Enter the Indies: Sins of the Dragon (2013)

PLOT: Two honorable warriors traverse the wilderness, pursuing a violent maniac hell-bent on killing as many dragon masters as possible. Will they stop him and eventually get back to the car? Or will their cell phones die and doom them to a life of backwoods vagrancy?

Director: Joey Corpora
Writer: Kale Sweeney
Cast: Kale Sweeney, Shannon Lee Haines, Marty Frankenfield, Joey Corpora, Brennen Dickerson, Connor Corpora


PLOT THICKENER
We’ve watched plenty of martial arts films on shoestring budgets over the years, but only a few could be described as truly independent. Almost all of them were the products of companies that specialized in the direct-to-video market. As technology has evolved to allow filmmakers of all genres to produce and distribute their own short movies and feature films, small outfits have sprouted up to occupy a new and exciting space. While The Stunt People out of San Francisco, CA are arguably the measuring stick in the martial-arts-on-a-microbudget movement, there are a number of collectives across the United States combining their love of filmmaking with their martial arts training. With their 2012 action-fantasy short film Sins of the Dragon, the gang at Platypus Underground has set a high bar for themselves. We were thrilled to watch it as the first film in a more regular review series of independent shorts influenced by martial arts b-movies.

When I wander aimlessly in the woods, I’m usually afraid of bears, poison ivy, meth labs, and Ted Nugent. Apparently, I should also be on the look-out for masked martial arts psychos who kill you, steal your soul, and absorb your abilities. Portrayed by Marty Frankenfield and voiced by Brennen Dickerson, the treacherous Caligo is the villain at the center of the story. Flanked by a private army of ninjas, he intends to kill every dragon master in his path to gain their powers. This character is on some Bane-level shit, delivering sinister dialogue without the benefit of the full range of human facial features. In any case, he sports a very interesting look, melding some wardrobe out of a Shaw Brothers production with a Shredder-lite face guard.

At some point in the past, Caligo & Friends destroyed an entire village, but failed to account for at least one occupant: the noble and capable Cunri (Sweeney). The son of the village’s resident martial arts master, he’s also stubborn as hell; motivated by vengeance for his father’s death, he travels the countryside, seeking a fatal confrontation with Caligo. His only friend on this journey, Kaia (Haines) -- a student of his father -- hopes to convince Cunri that his single-mindedness is a dangerous path towards his potential downfall. Doesn’t mean she won’t help a brother out by kicking the shit out of ninja assholes along the way, though.

As one might expect with any first-time filmmakers, there are some missteps. At times, the fight choreography is a touch slow and seems too deliberate; I wanted something a bit more frenetic. The ability and creativity is definitely there, though. As Sweeney -- who directed the fight scenes -- and the fighters become more experienced with each other and grow into more of a true stunt team over subsequent productions, I’d expect that the pace and intensity of their fight scenes will increase. Equally important, the filmmakers chose the camera angles well and got all the coverage they needed for editing. The trope of characters coming to a curious stop in the shot’s foreground after completing a move was a nice flourish that we’ve seen a lot in recent action cinema, but it’s a tad overused here and has the effect of slowing down the pace.

One of the biggest surprises in the film was the amount of blood. There were instances where the practical fake variety looked a few shades too light and could have benefited from a tried and true Karo Syrup recipe. The digital gushers, however, would make the folks at Sushi Typhoon proud; they were fairly well integrated with the visual environment. The special effects otherwise were a mixture of both practical and digital: swirling leaves, flaming fists, and some excellent illustrated scene transitions were all highlights. I got the impression that Corpora -- consciously or otherwise -- is putting his video game and anime influences on display with this piece; that he was able to capture some of the more fantastical elements given the budgetary constraints is admirable. The fantasy bend certainly makes Platypus Underground stand out from the pack, but I’d be anxious to see what they’d accomplish with a simpler setting.

VERDICT
On a limited budget that would otherwise net you this backpack bike and a 40-inch HD television, the filmmakers behind Sins of the Dragon have created a professional-grade short that knocks the teeth out of your mouth, the wind from your lungs, and the pomade from your expertly sculpted pompadour. This team is definitely one to watch.

AVAILABILITY
Currently traveling the film festival circuit. You can catch a screening on August 20, 2013 at 6 pm as part of the 9th International Action on Film Festival in Monrovia, CA. Additionally, you can head over to the Platypus Underground website to purchase the 28-minute short on DVD or as a digital download.

Tiger Claws (1992)

PLOT: A trail of murder victims with distinct scratch marks left on their faces has New York City on edge. Two cops reluctantly team up to search for the elusive killer.

Director: Kelly Makin
Writer: J. Stephen Maunder
Cast: Jalal Merhi, Cynthia Rothrock, Bolo Yeung, Nick Dibley, Bill Pickells, Robert Nolan, Kedar Brown, Michael Bernardo


 

 

PLOT THICKENER:
Training one’s body to be a killing machine can be a tiresome process, both physically and mentally. One of the better cinematic depictions of this concept is in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, where the fragile Leonard Lawrence goes off the rails after verbal abuse and hazing during military training. Not to be outdone by some lame-o 1970s Vietnam war classic, Canadian filmmaker Kelly Makin -- perhaps best known for the Kids in the Hall feature-length film -- brought the martial arts thriller Tiger Claws into the fold in 1992. This story about the consequences of extreme training and the failure to keep one’s nails clipped raises many important questions, none of which will be answered by this review.

The thankless hours of spending her shifts dressed like a sex worker to catch johns isn’t cutting it for Linda Masterson (Rothrock). She wants serious police work. Fortune smiles upon her as a series of victims pile up with no visible trauma aside from peculiar claw marks left on their faces. Since the stiffs were all martial-artists and they died from internal injuries, Masterson suspects a highly-trained fighter. Despite the solid hunch, her department chief wants to pair her with someone to work on the case, dubbed internally as the “Death Dealer” murders.

While he’s hostile to working with a partner, vice cop Tarek Richards (Merhi) doesn’t have a choice. Right after demanding a $25,000 increase in his undercover budget, he botches a sting operation and get suspended. This, combined with his ponytail, houseboat, and his wife leaving him, apparently makes him some sort of loose cannon. (Most would conclude he’s just a screw-up on a major tailspin). After looking at Masterson’s evidence, Richards believes the killer is using a rare version of Tiger style kung-fu.

Following some field research -- i.e. walking through Chinatown and going to a martial arts tournament -- Richards thinks he has a lead, but he’ll have to go undercover in order to chase it. This basically means that Cynthia Rothrock sits in a van doing surveillance while Jalal Merhi gets to have all the fun training in Tiger style. He’s done this once before, but this variation is so intense it can drive a man mad and it’s the real reason why his wife left him... not his ponytail. During his tenure, he befriends some trainees and meets a harmless interior painter named Chong, played by Bolo Yeung. Hmm, that’s weird. Why does the harmless 260-pound interior painter have a giant shrine with all these stolen martial arts weapons?

I’m not sure to what degree they should be held accountable for the way the fight scenes are shot, but as tandem fight choreographers, Steve Lucescu and Jalal Merhi do little to sway me with how they’re staged. The climactic fight involving the male principals lacks drama and is made watchable only by Bolo’s facial expressions and the fact that they crush more cardboard boxes than a trash compactor. Much of the combat is slow to develop and hurt by a lot of over-the-shoulder, first-person perspective shots. Since this was Makin’s first and only foray into the action genre, one could make the case that his team was favoring “feel” over “look” with this style of shooting, but they fail to achieve either effect.

There is some gold swimming in the garbage though. All of Chong’s kill scenes have decent build and execution, and the victims do a good job of selling Yeung’s strikes. Cynthia Rothrock creatively uses rope and a kayak paddle as weapons, and she has two fights with Yeung toward the back-end of the film which are paced a few beats quicker and incorporate their differences in size and speed. Most of the “Tiger” training portions are visually interesting and well-shot, and Bolo is made to look positively bad-ass in scenes where he displays his bastardized version of the training. One sequence has him dunking his hands in scalding water before splashing it on his face and drinking it, while another finds him making kung-fruit salad by squeezing apples to a pulpy mess.

In the area of performances, there’s not much to love. As Masterson, Rothrock is decent but her role is diminished, and Bolo is menacing as Chong but the character is underdeveloped. The best part of the movie is any scene involving real-life Canadian master Bill Pickells. I briefly participated in Tang Soo Do as a youngster in the early 1990s, and was thus exposed to a handful of martial-arts demos where middle-aged white guys with mullets and wonky facial hair would scream while breaking boards or waving swords. The insanely goofy Bill Pickells Karate Show featured in Tiger Claws brought all of those memories back. Even better is that Pickells plays an egotistical jerk who berates his production staff and complains that the set’s potted plants make him look short. We’ve covered several films with the martial-artist-as-serial-killer plot device and each of the antagonists was memorable for different reasons. As a counterpoint to that, Pickells earns the distinction of being the most memorable victim -- he’s hilarious in short minutes.

Despite attempts to paint his character as such, Merhi isn't especially adept at playing the dark, rough, and brooding type. I appreciate that screenwriter J. Stephen Maunder positioned the Tiger training as emotionally taxing and physically extreme; the case of a practitioner snapping and killing as a result of the grueling training is a believable and compelling dramatic device. The dialogue which describes the training process is another story, though. The total lack of emotive qualities in Merhi’s line delivery really makes him an unideal fit to play a “man on the edge.” A better dramatic actor like John Barrett or Jeff Wincott could probably pull this off more convincingly, but whether he’s striking down “NO SWIMMING” signs at the beach, or wearing his hair down and looking like a haggard version of Balki Bartokomous, Merhi isn’t quite that actor for the way this role is written. 

This was the first film released under Merhi’s Film One Productions banner, and it’s one of their better efforts. We often poke fun at Merhi around these parts but it’s all in good fun. He built a 15-year career on Torontoyork City martial arts movies teeming with big-name talent like Rothrock, Billy Blanks, and Loren Avedon, and for that longevity, he should be commended. That he seems to consistently elevate his own parts over those of his costars has always seemed curious to me, though. Maybe he’s just a really persuasive guy.

VERDICT:
I first caught this film as part of TNT’s action-oriented “Nitro” programming over a decade ago and at the time, I regarded it as nothing more than a barely-average fight film. The recent rewatch has done little to change my opinion but I did find some likable elements that 14 year-old Karl might've overlooked. The film is nicely paced and rarely drags. Bolo is convincing as the story’s monster and while not at the level of Chong Li in Bloodsport, he’s used more effectively here than in bit parts for other American films. I found Rothrock was underutilized but she did have some decent fight scenes and gets to show off her burgeoning fashionista side. Despite the occasional bright spots, the film is crippled by some awful dialogue and acting, and poorly-composed fight scenes. That said, it launched two sequels and is one of the better Jalal Merhi action vehicles.

AVAILABILITY:
VHS copies can be purchased on Amazon or EBay.

4 / 7

Angel of Destruction (1994)

PLOT: Go to the review of Blackbelt from last week. Find all references to “Don Wilson” and replace with “Maria Ford.” Add ice. Shake lightly and strain into a glass. This cold delicious liquid is called Angel of Destruction.

Director: Charles Philip Moore
Writers: Charles Philip Moore, Paul Maslak
Cast: Maria Ford, Charlie Spradling, Jimmy Broome, Antonio Bacci, Jessica Mark, Timothy D. Baker, Chanda, James Paolelli, Bob McFarland




PLOT THICKENER:
Every once in a while, after I’ve just poured my morning cup of coffee, I like to stare out my window and listen for the sound of a cinephile birthing an actual cow after reading about the latest studio plans to remake a beloved film. While it seems like the remake epidemic is yet another modern outgrowth of corporate greed, it’s been going on for decades. The practice may piss off the hardest of hardcore fans, but it’s an easy way for filmmakers and studios to repurpose financially lucrative intellectual property or improve upon forgotten originals. So it should be no great surprise that writer and director Charles Philip Moore jumped at the chance to remake his 1992 breakout film Blackbelt... in 1994.

As in the Don Wilson vehicle, the plot revolves around a pop singer attracting unwanted attention from a serial killer and seeking out protection. This is no ordinary pop singer, though. Moore attempts to atone for the pop music sins of Blackbelt, not by hiring professionals to improve upon the terrible songs, but by having the actress playing pop-star Delilah (Mark) take off her top while performing the terrible songs. This sounds shameless and exploitative -- and it is -- but it makes for some visually bizarre set pieces. The best, which the killer admires from a hooting nightclub crowd, finds a curvy blond onstage, strapped to what looks like an electric chair. Delilah, in nothing more than red lingerie, “croons” a few bars of her new single and when the music reaches a crescendo, the chair explodes in a display of smoke and pyrotechnics as the crowd cheers. Then the tops come off. It's a formula that seems to work.

Unbeknownst to her adoring public, Delilah is carrying on a relationship with her blond companion, Reena Jacobs (Chanda), while also sleeping with her manager, Danny (Paolelli). On top of that, her mobster record label owner (McFarland) just might kill her for an insurance policy if she fails to resign with him. If those elements weren’t dangerous enough, a crazed military veteran named John Sweet (Broome) is stalking Delilah and leaving a trail of severed fingers and dead sex workers in his wake. Who in the world has the balls to take on someone so sadistic?

Rather fortunately, Delilah finds those balls hanging from Brit Alwood (Spradling), a bad-ass private investigator whose fondness for dark aviators is second only to her love for giving piggish men free vasectomies with kicks to the crotch. Her toughness runs in the family too; Brit’s younger sister, Jo (Ford) is a tough-as-nails undercover cop who finds it easiest to rough up the scum of society while dressed in fashionable jeans and tube tops. While Brit initially takes Delilah’s case, it’s Jo who ends up performing the grunt work of protecting her. The saucy Internet rumor posits that the role of Spradling’s character was diminished due to her refusal to partake in a specific scene we’ll discuss in a couple of ‘graphs.

Along for the ride in the investigation of John Sweet is a cop named Aaron, played by first-time-and-never-again actor Antonio Bacci. He doesn’t bring all that much to the party other than imparting clunky exposition and looking average during fight scenes, but he does sport a great mustache. He also has a love scene with Maria Ford before collecting his paycheck, so it would appear he left the industry on a high-note... assuming you consider awkward martial-arts movie love scenes to be a high note. (NOTE: I do).

While Seinfeld has taught us many a lesson, few are as valuable as the notion of “bad naked” (episode: “The Apology”). I’m sure everyone had the best intentions in putting Ford in nothing but a thong for her late-night fight with a half-dozen thugs in Delilah’s mansion. I mean, topless kickboxing sounds good in theory ... doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the net effect is about as erotic as shredding tax documents. It’s not that I don’t find Ford to be attractive but it’s hard to ignore the hurricane of Aquanet, grunting, and high-kicks. So while it’s certainly possible the filmmakers were trying to de-sexualize the female form with this scene, they achieved one of the most gloriously campy scenes ever captured in the martial-arts DTV genre.

Pointing out flaws in a movie like this is a bit counterproductive, but it also highlights why the film is so enjoyable. A music video shoot for Delilah consists of nothing more than her and Reena taking their tops off and lip-syncing in a room full of mannequins. Yes, the mannequins are both blindfolded and naked. At one point, Bacci actually calls Ford by "Maria" instead of her character's name and I'm not sure why Moore felt this didn't require a second take to nail down. I don't recall any visible boom mics, falling dummies, or landing mats during stunt falls, but this being a Roger Corman film, it does have that classic air of low-budgeted, balls-to-the-wall, "let's shoot this fucker!" methodology. More than the technical misfires, I found the weakest element was the casting of Jimmy Broome and the reworking of the John Sweet character. The guy looks like a proper creep and his violent behavior is weird enough to cement the character as a psycho, but you take a lot off the table in downgrading from a physically imposing martial-artist like Matthias Hues. He's no Brando but he's proficient at playing the hulking monster and would have been a more formidable opponent for Ford. 

The differences between the fight choreography in Blackbelt and those created by stunt coordinator Ronald Asinas for this film are minimal. However, there are a few elements which elevate the action in Angel of Destruction above that of its source material. Its very liberal approach to the destruction of props and sets during the hand-to-hand fight sequences -- a staple of Filipino action films of this era -- always wins me over, and the stunt crew makes Ford look great. The climax also trades the “one vs. many” fight of Blackbelt for a fun build-up marked by ‘splosions and healthy amounts of gunfire.

Going from the hard-kicking Wilson to Ford might seem to be a downgrade, yet there’s something inherently enjoyable about watching  our heroine getting into bar fights with bigger opponents and gunning down would-be assassins without batting an eyelash. On top of that, Ford is a good actor and conjures up the necessary contempt for her adversaries that Wilson sometimes lacked in his facial expressions and line delivery. Jo's violent interrogation of one of Sweet's military buddies on a public street in the middle of the day is a hilarious scene and quite possibly Ford's best in the film. Well, aside from the fight where she smashes some dude's head through a fish tank.

VERDICT:
It's rare that a cinematic remake improves upon the original, but Moore nails the landing on this one. It makes me wish Maria Ford had done more Filipino action movies and less erotic thrillers, but she really shines in this one. If Blackbelt can be described as a studious, church-going star athlete, Angel of Destruction is the younger sister who drinks whisky before fighting strangers. In other words, she’s a bit crazy, but also more unpredictably fun.

AVAILABILITY:
Amazon or EBay.

5.5 / 7

Blackbelt (1992)

PLOT: A rising pop singer harassed by an obsessed stalker hires an ex-cop and martial-arts expert as personal security. As with most pop female vocalists, she’s kinda hot so her terrible music is tolerated by all involved.

Director: Charles Phillip Moore, Rick Jacobson
Writers: Paul Maslak, Don Wilson
Cast: Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Matthias Hues, Alan Blumenfeld, Deirdre Imershein, Richard Beymer, Jack Forcinito, Timothy D. Baker, Bob McFarland





PLOT THICKENER:
When I was about 13 or 14 years of age, the Spice Girls were just beginning to break through in the U.S. They were annoying. Their music was awful. But for whatever reason, I had a thing for Ginger Spice, she of the reddish hair and reasonably big cans. Like all teenage infatuations, it faded and I moved on. However, there are those out there incapable of getting over these kinds of fixations. Pop starlets from Tiffany to Britney Spears have had brushes with stalkers, and this seedy byproduct of celebrity status was popularized as a cinematic plot device with 1992’s Kevin Costner thriller, The Bodyguard. It turned a good profit at the box office and gave us Whitney Houston’s smash hit ballad “I Will Always Love You.” Earlier that same year, the Don “The Dragon” Wilson vehicle Blackbelt was released to the U.S. video market and gave us a new film to gather around with large groups of friends and larger amounts of whiskey.

Jack Dillon (Wilson) is a no-nonsense guy who has dedicated his life to cleaning up the streets of his American city which shall remain nameless. As a cop, he fought societal filth with a badge and a gun. These days, he fights scum with nothing more than his fists and his boots. In a dark urban alley, an aggressive pimp with an aggressive mullet is using his pimp hand on a reluctant sex worker when Dillon discovers them. After smashing the pimp’s face and laying waste to his undercarriage, Dillon coolly remarks that “the broken nose is for the girl, the vasectomy’s free” before returning the tearful girl to her mother. Not only is Jack Dillon a retired cop and martial-arts expert and teacher, but he also gives out free vasectomies! You should look him up if you’re done having kids, though your insurance might not cover him.

Rising pop star Shanna (Imershein) is accustomed to a chaotic lifestyle as a foxy touring live act with a rabid fanbase. But following her latest performance, she and her assistant make a grisly discovery in a box of long-stem roses left in her dressing room. No! It’s not the tacky inclusion of Baby’s-breath. It’s a severed female finger. Her manager and boyfriend Bobby (Forcinito) is basically nutless, and her mob-connected label owner Eddie D’Angelo (Twin Peaks’ Richard Beymer) kinda hates her, so Shanna goes outside her circle of handlers for help.

When a bratty pop star shows up to his martial-arts class looking to hire a bodyguard, Dillon is resistant; he doesn’t do that kind of work. As it turns out, Shanna could care less, because she doesn’t like cops anyways. Unwarranted speeding tickets? No. Her dad was a cop. So? He raped her. Ohhhhhhh..... awkward. In any case, she was only following up on a recommendation from Dillon’s old partner, Detective Will Sturges (Blumenfeld). Rather coincidentally, Sturges calls Dillon to consult on a crime scene at that exact moment.

Awaiting Dillon at a nearby hotel is a complete massacre. Five men, all armed, have been left dead in a hotel room with trauma to various vital organs. Due to the nature of their injuries, Dillon rightly suspects a martial-arts expert. As a counterpoint to this mostly bloodless execution, there’s a body left in another room which looks like a victim straight out of 1980s slasher film. Enough blood was spilled for the killer to spell out “SHANNA WE’RE GOING TO THE CHAPEL” on the wall. Not enough blood was spilled for grammatically correct punctuation, apparently.

Shit just got real, so Dillon decides to take Shanna on as a client. As he chases clues, he eventually discovers what the audience knew a half-hour ago: the killer is a former Special Forces member named John Sweet, played by Matthias Hues. Like any good serial killer, he has a raging Oedipal complex and a poorly lit secret hideout. I couldn’t help but notice that Sweet also bears a passing resemblance to the Stingray character from Undefeatable. Beyond their deep-seated mommy issues, they both collect trophies from victims (Sweet prefers fingers to Stingray’s eyes) and have amazing manes of hair.

What he lacks in fantastic hair, character actor Richard Beymer more than makes up for in acting chops. There are two things he does extremely well as an onscreen performer: act sleazy and eat food. Whether it’s the pasta and salad of Blackbelt or the brie-and-butter baguette sandwiches from Twin Peaks, Beymer has an effective way of eating that makes me want to join in. On that note, it’s time for pancakes.

As Jake Dillon, Don Wilson keeps it simple. He kicks ass and delivers some occasionally well-written lines with true aplomb, with the aforementioned vasectomy one-liner as the highlight. I can’t say that Wilson and Imershein have much chemistry together, but some of that has to do with the dick-punching turn-off that is her character’s awful music. Even by early 1990s standards, the attempts at pop songs are quite heinous and could take a lot of viewers out of the film completely. To his credit, Dillon treats Shanna’s music the same way he treats her celebrity status -- with complete indifference. Which is, of course, in sharp contrast to the way he (eventually) treats her lady parts -- with fumbling teenaged zeal. We’ve covered only two Don “The Dragon” Wilson movies so far, but in those films he’s batting 1.000 in getting his onscreen love interests to disrobe for sex scenes. Good show, Mr. Wilson!

The film’s opening credits and marketing materials boasted what was apparently a fighting cast full of decorated championship talent (one of whom you may remember as the hilarious dad from No Retreat, No Surrender). Unfortunately, none of these fighters is provided with a unique character to make their screen time particularly noteworthy. Compounding the issue is that the action set pieces from fight choreographer Paul Maslak are utilized to do nothing but make the film’s hero and main villain look strong ahead of their climactic showdown. It seems the primary role of anyone else involved in the fight scenes was to look as good as possible while getting their ass kicked. The generous helpings of blood and sweat during the final fight are a nice topper to a solid film, but if you’re going to offer up the numerous accolades of your fighters as a selling point, it would help to give them a little bit of room to shine.

VERDICT:
While I’m certainly no expert on the cinematic exploits of Don Wilson, I do feel that Blackbelt is as good an entry point as any into his filmography. This was the film that really cemented my fondness for the “kung fu killer” as a compelling narrative device, if only for the bizarre ways in which the main villain is characterized and portrayed onscreen. Due in large part to great selling from the stunt performers, Hues comes across as a real monster in his short but dominant fight scenes. However, it’s his character’s sleazy back-story which puts the film into favorable territory for me. In order to strike a sharp contrast with Dillon’s wholesomeness, writer Charles Philip Moore deserves a bit of credit for going into some dark and weird places in creating the John Sweet character. This and the Richard Beymer performance were the highlights for me in what I found to be a fairly serviceable DTV action movie.

AVAILABILITY:
Netflix and Amazon.

5 / 7

Bloodmoon (1997)

PLOT:
A mysterious killer with metal fingers has been knocking off martial artists, and Det. Chuck Baker is stuck with no leads as his superiors are losing patience. When retired cop Ken O’Hara joins the investigation, he and Baker must work together to put an end to the murderer’s reign of terror.

Director: Siu-Hung Leung
Writer: Keith W. Strandberg
Cast: Gary Daniels, Chuck Jeffreys, Darren Shahlavi, Frank Gorshin, Nina Repeta, Brandie Rocci, Hakim Alston


PLOT THICKENER:
During a lunar eclipse, the earth’s atmosphere can bend red sunlight into our planet's shadow and scatter out blue light. The result gives the moon an orange or reddish appearance. Lunar eclipses occur at least twice a year and present excellent opportunities for night photography, stargazing, and killing martial artists.

The nameless homicidal martial artist, played by Darren Shahlavi, is a practitioner of several fighting styles and as it turns out, many hobbies. Among other activities, we see him strolling through a park snapping photos and later, admiring the talent at the local nudie bar. But there’s one pastime that’s giving the NYPD absolute fits. Like, other than the murdering. It’s his robust set of advanced computer skills. He sends cryptic, taunting emails to the station. He livestreams a murder and sends them a link to watch. I would guess he’s pretty good at Quake too.

Following in a long line of martial arts stars playing characters of the same name, Chuck Jeffreys plays Det. Chuck Baker. The time he doesn’t spend cracking jokes is used to perform archaic magic tricks like sneezing out flowers and producing flames from his hands. Also contributing to his lack of productivity on the case is that his work space is covered in karate magazines. Seriously, there isn’t an inch of visible desk or floor in his entire office. While some might point to his enthusiasm for the martial arts, I’d wager it’s more likely that he’s a compulsive hoarder. It’s only slightly better than accumulating malnourished cats.

Collecting back issues of Blackbelt magazine and doing sleight-of-hand on the city dime aren’t Baker’s biggest offenses. The department is much more concerned over his inability to turn over a clue or lead in the killer martial artist case. His direct superior, Chief Hutchins, is catching plenty of heat from the press for the lack of progress. With Hutchins, the film satisfies one of the basic tenets of b-grade American martial-arts film by casting recognizable television character Frank Gorshin in the role. I’m not sure if someone replaced all of the periods with exclamation points in Gorshin’s copy of the script, because he ends almost every line of dialogue by yelling angrily. Then I remember that his top detective sneezes flowers ... so I guess he has every right to be pissed all the time.

So Hutchins sends Baker to entice retired detective and profiler Ken O’Hara (Daniels) to join the investigation. Due to a traumatic past and his fragmented family situation, O’Hara is initially resistant. He softens his stance because you can’t have Gary Daniels in a movie and contain his natural instinct to fight people and pursue martial arts killers. It’s in his blood!

Initially, Baker and O’Hara don’t get along particularly well. Baker likes to make jokes, O’Hara is uptight. Baker carries a gun, O’Hara detests them. Baker sounds a lot like Eddie Murphy, O’Hara sounds like Jason Statham’s older, slightly more effeminate brother. In time, they discover common ground and are able to work together. Surprisingly, their love and practice of the martial arts is not this mutual interest, but rather the fact that they’re both crappy husbands who work too much. And much like my grandparents, they’re both completely confused by the concept of email.

When they’re not showing off their prowess during impressive fight scenes, Baker and O’Hara walk through a number of scenarios common to police procedural films. They play “good cop/bad cop” with a hacker, analyze wounds on dead bodies with a coroner, and pore over evidence. Through it all, they’re also trying to deflect involvement from the daughter of a slain martial artist (Rocci), who wants nothing more than to take vengeance for her father’s death. Considering the established buddy cop dynamic, this subplot was as useful to the story as tits on a cactus. However, it did lead to a pretty cool fight centered around some “refrigerator and cramped NYC apartment kitchen” choreography. I only wish it looked that cool when my wife beats me up for burning waffles.

The action in Bloodmoon ranges from solid to fantastic as Daniels, Jeffreys, and company are utilized to great effect by director Kuang Hsiung. A member and former vice chairman of the Hong Kong’s Stuntman Association, Hsiung’s fight choreography is tight, crisp, and fast, and his performers are up to the task. While Daniels and Shahlavi are both seasoned vets of Hong Kong action films, Jeffreys brings equally valuable experience as a fight choreographer and stuntman on Hollywood sets. There’s some fairly blatant wire-work during the climactic fight, but it’s not so defiantly unrealistic as to be offensive and the rest of the choreography during this stretch more than makes up for the visual missteps. We also get a very cool Kendo-influenced swordfight, complete with metallic sparks and sword clash sound effects. Most important, we get wrestling star Rob Van Dam dry-humping a girl on top of a pinball machine.


Action aside, the film is not without its narrative flaws. Most, if not all, of the story’s focus on computer technology comes off as clunky and half-baked. The killer’s apparent omnipresence is never fully explored and despite a very cool look (steel-tipped boots, cape, mask) he spouts off some pretty wretched villain cliches (among them: “Welcome to hell!” and “The end game has begun!”) There are some lazy stock characters as well -- the angry chief and the hacker-as-fat-pervert are the worst offenders -- but in pointing them out, it’s equally important to acknowledge that we’re watching mid-90s American martial arts here, not a Michael Mann crime thriller. That said, I still have no clue why Baker needed the magician background. That shit was creepy.

VERDICT:
Having not seen much of his other work, I’ll prematurely conclude that Bloodmoon is Gary Daniels’s best starring vehicle. He and Jeffreys have good chemistry and the fight scenes are well-choreographed. It’s a bit of a shame that Kuang Hsiung didn’t do more work in the American film industry; his direction is solid and his fight choreography is creative and visually engaging. He and Strandberg would team up again for 1997’s Superfights, but Bloodmoon is the better of the two and definitely deserving of your attention. Great action cast, solid plot, and RVD dry-humping a girl on a pinball machine.

AVAILABILITY:
A new copy might cost you a pretty penny, but you can get this shizz on Region 1 DVD via Amazon or EBay.

7 / 7

Undefeatable (1993)

PLOT: It’s a race against time as a mulleted martial-arts killer named Stingray is pursued by police and a street-fighting waitress avenging her sister’s death. How long will the carnage go on before Stingray is stopped? Only 90 minutes, because that’s the runtime of the film.

Director: Godfrey Ho
Writer: Steve Harper, Robert Vassar, Tai Yim
Cast: Cynthia Rothrock, Don Niam, John Miller, Donna Jason, Sunny David, Gerald Klein

PLOT THICKENER

The cost of attending college has steadily risen each decade for the last 30 years. Grants and scholarships can help, but the supply for these financial gifts is limited. As a result, many students and their families take out huge loans in order to pay for tuition. Those who can’t absorb that kind of debt might instead attend community college, or in some cases, forgo higher education entirely. Still, others pay their way through school by working part-time.

In Godfrey Ho’s 1993 epic Undefeatable, pre-med student Karen Jones can’t be bothered to get off her ass and get a fucking job. Instead, her older sister, Kristi, battles in underground Baltimore street fights for her tuition money. (Street fighter ranks #3 on experts’ annual list of jobs for easy college cash, sandwiched between library assistant and stripper). Kristi’s involvement in the world of street fighting is certainly not without its hazards. The money is dirty and fights are organized and overseen by mobsters. The fighters are often desperate men dressed in accessories culled from yard sales. Worse, the cops are always on the hunt to break up the illegal throwdowns. After all, it’s not like there are worse things going on in Baltimore.

It’s during the latest of these fights that Kristi crosses paths with Nick DiMarco. Martial arts enthusiast, homicide detective, basketball fan, and overpriced coffee lover, DiMarco is a straight-laced cop who sees nothing but dead ends in Kristi’s choice of thug life. After arresting her for fighting and then pocketing her winnings, he encourages her to reject the horrible cycle of violence and quit her gang, the Red Dragons. Like the Bloods and Crips before them, the Dragons are fond of leather jackets, aren’t enrolled in college, and are comprised mostly of Asian guys. Despite protests from DiMarco and her sister, Kristi doesn’t want to quit fighting only to die poor and feeble. In her mind, waitressing and fighting in the streets fit together to form a Voltron of financial stability.

Perched atop the higher end of the underground fighting circuit is Paul, better known by his street name of Stingray. While his life would appear to be pure bliss -- big paydays, Plymouth minivan, no children -- his wife, Anna, has been seeing a therapist and spilling the beans about her hubby’s increasingly violent behavior. Flowers in hand, he returns home after his latest fight to find his wife cooking steak for dinner. But Stingray’s in the mood for something entirely different: random and horrific sexual violence. During the entirety of the assault on his wife, Stingray reminisces about pummeling a recently vanquished opponent while the steak burns in the background. Only a director of Godfrey Ho’s skill would dare offer this kind of visual commentary on violent misogyny and overcooked food. What's the significance? I DON’T KNOW!

 

This was apparently the tipping point, however. Stingray arrives home the next night to find his favorite meal of veggies and steak carefully arranged at the dinner table. After an angry search of the residence, he finds a letter from Anna declaring that she’s left him for good. Just like his mother years earlier, his wife has abandoned him. As one might expect, he’s devastated and tosses everything on the table to the floor with a violent swipe of his forearm. But prior to that, he picks up the slab of cooked meat and throws it against the wall; the allure of beef is apparently gone. 

After spray-painting red streaks in his hair (a la Rufio from Hook) Stingray gasses up the minivan and departs on the "Illogical Rampage of Murder, Rape, and Eye-Gouging ‘93." DiMarco and his bumbling partner investigate the string of homicides and eventually deduce that the killer targets petite white women with long, reddish hair: i.e. girls that look sort of like Stingray’s ex-wife. Unfortunately, Karen Jones fits this bill and becomes a card-carrying member of the victim club. Because it’s a martial-arts film, Kristi vows revenge, and DiMarco and Jennifer, Anna’s former psychiatrist, join in the hunt. She also knows martial arts. Obviously.

  

The fight scenes throughout the film fall within the range of uninspired to average but it’s somehow very watchable by early 90s American action standards. The obvious crown jewel is the now-infamous climax between Stingray, DiMarco, and Kristi; on-screen fights rarely get as sweaty, screamy, and drooly as this one. (Braveheart comes close, but didn’t have nearly enough drool.)

There are a few things at work that really distinguish it from similarly crafted B-grade action pictures from the same period. As many martial arts films utilize vengeance as a major theme, audiences are accustomed to seeing the roots of a protagonist’s journey to right the wrongs. Ho and the film’s writers flip the script by injecting the villain’s backstory with some bizarre semblance of pathos. Stingray has mommy issues on steroids with a crystal meth chaser. The few flashbacks to his childhood allude to abandonment and while I’m not a psychiatrist, I’d guess this would lead to relationship trouble later in life. In the case of Stingray, I’m not sure how it led to a propensity for rape, murder, and eye-gouging, but hey -- different strokes, different folks.

Don Niam really makes the Stingray character his own: he has a gloriously puffy mullet, plays scenes completely over the top, and is a capable martial artist who can hold his own during fights. Rothrock is generally solid, and even gets a grieving/crying scene to show off her ability to emote awkwardly while staring at a fake dead body. The Nick DiMarco character is almost instantly unlikeable because of his wholesome righteousness, and while John Miller is a good fighter, his performance vacillates between wooden and a little goofy.

VERDICT

Undefeatable may be the most enjoyable “so bad it’s good” martial arts film I’ve seen. The star of the show is obviously Stingray -- this is a character that should inspire fan fiction. Little kids should be dressing up in denim vests and puffy mullet wigs for Halloween. And give me a Stingray t-shirt with “ANNA!” in bold print underneath. But all of the film’s elements coalesce beautifully: the convoluted serial killer plot is a trip to watch unfold; the early 90s fashion staples of leather jackets, Zubaz pants, and denim vests are on full display; and the climactic fight scene is one of the most incredible things captured on celluloid.

AVAILABILITY

There are actually two versions of the film on the market: the U.S. print reviewed here, and a version for the Asian market that features scenes with Robin Shou and Yukari Oshima. Netflix carries the former and Amazon offers both versions.

7 / 7