an army of fighters.

Umm… where do I start? How Oldham pulled together this cast is a great mystery; it’s one of the more off-the-wall supporting casts I’ve ever seen, even for a low-budget martial arts film. Before he was a pro wrestler, politican, and recording musical artist, Tony Halme was just a 300-pound Finnish dude looking for film work, and he’s perfectly cast as a henchman who can’t be trusted with any dialogue. Ava Cadell -- most famous for her work as a sex and love therapist -- appeared in many bit parts in film and television in the 1970s and 80s, but has a fairly prominent role as Jan, Cameron’s secretary. (Her first scene involves quitting her job as Cameron’s secretary). The romantic pairing of Jan with Besecker felt like an odd choice -- their goofy, drawn-out love scene is a record needle-scratch moment -- but her quirky line delivery adds occasional humor to the story. Among all of these personalities, the most consistently imposing figure is cut not by the martial artist leads, but by female bodybuilding pioneer, Kay Baxter Young, who tragically died in a car accident in 1988. How her character of Medusa fits into the film’s mythos is never really explained, but when she can demolish an entire building with a single punch (this is a thing that happened), that level of detail is inconsequential.

The fight scenes are not so great, but they’re also not really why you’re watching this sort of film. Eric Lee and Gerald Okamura are both talented martial artists and they’ve done better action sequences in other films. The film features fighting book-ends involving them both, a scene where Lee flying through a window from the *outside* to jump-kick a guy in Cameron’s living room (awesome!) and a fat section in the middle of the film where the Master Demon’s army rumbles with our heroes in a parking lot. From a logistical perspective, this sort of dynamic (15+ fighters) can be a mess to manage. Oldham tries to break it down into digestible chunks by following each hero separately through different fights of roughly equal length, but the scene overall felt long as a result. It was also difficult to take Cameron seriously as a fighter due to his “Butte Police” shirt.

The director made some interesting choices in this film, some probably influenced by budget, and others probably influenced by a lack of time. YouTube has become a sanctuary for direct-to-video productions, and it’s the easiest way to watch this particular one, but I’d like to see how the original home video release compares to what I watched. In the version Oldham has made available on his YouTube channel, the title credit graphics and even some of the special effects reflect production technologies that appear a lot newer than the film’s 1991 release date. Was Oldham trying to improve on whatever was there originally? More specifically, there are some odd effects that occur when the Master Demon incurs a battle wound; instead of spurting blood or cutting to a gory close-up, laser-like tendons emerge from the injuries and they look like they came from some consumer-grade video editing program from the early 2000s. Curious choice, but perhaps the director felt a need to tinker after the fact.

Oldham’s other uses of horror elements are more effective. Some are traditional -- think smoke machines and strobe lights -- while others are garish, such as drill-torture and a quick cutaway to a bloody, faceless, skull. A scene in which Lee encourages his comrades to drink his blood to gain some of his powers features a convincing bloodletting effect not fit for the squeamish viewer. These visuals fit the film’s WTF aesthetics perfectly, and serve the director’s larger objective of a true genre mash-up. Also true to the horror film formula are the make-up effects used on Gerald Okamura’s demon; they range from dark, grotesque blobs to facial protrusions that would look right at home in your favorite Troma film or an art-rock album cover from Annie Clark and David Byrne.

VERDICT

If you were on board for 1985’s Furious and enjoyed the weird mix of martial arts and kitchen-sink aesthetics, this film might be the closest thing to its cinematic spiritual successor. That said, this film has a brand of try-hard charm that won’t vibe with some viewers, and it can be hit-and-miss. Personally, I really dig when young or first-time directors throw a lifetime of influences at the wall to blend it into a single film -- especially when they include horror, action, and Highlander-esque story elements -- and Oldham’s attempt is admirable.

AVAILABILITY

Amazon, YouTube.

3.5 / 7

A Dangerous Place (1994)

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

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

PLOT THICKENER

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

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

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

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

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

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

VERDICT

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

AVAILABILITY

Amazon, eBay.

4 / 7

Fight to Win (1987)

PLOT: After a humiliating loss, an arrogant fighter must relearn his craft from a new teacher who has a romantic past with their common enemy. It wasn’t very serious though -- they only got to second base before she called it off.

Director: Leo Fong
Writers: James Belmessieri, George Chung
Cast: George Chung, Cynthia Rothrock, Chuck Jeffreys, Richard Norton, Juan Chapa, Hidy Ochai, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Ronnie Lott

PLOT THICKENER

The early members of the West Coast Demo Team included founder Ernie Reyes Sr., Ernies Reyes Jr., Margie Betke, Cynthia Rothrock, Tom Callos, Scott Coker, Belinda Davis, Gary Nakahama, Dayton Pang, George Chung, and Soo Gin Lee. We can’t blame you if you don’t recognize more than a couple of those names -- few went into the film industry at all -- and no one would dispute that Cynthia Rothrock is the most prolific among them. Yet 1993’s kid-friendly Surf Ninjas, which featured the most involvement from the former demonstration teammates, didn’t have Rothrock at all. Who, then, of her West Coast Demo brethren, did the Blonde Fury actually work with in film? If you guessed George Chung, give yourself a gold star. It’s shiny and gluten-free, though I wouldn’t recommend eating it.

About a year before Leo Fong cut a car-roof-shaped hole into our collective hearts in Low Blow, he directed Rothrock’s brief appearance in her first film, 24 Hours to Midnight. Not long afterwards, she would trek overseas to Hong Kong for Yes, Madam! and another trio of films on her way to becoming a bonafide action star. Fast-forward to 1987, where Fong brought her back into the fold in a supporting role. This time, however, she’d be joined by West Coast Demo teammate George Chung, her 24 Hours… co-star Juan Chapa, and martial arts superfriends like Chuck Jeffreys and her Magic Crystal co-star, Richard Norton. Given her upward trajectory at that time, it’s more than a bit puzzling to see her playing second fiddle to Chung in his first film role. I’m going to go out on a limb and call it a friendly favor. Or maybe she needed beer money.

Ryan Kim (Chung) is a cocky but skilled martial artist who helps out at his master’s dojo by occasionally teaching teenaged Valley Girls private lessons in self-defense while his pal, Jerry (Chapa) teaches youth classes. We find him fending off the angry, burly brother of his latest trainees before he meets with a Harvard archaeology professor who shows up to facilitate the requisite plot exposition. It turns out that Ryan inherited one of three priceless statues that were awarded to the winners of a martial arts tournament arranged by an eccentric art collector years ago. Ryan’s Sensei (Ochai) owns another and an Australian fighter named Armstrong (Norton) owns the third. The professor believes they have mystical properties and encourages Ryan to consider donating them them to a museum, noting, “when you do nice things, nice things come back to you.” Of course, Ryan’s not hearing that shit.

Following a successful team exhibition, Ryan and Sensei are confronted in the parking lot by Armstrong himself. He proposes a fight between Ryan and his top student -- Tankston, played by Bill “Superfoot” Wallace -- with each man’s statue on the line. After Sensei has a health scare and Ryan fails to adequately train himself, Sensei calls in a favor to Lauren (Rothrock) to become his primary teacher. As the only fighter to vanquish Tankston and someone who knows Armstrong from a previously failed relationship, she’s uniquely qualified to push Ryan to the next level. What follows is a phased tug-of-war for possession of all three priceless artifacts. Ryan experiences a crisis of self-confidence. Frequent ball-busting from his friends Jerry and Michael (Jeffreys) doesn’t help, and he and Lauren bicker like teenagers. And then San Francisco 49ers defensive back Ronnie Lott shows up because 1980s action movie reasons.

Given that this was an obscure and narrowly distributed film, critical coverage is pretty thin. Our pal the Direct to Video Connoisseur was entertained by its “really good 80s bad action” but I couldn’t find another standalone review out there that gave it a thorough look. Opinion from the Letterboxd crowd is decidedly average, which is peaches and cream compared to the savaging it’s received from the desolate wasteland that is the Amazon User Review-verse. Perhaps the most disparaging among them -- claiming “there is nothing left in this movie that will cause memory retention upon any accidental viewing” -- was written by the film’s own screenwriter, James Belmessieri! Apparently, the fact that most of his re-write -- from the expository dialogue to his “story development scenes” and “thoughtfully developed characters” -- didn’t end up on the screen left him with sour feelings. Uh, did James know he was supposed to be writing a chopsocky movie and not a historical drama? We want fight scenes, some quotable lines, a few montages with an upbeat rock or synth track, and a visible boom mic or two. So, if this movie didn’t resemble the one Belmessieri wrote, that might be for the best. (The boom mics were definitely visible).

The humor in the film -- much like the fight scenes -- prove to be rather hit and miss. Can any 80s action film resist the low-hanging fruit of the “we’ve got company!” line? This one certainly didn’t. This is somehow more surprising than the protagonist’s obsession with the fact that a woman -- yes, a woman with different hormones and a few different body parts! -- is trying to train him in the martial arts. (I’m not sure whether to give or deduct points for the movie limiting itself to just one menstruation joke). Didn’t homeboy watch Come Drink with Me?! It gets worse. In the film’s climax, some of our supporting heroes pretend to be aloof but well-dressed homosexuals in order to fool Armstrong’s guards about their intentions on his sprawling property. You consider all of these shallow jabs intended to be humor alongside its 1987 born-on date -- not exactly the most progressive era for identity politics or equal treatment -- and somehow all of this stuff seems typical, if not forgivable. On the other hand, the humor that works really well can be found in the heroic group’s banter, some of it ball-busting, some of it self-deprecating. Sensei’s confusion over American slang (“What is dicknose?”) is reasonably funny. The trope of Ryan repeatedly getting hit in the nose by his enemies is amusing, if a little overused. And the dynamic between Ryan and Lauren is also engaging, because she believably (and consistently) shows him up or puts him in his place.

Without giving too much away, the last 20 minutes of the film come out of left field. It rapidly morphs from a whimsical story about discarding one’s ego and opening oneself to learning, to a violent men-on-a-mission home invasion set-piece with fatal consequences. I frankly never saw the climax taking this form based on the story’s trajectory. It was as if the filmmakers stumbled upon a pile of cash and free guns during the final weekend of shooting and decided to throw everything at the wall in a mad dash to the finish. A lot of people are going to be more confused at my mention of Ronnie Lott than this plot derailing, but I assure you it makes total sense. (Chung worked with the 49ers during the 1990s and put Lott in his other film, Hawkeye, aka Karate Cops).

VERDICT

While I won’t sit here with a straight face and try to sell you on Fight to Win as an above-average fight film, I will say that it entertained me more than other films with more production sheen but less of an inclination to cut loose and get silly. All too often, American chopsocky films try to play things serious and end up looking ridiculous for it (there’s value in this approach too). Humor often doesn’t work in action films when it’s forced, but a lot of the quips here arise from the ball-busting banter between real-life pals. That sense of enjoyment translates on screen and no amount of visible boom mics or awkward insert scenes can undermine it. Ready-made for fans of Chuck Jeffreys and the original members of the West Coast Demo Team ... or NFL Hall of Famer, Ronnie Lott.

AVAILABILITY

Try your luck on YouTube or go with the tried and true method of hoarding VHS copies off eBay. Tough to find.

3 / 7

Devil's Express (1976)

PLOT: A New York City martial artist and his protégé travel to China for a retreat that will sharpen their skills and minds. When the student lifts a shiny souvenir from a mysterious cave, the unleashed bad juju threatens to destroy them all.

Director: Barry Rosen
Writers: Barry Rosen, Niki Patton, Pascual Vaquer, CeOtis Robinson, Bobbi Sapperstein
Cast: Warhawk Tanzania, Wilfredo Roldan, Larry Fleischman, Aki Aleong



PLOT THICKENER
No pairing of city and era was as versatile and evocative for a genre movie filming location than New York City in the 1970s. Its dilapidated tenements were perfect for a post-apocalyptic near-future. Need a seedy area to situate your drug-dealing and prostitution morality play? Times Square is your place. If the mise-en-scène for your crime-thriller needs to suggest the hidden dangers of traveling alone, pick any subway platform or public park on the map. Alleys, basketball courts, and dodgy underpasses: the list goes on. Director Barry Rosen got plenty of mileage out of NYC for 1976’s Devil’s Express -- originally released as Gang Wars but known as Death Express in the UK and referred to as Phantom of the Subway during production -- where it somehow doubles as both ancient China and modern-day Hong Kong. Young filmmakers, take note: access to an urban botanical garden goes a long way in your storytelling.

In ancient China, a group of holy men are out picking berries in the forest or something when they realize they’d totally forgotten about the sacred blood ritual scheduled that day. They place an amulet on the heavy wooden crate they’ve been lugging around before setting it below the ground in a spooky cavern. While their lower backs might be thanking them, their arteries are not. The lead holy man strikes down his friends before offing himself and following all of THAT, a cryptic title card announces to the audience that yes, Devil’s Express is a Phantom Production. You’re goddamn right it is!

Fast-forward several hundred years later to modern-day New York City, where a martial arts master named Luke (Tanzania) is training a friend from the police force. Don’t be getting any funny ideas though -- Luke is a righteous dude who trusts the police as much as he trusts gangs or undershirts (i.e. not very much). When his hot-headed student, Rodan (Roldan) starts talking vengeance after his crew’s latest gang rumble, Luke tries to chill him out -- the pair is scheduled to travel to Hong Kong for advanced training in both meditation and combat. The body and mind won’t work well if the spirit is in conflict.

Unfortunately, Rodan’s stress carries over into Hong Kong and Luke picks up on it and chides his student for the unnecessary distraction. Rodan gets his ass handed to him during sparring, and is jumping out of his skin during an isolated meditation session. Channeling his inner whiny teenager, he takes off into the woods and stumbles upon a spooky cavern. As Luke is deep in meditation, his student is stumbling around in the cavern’s darkness before finding the ancient amulet. He pockets it and gets defensive with Luke before they return home via transition airplane insert shot. Unfortunately for them (and the greater NYC area) whatever is inside the crate is adept enough to hitchhike on a cargo ship to follow them. Before too long, the bodies begin to pile up below the subway, and Luke might be the only one who can stop the force that his student has foolishly unleashed.

Call your immediate family members. Send your friends a text message filled with the happiest emojis. Send an updated meeting agenda for your annual performance review to your employers. Because you all need to have a conversation about Warhawk Tanzania. Your grandparents will fall in love with Warhawk’s deliberately enunciated dialogue about righteous behavior. Every one of your ex-lovers will go apeshit for the skin-tight gold-lamé overalls he wears for the final act of the film. All of your afro enthusiast friends will take careful notes. He’s no Jim Kelly on the charisma scale, but he should have been in so many more blaxploitation films with a martial arts bend. It’s kind of a shame so little is known about him. (Was his birth name really Warhawk? Is he still alive? What’s his favorite omelette? These are the top three questions in my Excel file full of them). Sure, he’s not a great actor, but every second of this film when he wasn’t on-screen, I felt like screaming into a loaf of rye bread shaped like a pillow. Warhawk Tanzania gets me pretty emotional, you guys.

Do you long for the days when gangs could rumble in alleys and public parks while attracting nary a glance from law enforcement or civilians? This film captures New Yorkers, young and old alike, at record-high levels of DGAF as stunt players and martial artists rough each other up in various city locations. Throughout it all, there are random daytime passerbys pounding the pavement in the background of just about every shot the filmmakers captured. I’d imagine that the 1970s NYC population was pretty numb to the presence of film crews at this point, but the solid fight choreography here should have undone their indifference.

For such a low-budget film, the fight scenes are quite solid, highlighted by a steady rough-and-tumble quality in different settings. We get loads of alley fights, a fight in a bar between a female bartender and a male gang member, and a fairly entertaining man vs. monster climax that will have you doing double-takes from the choppy editing and supernatural overtones. It appears that Barry Rosen, whose only directorial credits were this film and 1976’s non-action movie The Yum Yum Girls, wisely turned things over to his on-set martial artists. Many of them appear to be students of various skill level, but there’s some observable technique and combinations at work.

 

If you can believe it, Devil’s Express was the brain-child of at least five different screenwriters. I have no idea how they collaborated, but I’d like to think that the genre influences were delegated one per writer; one person injected the scary stuff, another handled the martial arts, and so on. Five different people each throwing a delicious homemade recipe at the same wall to see what sticks. Usually, films with this many cooks in the kitchen are a goddamn mess. Does that make any of those dishes any less delicious? Even when eaten off of a wall? Of course not! If the food slides off the wall and onto the floor, we’re having a different conversation, but all of the cinematic elements work fine individually and become suitably wacky when combined. People are out there eating Mountain Dew & Doritos donuts for fuck’s sake. There are bigger problems in the world than a blaxploitation-chopsocky-gang-war-whodunit-monster movie.

VERDICT
If you’re a fan of trashy genre hybrids like Raw Force and can tolerate a flimsy plot and a lack of technical polish -- and if you’re here, you clearly can -- Devil’s Express is up your spooky, poorly-lit alley. The great thing about films like these is the madcap pastiche: martial arts, blaxploitation, gang warfare, police procedural, and man-in-a-suit monster movie tropes all live comfortably side by side for a tidy 82 minutes. The end result is a bouillabaisse of 1970s independent exploitation filmmaking that will have you hunting down a pair of gold-lame overalls faster that you can say “Warhawk Tanzania!” A recommended if uneven curiosity.

AVAILABILITY
This one is available on YouTube under one of its many titles (I’ll leave it to you to find your way) but I’d advise you to track down the Code Red DVD release. Their high-definition release made use of the original negative and the film looks miles better than what you’re likely to find on any streaming service or grey market copy.

4.5 / 7

Fight for Honor (1992)

PLOT: In order to improve her skills, a struggling martial arts student must dedicate her time to either her vapid booze-hound friends and her discouraging booze-hound mother, or a pizza delivery guy she hit with her car and may or may not contact her insurance company.

Director: Sam Um

Writer: Sam Um

Cast: Stacy Lundgren, C.K. Kim, M.G. Lee, Mark Kay, Stephen Wong, Bill Johnson

PLOT THICKENER

The act of tape scavenging -- or whatever VHS approximation on cratedigging the kids are calling it -- has changed dramatically over the past two decades. In the winter of 1994, I went into my local Blockbuster Video with a paper gift certificate and took a chance on a mysterious, early Jean Claude Van Damme movie. To say nothing of its poor acting and plentiful continuity errors, it ignited a life-long obsession with low-budget American chopsocky films and the joys of viewing those films with friends. 

In the spring of 2015, I traveled along a dirt road in the northeastern U.S. to comb over shelves in a massive shed full of used VHS tapes in the hopes of finding some gems. I purchased, in cash, a similarly unfamiliar movie in the hopes that it would invigorate a life-long obsession with low-budget American chopsocky films. That film was 1992’s Fight for Honor (aka Kickboxer Kid), which instantly earned the distinction of the most poorly documented film I’ve ever watched and reviewed.

Perhaps one of the reasons for its relative obscurity is its Texas origins. We’ve seen plenty of movies produced and based in California, New York, Seattle, the Philippines, and even Torontoyork City! These places were hotbeds for chopsocky activity. Austin, Texas, however, is known more for its lively music scene and DoubleDave’s Pizza than its martial arts film history. Add in a cast and crew of first-timers and an equally obscure distributor (York Entertainment) and you might see why it's been relegated to the VHS tape barns of history. 

Crystal (Lundgren) is a struggling taekwondo student. Her dedication is mocked by her friends and maligned by her mother. Her dojang master (Johnson) emphasizes competition victories over personal growth and self-esteem, which only bruises her ego more. Worse yet, a meathead classmate (Kay) sexually harasses her on the regular. 

Min-Suk (Kim) is a struggling pizza delivery boy who’s learning taekwondo from his grandfather at home. His chosen vehicle, a bicycle, is mocked by his boss at DoubleDave’s. His grandfather emphasizes personal growth and self-esteem over competition victories. Worse yet, Crystal hits him with her sports car while he’s out on a route, destroying his pizzas, his bike, and any chance he had at keeping his job.  When Crystal meets Min-Suk’s grandfather after driving him home, she learns of his taekwondo mastery and their ongoing training. Citing her disappointment in her dojang’s methods, she tries to convince the wise elder to take her on as a student. Initially resistant, he eventually relents, which pisses off Min-Suk, because SHE HIT HIM WITH HER FUCKING SPORTS CAR. 

Odd, yet fitting that a clumsy traffic accident would bring these two people together. Despite their grievances, insecurities, and weaknesses, they’re forced to train side by side. And by train, I mean that they run on land, try to catch fish bare-handed in a river, and also run in the river. And break the occasional board. But mostly running. What will the rewards be for these efforts? Renewed sense of self? Free, awesome Korean food? Perhaps even victories in the upcoming state-wide taekwondo competition? Logic would dictate that they’d probably just get better at running, but it could be all of these things.

I didn’t quite know what to make of this one. Outside of the grandfather’s scrum with some local drunk jerks, and Min-Suk’s wet and wild rumble with the taekwon-douchebags from Crystal’s class, there’s not much action here. The focus, similar to College Kickboxers, is instead on various training methods. When executed well, these sorts of scenes can provide a visual call-back when the protagonist faces difficulty in physical conflicts later on. Need to block an aggressive fighter? Lean on the ol’ paint-the-fence training. Mystery powder got your vision blurry? Rely on lessons in blindfolded defensive tactics and table-setting. Unfortunately, none of the training methods here are logically recalled during the tournament fight scenes during the film’s climax. Had there been a scene where the arena was under attack from a giant blob, and the pair quickly ran to safety, it would have tied the bow perfectly.

While this was the only film to director Sam Um’s credit, it is undoubtedly his best. That might seem like a backhanded compliment, but I would never backhand him because he’s a taekwondo master. He trained Willie Nelson to his first-degree black belt. How many country music legends have you trained? How many films have you directed? If your answer to both of those questions is “zero,” then Sam Um is beating you at life. While there’s not a lot of technique in this film, you have to appreciate that Um was in charge of getting a lot of non-actors to act. Of particular note is M.G. Lee, who struggled mightily with the lion’s share of dialogue despite English being his second language. Underscoring the onscreen drama is a dark, evocative score akin to Tangerine Dream’s work on 1978’s Sorcerer. Just kidding -- there’s lots of generic drum tracks with synthesized shakuhachi noises. It sounds like Keyboard Cat doing a cover of Paul Hertzog’s Kickboxer soundtrack.

Last but not least, we need to talk about Crystal’s mom, played by Shannon Sedwick. She stands out as the worst cinematic mom since Kirsten’s Mother from 1989’s Elves (a woman who drowned her daughter’s cat in a toilet). She hands over her credit card to Crystal’s friends, constantly rags on her daughter for pursuing martial arts, and has a weird obsession with her daughter’s friend, Dirk, an insufferable weenie of epic proportions. Where’s the father? Why is she day-drinking in a jacuzzi? Her childrearing is so terrible that I have no doubt that the offspring of Crystal’s mother and Jason Stillwell’s father from No Retreat, No Surrender would have been one of America’s most prolific serial killers. Bad chopsocky parenting up in this movie, y’all.

VERDICT

This is not the sort of movie for which viewers are going to pull the “lost gem” card on the scale of a Miami Connection or Undefeatable. Instead, it’s a charming if amateurish critique of the 1980s and 90s suburban McDojo craze and meathead misogyny. I’ll fault it some for leaning on the grandfather's Magical Asian stereotype, but fans of meager production values and non-actor acting may find it enjoyable.

AVAILABILITY

You might be able to snag a used VHS copy off EBay, but this is a tough one to acquire. Happy hunting.

3 / 7

Contemporary Gladiator (1989)

PLOT: A kickboxing karate-fighting college drop-out attempts to establish his identity in both the material and spiritual worlds. He can also get you a great deal on shag carpeting.

Director: Anthony Elmore
Writer: Anthony Elmore
Cast: Anthony Elmore, George M. Young, Julius Dorsey, Donny Bumpus, Traci Cloyd






PLOT THICKENER
Of all the adjectives one could pick to describe super-heavyweight kickboxing champion Anthony “Amp” Elmore, sincere would have to be at the top of the list. His 1989 film Contemporary Gladiator (also known as Iron Justice) was his only cinematic effort, and while we can speculate about the reasons for that, no one can deny that Elmore made a personal and genuine film. Not unlike low-budget vanity projects such as City Dragon and Miami Connection, Contemporary Gladiator situates its star’s personal worldview against a variety of roadblocks and internal conflicts. Whereas Stan Derain believed tank-tops and bad rapping could score lots of chicks, and Kim believed taekwondo was the key to success and happiness, Elmore’s dream was to “sell kickboxing to the world.”

Even the biggest dreams have humble beginnings. Anthony plays a vague version of himself as a struggling college student and dedicated martial artist empowered by Afrocentrist politics during what appears to 1970s Memphis (the afro haircut and dashiki were giveaways). He lives with his adoring mother and controlling father, the latter of whom sees his politics and hobbies as one big waste of time. Anthony finds comfort in his all-black karate school but it’s intense, as evidenced by his final black belt test where he’s required to punch the floor. “Floor not hit back,” you might say. To which I’d respond, “oh, have you ever punched a floor? Because that shit fucking hurts.”

As the turbulent 1970s give way to the consumerist 1980s, Anthony has traded in college politics and his dashiki for a suit and a career as a successful carpet salesman. He owns a house, has a loyal girlfriend, and he even got a new haircut. He still practices karate, and wins a first-place trophy in a contact tournament. When he brings the prize back home to his karate school, though, his sensei (Dorsey) embarrasses him in front of the entire class, beating him without mercy and literally stripping him of his black belt for fighting competitively. Not long after that, his girlfriend breaks off their relationship. Anthony finds himself at his lowest emotional point.

He doesn’t seek answers to his troubles at the bottom of a bottle. Nor does he run through the wide open field of loose women. He finds himself in the company of someone who does both, though. Kingfish (Young) is a local shit-talker, hustler, and apparent friend of Anthony’s family. After he wakes up hungover on Anthony’s couch and watches a few kickboxing matches with him, he promotes himself to the position of Anthony's spiritual adviser and de facto manager. In no time at all, the pair are united in a mission to turn Memphis into a hotbed of championship kickboxing. Will Anthony turn his dream of establishing kickboxing as a serious sport into reality? Will Kingfish succeed in his desire to turn Anthony’s dream into a never-ending parade of fat asses? (His words, not mine).

Damn, where to start? No discussion of Contemporary Gladiator can end without noting the contributions of George M. Young as Kingfish, the horniest spiritual adviser in the history of cinema. He chases skirts, he cuts great promos, and he even sings the national anthem. The fight scenes -- almost all of which take place in the ring -- appear to be taken from actual fight footage from Elmore’s career. That said, there’s not much creative choreography of which to speak. The lighting is mostly horrendous, and the ADR is entirely horrendous -- it sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of the ocean. There’s also an odd fixation on mixing music in over scenes of dialogue and the result is (usually) an undecipherable mess. In news that should surprise no one, I loved it.

Elmore is a kickboxer first, a Buddhist second, and an actor probably eighth or ninth. I can’t decide if this is a compliment, because there might be lots of things he considers himself before actor comes up (e.g. water color painter? good bowler? fun dad?) All of this is to say his acting isn’t great and has the markings of a rushed production and someone trying to remember his lines instead of using inflection to suggest human emotion. This trait isn’t unique to Elmore but I found it was most egregious with him. Some might be interested to know that in the years since this film, Elmore has embraced the Internet and fortified his online presence with a fairly prolific YouTube channel through which he publishes music videos, his old kickboxing matches, serious lectures on Afrocentric Buddhism, and this very film. Happy hunting!

This is a movie which teaches us that even if your father hates your lifestyle choices, and your karate teacher threatens homicide over your accomplishments, and your girlfriend sees no future with you, and everyone around you disagrees with everything you do except for a mildly perverted alcoholic spiritual adviser, you should still pursue whatever you want. I think most of us find these circumstances relatable. 

VERDICT

It’s no technical marvel but Contemporary Gladiator joins the ranks of other films which had no business being as entertaining as they were. Created during a time when the only thing that prevented champion kickboxers from appearing in movies was sheer will, this is a unique artifact from a strange era. Recommended for adventurous viewers. 

AVAILABILITY

YouTube and Amazon (VHS).

3.5 / 7