Drive (1997)

PLOT: A Chinese corporation implants a man with a synthetic “bio-engine” that gives him enhanced reaction time, speed, and fighting ability. When he flees to California, the group scrambles to prevent him from delivering the device to a competitor. This is why it’s important to require your cyborg prototypes to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Director: Steve Wang
Writer: Scott Phillips
Cast: Mark Dacascos, Kadeem Hardison, John Pyper-Ferguson, Brittany Murphy, Tracey Walter, James Shigeta, Masaya Kato, Ron Yuan, David Hayter

PLOT THICKENER

In a 2010 article for Wired, comedian Patton Oswalt articulated the idea, “Everything that ever was, available forever” (ETEWAF) as a way of framing geek culture in the era of high-speed Internet and on-demand content. In some ways, this idea also extends to our current film geek landscape, where dozens of boutique genre film distribution labels are dedicated to the high-resolution restoration of obscure films that were only ever released to the VHS rental market (if that!) The horror and exploitation genres have been the primary beneficiaries of this technological wave, resulting in the mass availability of films that few saw during their initial home video runs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cult action films have been orphaned as undeserving of this same glossy treatment. That said, if I were to start my own prestige action movie label tomorrow, and I was forced to pick one movie as the flagship release, it would be Steve Wang’s 1997 film, Drive.

Toby Wong (Dacascos) is a walking, talking science experiment, implanted by the nefarious Leung Corporation with an experimental “turbo drive” device that gives him borderline superhuman physical abilities. When things go sideways, Wong flees to the American West Coast, hoping to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles to a more benevolent tech company that will uninstall the device and pay him a hefty sum of money for the technological advances that it yields. Unfortunately, Leung Corporation’s head honcho, Mr. Lau (Shigeta) has outsourced the apprehension of Wong (the “object”) to a group of violent and savvy American mercenaries led by Vic Madison (Pyper-Ferguson) and Hedgehog (Walter), and they’re hot on Wong’s trail.

Mere moments after pulling up a stool at a Bay Area bar to drink some five-hop hipster brew, Toby is forced to fight and flee again, this time with the help (however coerced) of a struggling and divorced songwriter, Malik Brody (Hardison) and his 1973 Dodge Challenger. After Toby shares the reasons for his actions and offers Malik half of his money once they get to L.A., the pair joins together for a high-paced chase from a dangerous group of men. Will they make it to Los Angeles in one piece? Can they trust each other, let alone the people they meet along the way? And is it elephant seal mating season at this time of year? Because I’ve heard there are some good stops along the Pacific Coast Highway to watch them on the beach.

THIS MOVIE IS INSANE. I’ve been banging this drum for a long time, and I haven’t seen everything, but Drive has the best fight choreography of any American action b-movie I’ve ever seen. You can certainly make arguments for both of the Undisputed sequels, a few other Scott Adkins movies, or perhaps 2008’s Broken Path (directed by Koichi Sakamoto, who did choreography in this film), but for me, this is still tops. The differences in environment, the use of weapons (e.g., guns, “stun rods,” boots, and even dirtbikes), and the consideration of impediments (e.g., Toby handcuffed to Malik), are all deployed logically and effectively. The fight scenes scale well, they’re shot and edited competently, and they escalate appropriately toward a truly bonkers climax where Toby fights a more advanced model of himself (Kato) in an Apollo-themed night club. The filmmakers, comprised of a Taiwan-born American director and an action team of primarily Japanese and American performers, managed to approximate the look and feel of classic Hong Kong fight choreography (specifically, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung) during just a six-week production schedule. Is it *as good* as the best from Hong Kong’s golden era? No, but it’s in the conversation. That alone is a major feat for a low-budget direct-to-video action film made in the States.

As good as the fight scenes are, you have to also consider what’s happening during the downtime. The plot is silly but fairly simple, with elements of a road movie, a reluctant partner buddy-cop dynamic, and the man-as-machine territory Wang previously explored with the Guyver films. Hardison and Dacascos forge an easygoing chemistry together over the course of the film; the early bits feel a little forced but Hardison’s light demeanor makes their conversations interesting and at the mid-way point, they started to play better off each other. Their counterparts on the other side of the moral spectrum, John Pyper-Ferguson and Tracey Walter, have a more consistent and natural vibe, along with quirkier character ticks. Walter’s Hedgehog is into bad American television programming (e.g., Walter the Einstein Frog, more on that here) and a junk food intake bemoaned by his partner, Madison. In creating the look for his country-fried hitman, Pyper-Ferguson seems to be channeling equal parts Clint Eastwood in Coogan’s Bluff and Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula with his bolo ties, tinted glasses, and manicured facial hair. It’s an odd, entertaining performance and he delivers some of the best lines of dialogue in the film (on Toby, he remarks that “the son of a bitch could eat flour and shit cupcakes.”)

Brittany Murphy’s performance as the flaky, motel heir, Deliverance Bodine is alternately grating and colorful. At times, she lays on the crazy vibe too thick, and combined with her exposition-laden dialogue, it makes the character feel one-dimensional. (We’ve all met people who come on too strong too quickly, so it’s still believable). It’s only through Deliverance’s continuing interactions with Malik and Toby that we see Murphy peel away the additional layers -- she knows a ton about cars and handles automatic weapons with the glee of a kid in a water balloon fight -- and by the end of the trio’s time together, I was actually looking forward to more. I may be alone on that, and I’m fine with it. 

In terms of overall performance, Dacascos may be the biggest revelation of them all. As the action star and focal point of some fast and complex fight choreography, he’s already carrying a heavy load. He surprised me with his ability to handle comedy, though, from his timely facial expressions to a bizarre singing scene that precedes the climax. Very few action stars have the will and self-awareness to try some of that stuff, let alone make it work. This sort of rare and multi-faceted performance will only reinforce the notion that Dacascos should have been a much, much bigger star. (Iron Chef America ain't a bad place to unwind, I suppose.)

If there’s one big critique I have of this film, it’s the pacing and padding. The version of the film I watched was the 117-minute director’s cut. That’s a bit long for this sort of movie, and you really notice the length during several scenes with expository dialogue that don’t move the story forward. According to one of the special features on the disc, Dacascos’s singing scene at the Apollo 14 Club -- he serenades Malik with a song about Malik’s own dysfunctional romantic relationship with his ex-wife -- was only supposed to show three verses. With this version of the film, we get the whole shebang, and while it’s kinda funny and a great example of Dacascos’s charisma, it’s endemic of the sort of bloat that occasionally dogs the movie. Because the action scenes are so frequent and so good, this film gets away with it, but a lesser action film might not. Similar to Guyver: Dark Hero, it seems that Wang either fell in love with too much of the footage, or couldn’t determine how to streamline the story in the editing room.

When Seasonal Films started their run of English-language productions back in the mid-1980s, they infused those films with varying versions of Hong Kong style action choreography. They recognized that good fight scenes took time, but the process was a worthy investment. The blueprint had been translated and was demonstrated to work for the American market. So many American b-movies that came afterward were either unable or unwilling to follow that model, though, and you’ve been reading about those movies for years on this very platform. Drive is something a perfect storm, though. It had a great action star, with a great stunt team, along with a director with unique visual sensibilities, and just enough money to make it all work. But it also came at a time when American audiences, especially those consuming DTV action films, had more and more Hong Kong film directly at its fingertips. Drive was able to cater directly to that appetite in a way that its DTV brethren of the decade prior probably ignored. 

VERDICT

Generally speaking, Drive is not a perfect film, but its strengths are so off-the-charts exceptional, that it would be ridiculous of me to dock it points for the absence of silly DTV genre markers like Zubaz pants or bad line delivery. After all, shouldn’t fight films be about the fighting itself? If your answer is no, quit being a smart-ass. If your answer is yes, there is no finer or more convincing example of an English-language movie executing Hong Kong-style action choreography during this era than Drive. The Seasonal Films Corporation’s “Super 7” set the bar, and this film just about jumps over it. Strongly recommended. 

AVAILABILITY

Your best bets are Amazon or eBay on DVD. Be mindful that there's a few different versions floating around, including the aforementioned "Director's Cut" with lots of bonus features.

7 / 7

Guyver: Dark Hero (1994)

PLOT: A young man possessed by weaponized alien armor known as the Guyver travels to a mysterious archaeological dig site that may hold the key to explaining its origins. It may also hold around 800 million barrels of salted caramel, a candy lover’s dream.

Director: Steve Wang
Writers: Steve Wang, Nathan Long, Yoshiki Takaya
Cast: David Hayter, Kathy Christopherson, Christopher Michael, Bruno Patrick

PLOT THICKENER

You know that old saying about how “clothes make the person?” Somewhat true! Certain articles of clothing can make you feel cool and confident. Yet other outfits will make you feel like a bargain-bin Mayor McCheese on a casual Friday. Somewhere between these two ends of the fashion spectrum is the sort of clothing that can make you feel like you can jump really high, perform lethal martial arts moves, and shoot lasers out of your chest. But what if this clothing -- hell, let’s call it armor -- couldn’t be removed at all? What if it was actually part of your body and you were merely hosting it? This is the premise of Bio-Booster Armor Guyver, a Japanese manga series from the 1980s and 90s that was adapted for the American film screen twice by filmmaker Steve Wang: first in 1991 under the title, The Guyver, and again just three years later as Guyver: Dark Hero.

Sean Barker (Hayter) keeps waking up violently in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. Night terrors? Consuming sugar too close to bedtime? Yeah, close. Some time has passed since the Guyver, an alien bio-armor, took over his body. It has a mind of its own and activates at random, turning Sean into a lethal fighting machine. Sure -- it was useful when he was battling the Cronos Corporation, a nefarious group trying to locate the Guyver for its own evil means, but now it’s just cramping his style. On the one hand, it lets him fight large criminal enterprises with relative ease, but on the other hand, he can’t go to the grocery store to shop for soup ingredients without worrying about the Guyver taking control of his faculties and blasting the produce section to a pulpy mess.

While watching a local news story about some mysterious killings near a covert dig site, Sean notices footage of cave paintings that correlate to the notebook sketches he’s been compulsively doodling in his waking hours. He takes a taxi to a general store -- like most of us did before Google Maps -- seeking help to identify a non-specific location he’s curious to visit. Once there, he meets Cori Edwards (Christopherson) a researcher buying a case of cheap beer for her archaeological dig team. Initially reluctant because of potential stranger danger, she finally agrees to take him there based on the intrigue of his notebook sketches. She fibs to the dig organizers on his behalf and Sean is suddenly lending a hand in their efforts.

In time, he begins to discover the objectives for the dig, the shadowy sources of its financing, and the various intentions of some of the so-called “researchers” on the project. The mysterious killings, previously attributed to wildlife or even a werewolf, may be the work of Zoanoids, the monstrous shape-shifting battle forms that comprise the Cronos Corporation. Will Sean find the source behind the Guyver? Can he defeat Cronos and the Zoanoids and rid himself of the Guyver once and for all? And will the persistent lower back pain he experiences after consecutive hours of shoveling respond better to a heated pad or deep tissue massage? Maybe a little of both?

The last few Octobers, I’ve made a concerted effort to focus on movies that feature some sort of monsters, spooky elements, and schlocky gore. Prior to watching it, I had no idea that Guyver: Dark Hero would satisfy all these criteria. While I’ve never seen the first one -- by all indications, this is the stronger of the two efforts -- the sequel stands on its own as an enjoyable romp that requires little pretext or understanding of the source material. At its core, this is a film about a man who is unable to control his body and the misdeeds that result from its strange powers. Anyone who has eaten at Chipotle can probably relate.

The creature design of the various Zoanoids might seem familiar to those viewers who have watched any number of Kamen Rider or Power Rangers episodes, but what threw me for a loop was the amount of blood and gore during the fight scenes. It was a minor but effective touch that upped the shlock factor and raised the stakes within the story (who wants to see a vanquished enemy dissolve out of a composite shot?!) The spectacle of violence may even make you disregard the fact that the action scenes are unevenly distributed and the fight choreography is a bit inconsistent.

The fight scenes are quite good for the most part, even with the obvious performative restrictions of bulky costuming. Fight choreographer Koichi Sakamoto and his Alpha Stunt Team certainly deserve credit for that. There’s some goofy stuff -- surprise wrestling moves, a plodding splash-fight in the water, and Guyver killing an enemy with his random laser titties -- but all of it is forgivable in the context of this cinematic universe. What can’t be ignored is staging your climactic fight in a cave with a bunch of stalagmites and stalactites and not incorporating them into the choreography at all. Friggin’ Cliffhanger got it -- why didn’t this film?

Even with all the fun stuff Wang puts in the mix, the film’s excessive run-time -- over two hours -- was nearly a deal-breaker. It drags quite badly in spots and the narrative gets bogged down by attempts to translate what I assume were frequent panels of Sean’s internal monologue strewn throughout the series. It’s chatty to a fault and the script tries to juggle too many secondary plot points and character motivations.  Fans of the original manga series or the initial anime adaptations might appreciate it, but I think viewers approaching the film without that context may risk becoming disengaged. There’s a better film somewhere in here if the filmmakers had left around 20 minutes of narrative fat on the cutting room floor.

VERDICT

If, like me, your introduction to the pairing of Sakamoto and Wang was the non-Gosling Drive (1997) your expectations might have been set artificially high, but the cool stunt shit is here along with plenty of wacky visual touches. The acting performances are serviceable but you’re watching this movie for dudes fighting in elaborate creature suits. They’re aren’t many American tokusatsu (“monster”) films out there, even fewer good ones, and Guyver: Dark Hero might be the best.

AVAILABILITY

• DVD or VHS (Amazon, eBay)
• Streaming via Amazon Prime

3.5 / 7

American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)

PLOT: A martial arts champion travels abroad for a fighting tournament, only to be sidetracked by a dangerous scheme involving ninjas, terrorism, and virus engineering. Because he failed to purchase travel insurance, he’s unable to recover any of his money.

Director: Cedric Sundstrom
Writer: Gary Conway
Cast: David Bradley, Steve James, Michele Chan, Marjoe Gortner, Calvin Jung, Evan J. Kissler, Yehuda Efroni, Mike Huff, John Barrett

 

PLOT THICKENER

There’s no shortage of talented people who hated the practice or products of their exceptional gifts. Before a Paris gallery showing in 1908, Claude Monet destroyed more than a dozen paintings in his infamous “Water Lilies” series; this sort of purge was a pattern for him. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grew to despise his popular Sherlock Holmes character so much that he killed him off in a story and stayed away from Holmes for the next eight years. Not even the chopsocky genre is immune to this sort of self-directed grumbling. In American Ninja 3, Curtis Jackson, played by Steve James, is sick and goddamned-tired of fighting ninjas, despite his innate ability to wreck shop. This is like penicillin complaining about being a great treatment for bacterial infections.

All bellyaching aside, this would mark the first film in the series in which which director Sam Firstenberg and star Michael Dudikoff sat out to make room for new talent. Taking over the director’s chair is South African filmmaker Cedric Sundstrom, who did a few features after this and then (for better or worse) moved on to television. To replace Dudikoff -- at that time, a male model with decent screen presence but limited fighting chops -- the Cannon Film Group enlisted David Bradley, a practitioner of shotokan and kempo (kenpō) karate. His screen presence at this point consisted of an upbeat fighting style and a barely perceptible Texas drawl, topped with a shaggy coiff that would make Sho Kosugi proud.

Bradley plays Sean Davidson, an American who trained in ninjutsu as a youth under the tutelage of his murdered father’s master, Izumo (Jung). Sean is recruited for a lucrative fighting tournament in the fictional banana republic of Port San Luco, Triana, where he befriends a fanboy named Dex (Kissler) and U.S. military strongman Curtis Jackson (James) who’s probably on vacation to get the hell away from his co-pilot in the first two films. Little does the trio know that the tournament was hatched by the evil Cobra (Gortner) to ensnare one lucky participant for more nefarious purposes. Through his East Bay Laboratory enterprise, he hopes to use viral engineering to control fighters for more precise and efficient terrorist operations, and sell this product to the highest bidder. His colleague and the head trainer of his ninja outfit (and a hensōjutsu master at that) Chan Lee (Chan), has pre-selected Davidson for evaluation in the test pilot. What might happen if Sean is infected by the Cobra’s evil virus? Superhuman strength? Complete ambivalence to pain? Mood swings? A burning sensation while urinating?

The prevailing opinion among chopsocky heads is that this is the sequel where the American Ninja franchise officially went off the rails and straight into the crap bin. I don’t buy into that narrative. Here’s the harsh truth, y’all: these films were not good. Sure, the first one had lasers, Tad Yamashita, and that cool girl from Weird Science and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. The second one had beach fights and Body Glove wet-suits and the continuing Dudikoff-James bromance. Were they more “fun” than this one? Maybe, but that’s all subjective. Any perceived drop-off in quality between the second and third entries is splitting hairs, if you ask me; we’re not debating The Godfather versus Air Bud here.

The most problematic difference between this film and its predecessors it is the direction. Cedric Sundstrom may be a capable director in some regards -- he made the saxophonist-vengeance trash gem The Revenger the same year -- but his first installment of American Ninja is a stale, messy regurgitation of old plot points. The first two films saw the heroes taking down ninja terrorists, before fighting a villain called “The Lion” who ran an experimental ninja program, respectively. Sundstrom’s film has a villain named “The Cobra” who runs an experimental viral ninja program to benefit the world’s terrorists. Yeah -- tomayto, tomahto. There are plenty of other story miscues, from the abandoned fight tournament plot point, to a goofy and protracted motorized hang-glider scene. The East Bay Laboratory’s high-tech inner lair is just fluorescent lighting and a bunch of colorful, steamy liquids bubbling in beakers. For reasons that elude me, the lab station is surrounded by half-naked dudes on pedestals who are button-activated into ninja mode at the end of the movie. This is the kind of stuff that you might dream up after eating a hash brownie before bed, but it’s not something a rational person should commit to film (even in the 1980s).

Sundstrom’s command of the action elements is equally suspect. Outside of a single car-splosion, there are really no elaborate stunt sequences in the film, but the audience is treated to a fight scene once every 15 minutes or so. That’s a fine pace, but the film’s lead martial artist and its choreography (via Mike Stone) are frequently betrayed by poor shooting angles and coverage. This leads to a few scenes dogged by choppy editing that exposed plenty of strikes revealing too much space. (If you watch enough of these films, you can probably forgive the lack of quality control). Despite his character’s objections to the contrary, Steve James is having a good time cracking heads and throwing around stunt dudes in ninja garb. He has a scene in the film’s climax where he wields double swords and hacks and slashes his enemies to pieces, with all of the correlating sound effects ... but none of the visual bloodletting. Like a lot of other things, it wasn’t in the budget, I guess.

The supporting cast features a couple of interesting choices. Gortner was a controversial Pentecostal preacher from a young age and his biggest cinematic claim to fame was the Academy Award winning 1972 documentary Marjoe, which tracked his rise on the tent revivial circuit to televangelism and his final revival tour. Considering his history of blowhard behavior, it was a big surprise/screw-up to see him so subdued here. As the ninja leader with a conscience, Michele Chan is pretty good and has amazing rockstar Jem & the Holograms style spiky hair. These days, she pursues philanthropy and is married to billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, a co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. I’m sure she credits this film for most if not all of the great things in her life.

VERDICT

To reiterate, this is an uneven ninja film where the star spends all of about 20 seconds in a ninja suit. On balance, though, the film gets one point for David Bradley’s debut, another point for Steve James being awesome in a “Shalom Y’all” shirt, and a third point for Michele Chan’s incredible mane of hair. After that, your mileage will vary. If you enjoyed the 80s cheese of the second film in the series, this one cranks the funk up a few notches, but pure action aficionados are likely to turn their noses up at this one.

AVAILABILITY

YouTube, Amazon, Netflix.

3 / 7 

Virtual Combat (1995)

PLOT: In the future, a scientific breakthrough leads to a breakdown in the barrier between virtual reality and the physical world, where computer programs are equipped with human bodies and run amok. What science has wrought, only kicks, guns, and double-stomps to the chest can destroy.

Director: Andrew Stevens
Writer: William C. Martell
Cast: Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Athena Massey, Michael Bernardo, Dawn Ann Billings, Michael Dorn, Loren Avedon, Ken McLeod, Ron Barker

PLOT THICKENER

When direct-to-video martial arts filmmakers started experimenting with science fiction elements during the late 1980s and early 90s, more often than not, the results were, as the French say, “le merde crachin.” With Jean-Claude Van Damme finding success in movies like Universal Soldier and Timecop, the blueprint for the DTV crowd was set, and the smaller studios played mix-and-match with elements from big-budget futuristic productions in which they could let their various martial artist stars run wild. When the dust settled, there were a number of cinematic ambassadors for the sub-subgenre: Olivier Gruner (Nemesis, Automatic); Richard Norton (Hyper Space, Equalizer 2000); and Don “The Dragon” Wilson (Future Kick, Cyber Tracker). I almost feel like I’ve written this exact paragraph before -- is this current Brezdin returning from the past with old copy? Or is it old Brezdin traveling from the past and writing a post while current Brezdin is away on vacation? And why am I suddenly getting a nosebleed? Trying to make your fiction all sciencey just screws things up, and Don the Dragon knows from experience.

In the future, credits have replaced currency. Los Angeles crime has been supplanted by Los Angeles pacifism. And fighting and screwing has largely been replaced by strapping yourself into a giant gyroscope (i.e., aerotrim) and experiencing it inside a virtual reality (VR) program under the supervision of some keyboard jockey. David Quarry (Wilson) and his partner John (McLeod) are members of the grid runners, a security force tasked with defending the “grid” between Los Angeles and Las Vegas from threats both virtual and physical. When a scientist has a major breakthrough in cyberplastic theory, a local evil corporation stands to profit. What they didn’t count on, however, is that the same computer process that can create physical manifestations from cybersex characters, can also be used to bring virtual killers from the “Lethal Combat” fight simulator into the physical world. When a glitch in the system does exactly that, and an elite but egomaniacal fighter named Dante (Bernardo) is set loose in the physical world, the line between virtual and tangible may be forever erased.

Just like the cyberplastic goo in which the virtual reality characters come to life, this film was a warm and slippery mess that’s toxic to pets and small children. A lot of the plot elements and visual gags are straight rips from better science-fiction films like Demolition Man, Virtuosity, and T2: Judgment Day. However, I loved how shameless the filmmakers were about this pilfering and the  world-building that resulted from it. The movie portends the proliferation of the voice-commanded, personalized mobile assistant that retrieves any information you could want (here, it’s called “Mary”). It has programmable sex cyborgs, cyberterrorism, and virtual reality gaming. Looking around now at the emergence of technologies like Oculus, Siri, and Echo, I’m shocked at how much our world is beginning to resemble the one depicted in a friggin’ Don the Dragon Wilson movie. Will buzz cuts and pomade be outlawed in the future? Because for reasons unknown, the hair in this movie is huge and unkempt. Bernardo has always rocked the long locks, but Wilson, McLeod, and Avedon are all rocking some shaggy cuts in a production that had plenty of humidity but clearly lacked an on-set barber or even a single brush or comb.

This film came at an odd point in Loren Avedon’s filmography, one that we might objectively call a downturn in activity. Virtual Combat was sandwiched between 1994’s Operation Golden Phoenix, where he played bad guy Ivan Jones, and 1996’s Safety Zone, an obscure Canadian film that appears to have been released in Greece but nowhere else. While we might point to his role in Operation… as igniting a trend towards playing villains, a closer examination reveals that his turn as Michael Branson, the dickish kickboxer in the 1993’s Baywatch episode, “Kicks,” was the starting point. Avedon has spoken of his fondness for playing villains because they can act without rules, but his character of Parness is more of a corporate underling who lacks any real autonomy. It was also tough to see Avedon’s personality shine through here; he has a natural cockiness that I’ve always found enjoyable in his heroic roles, so it’d make sense to turn that trait up to 11 as a villain. Yet, Parness lacks any clear personality traits or motivations beyond those instilled by his employers. Overall, I felt let down with how he was used in this film, but thankfully, Avedon has a couple of scenes with Wilson and we get a solid fight between the two towards the climax.

On the whole, the action in the film is that solid brand of chopsocky one would expect in a film where Art Camacho is listed as the fight choreographer. That said, I’m not sure he got the most out of the talent here -- the fight between Wilson and Avedon is good, but given their styles I would have expected something with better pace and more wide angles -- the filmmakers relied way too much on close shots and it robs the audience of any sense of movement. Bernardo is a talented guy but I didn’t really see the Dante character as head-and-shoulders above everyone else in terms of skill -- he wields some limb-regeneration trickery straight from the T-1000 toolkit -- but if we’re to believe that he’s a VR program capable of learning the tendencies of its opponents, he needed to seem more invincible and adaptable. (And how David throws a glitch in the Dante matrix is head-scratching). All that said, this film gave me Loren Avedon firing laser beams and a good amount of kicking, so I can’t complain much about the action.

Now for my biggest issue with the film. Virtual Combat employs that weird trope of having Actor A (strong voice) perform all of the dialgoue for Actor B (weak voice) but instead of having Actor A move his mouth and then dubbing him in post-production, the filmmaker uses Michael Dorn’s disembodied voice-of-God dialogue over shots of Bernardo contorting his face to look like he’s thinking out loud. We love Dorn -- he has a great voice, he played Worf, he flies jets. And if you remember Shootfighter: Fight to the Death -- and let’s be honest, who doesn’t? -- Bernardo wasn’t exactly Isaac Hayes in the vocal talent department. On the contrary, he falls into that camp of screen fighters who unfortunately lack the ability to project effectively, doomed to “nice guy” supporting parts because they still sound like teenagers when they open their mouths. Teenagers who haven’t tasted whiskey or smoked a cigarette. Has Jeff Wincott ever been dubbed? Nope, and there's a reason for that. (Wincott Chainsmoking Method wins again). Anyways, this Dorn cover-up makes practical sense and the technique works on paper because it’s a futuristic science-fiction film where we can buy the idea of Dante’s telepathic outbursts. In execution, though, it comes off as overly goofy because the other “dimensionalized” VR clones talk with their own mouths and their own voices, and for some strange reason, the filmmakers included Bernardo’s natural grunts and groans during the fight scenes. The inconsistency undermines the approach, but I look forward to creating a series of supercuts where I dub Dante with dialogue from Skeletor, Zod from Superman II, and Ursula from The Little Mermaid. I might not be joking.

VERDICT

The VR fight simulation angle is interesting, if overly coincidental, given that Expect No Mercy came out the same year, but the intermingling of the tangible and the virtual is what makes Virtual Combat the slightly more novel of the two. This may be the closest that DTV chopsocky ever got to touching upon David Cronenberg’s recurring theme of technology merging with the human body, and it certainly reinforced the notion that he executes that theme better than almost any other filmmaker. I would have liked to see a better use of the supporting cast, but I always get a kick out of seeing what 90s films thought the technological world might look like in only a few decades’ time.

AVAILABILITY

A bit hard to find. VHS is your best bet.

3.5 / 7

Night of the Kickfighters (1988)

aka Night Raiders

The month of March found the members of the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit trading guest posts, podcast appearances, and in a few cases, illegal imported cigarettes and throwing stars! Our compadre, Denis from The Horror!? was kind enough to watch this 1988 AIP film and write a review for us. He's really earned that complimentary pair of Zubaz pants and the denim vest with the dragon patch on the back!

The company of Carl McMann (Adam “the gosh-darn Batman” West) has developed a shiny new laser cannon ideal for blowing away motionless jet models located on cardboard-looking pedestals. The technical innovation also includes a wondrous microchip that can recognize allied soldiers by their “eye prints”, cleverly even when they have turned their backs towards the laser cannon, though not while they are wearing sunglasses; nobody involved cares about civilians, it seems. However, as it always is when SCIENCE is making the Free World™ better at killing, those evil terrorists are there to mess things up.

Evil terrorist Kedesha (Marcia Karr) takes valuable time off from her various family friendly sexual perversions and lets her henchmen – among them the mandatory weird-looking big strong guy in form of Ponti (Carel Struycken) and his inspired grimaces – kidnap McMann’s daughter Kathy (Lisa Alpert). McMann gives out the data about the laser Kedesha wants from him, but he also hires international man of adventure Brett Cady (Andy Bauman) to find Kedesha, save his daughter and blow the complex (aka a series of grey corridors located in the desert) they’re in as well as the laser data to kingdom come.

Because Brett already had his ass kicked by Ponti once, he goes the seven samurai way and calls in a troupe of friends and business associates as his own private kick-fighting strike force. With a team consisting of computer wiz Clea (Phyllis Doyle), mandatory person of colour Socrates (Fitz Houston), hairy explosives and gadget man Bomber (Michelangelo Kowalski), and “British” stage magician Aldo (Philip Dore), all ready for a stealthy night assault on the Mexican base, evil terrorism won’t stand a chance.

Initially, the main claim Night of the Kickfighters had on my interest was the fact that it was distributed by the glorious Action International Pictures (still the only company I know which actually wanted to be confused with Arkoff’s and Nicholson’s AIP), the finest purveyors of direct-to-video nonsense. Now, after I’ve finally seen it, I’m quite a bit more focused on the film’s adorably silly mixture of low cost Eurospy stylings, Men’s Adventure pulp novel fixations, and part-time martial arts adventure. It’s the sort of thing I can’t help but describe with words like “adorable” and “charming”, because, while it certainly won’t thrill anyone with its exciting plotting, its poetic fight choreography or its brilliant acting, Night is a film very eager to please, putting all its negligible money and talent right on screen with verve and a sense of excitement that just doesn’t care how silly everything going on here actually is.

So how silly is it? Well, there’s a scene that sees Kedesha (and her oh so brilliant accent) dressed down to what might be very sparkly underwear or an equally sparkly bathing suit, writhing on a couch while cuddling with a snake, getting a foot massage by a nameless henchman, and being fed grapes by Ponti, which not only demonstrates how far out of its way the film goes in presenting her as of dubious sexual proclivities (she also likes to play with blood) while still keeping the movie breast-free, but is also one of the more inexplicable things I’ve seen in a movie in quite some time, unless the aim of the scene was to fulfill some producer’s very particular fetish wishes. During the course of the movie, we also encounter nunchuks that shoot bullets, a microwave glass tube for humans, blow-up dinosaurs, a heat-seeking explosive crossbow quarrel, and henchmen making a prescient impression of being time-travelling henchmen out of later stealth based video games, only lacking big yellow exclamation points over their heads; the line “must have been rats”, alas, is missing too.

These moments and little flourishes of reality-deprived nonsense run through nearly every scene of the film, with little happening in Night of the Kickfighters that actually makes sense going by our human logic or the rules of the real world (place of horrors), resulting in a film that can’t help but entertain through the sheer power of its willful imagination, and the absolute shamelessness it shows in putting it on screen, with no thought spent on yawn-inducing nonsense like “ironic distance”.

Surprisingly enough, the action itself is comparatively copious, and decently filmed by first-time (and only-time) director Buddy Reyes. At least, Reyes knows enough about filmmaking to keep his camera moving, giving the film a lively, if messy and cheap feel. Because we demand that sort of thing, there are a handful of explosions, two car chases (the first one rather awkward thanks to the inclusion of a luxury limousine as the chased vehicle), and some mild martial arts fights that do indeed have a kick to punch ratio of 5:1, just as the film’s better title promises.

On the acting side, I found myself rather unimpressed with Andy Bauman’s impression of a moving wooden doll, but Struycken’s truly inspired grimacing and Karr’s all-around impressive scenery-chewing that seems to interpret “femme fatale” in ways oh so patently right in being patently wrong, more than make up for this minor matter.

The resulting film is a beautiful, inspired (by drugs, alcohol or just the unbridled human spirit) thing, lacking even a single dull second. Or, to quote our dear friend Bomber: “Fuckin’ A!”

-- Denis Klotz

The Horror!?

Dragon Fury (1995)

PLOT: In the future, a mysterious disease is wiping out the human population. A violent, fascist medical dictatorship is making millions in profit despite their completely ineffective cure serum. One brave warrior must travel backwards through time to undo their misdeeds. Based on the epic GlaxoSmithKline fan-fiction novel of the same name.

Director: David Heavener
Writer: David Heavener
Cast: Robert Chapin, TJ Storm, Richard Lynch, Chona Jason, Rick Tain, Chuck Loch, Sean P. Donahue


PLOT THICKENER
Cinematically speaking, time travel is a tough subject to pull off. There are almost always plot holes or flimsy layers of scientific logic that beg explanation but can’t be adequately articulated on screen without coming off as ham-handed or expository. The universe of Back to the Future handled it well enough, and 2004’s Primer was an interesting exercise in how the fabric of the universe could be bent on a micro-budget. David Heavener’s 1995 film, Dragon Fury takes a slightly different approach by skirting any question you could have about the logic underpinning its science fiction elements. When you ask how the time machine works, someone gets topless. When you ask why characters are behaving in a particular way, someone gets decapitated. When you ask how time travel will affect people and events, this film hands you an aspirin for the future headache that will occur from going into the past. Of course.

Mason (Chapin) is a rogue warrior in a near-future dystopia who trusts no one but his girlfriend, Regina (Jason), and his close friend, the eccentric doctor, Milton (Loch). The latter has recently uncovered an evil plot from the past that explains the dire state of the present. And he has the brittle newspaper clippings to prove it! Apparently, an organization called the AAMA manufactured some disease in some lab some time in the late 1990s and killed a whistleblowing doctor before the truth got out. Since that time, they’ve been making serious dough by distributing a placebo serum that does nothing to curb the spread of the disease. These big-pharma buttholes are led by “chief medical dictator” Vestor (Lynch) and his band of merry men called the Dragons. Mason was trained as a Dragon and managed to escape before being completely brainwashed, but their treachery haunts him on the regular.

After some intense discussion (<5 minutes) Mason wants Milton to send him to the past to fetch the real cure to save humanity. Milton obliges, gives Mason an aspirin for the post-trip headache, straps his homeboy to some tubing, and sends him through space and time to late-90s Los Angeles. We know this because there are strobe lights, smoke, and occasional screaming, then a jump cut. Regina follows suit, but unfortunately, Vestor shows up shortly thereafter with his head goons. He forces Milton to send Fullock (Storm) and Henchman #2 back through time as well, and the chase is on. Will Mason locate the cure by the time the time portal re-opens? Will he be confused by the past's untorn shirts? The large cell phones? The startling lack of hoverboards?

For a quick and dirty list, here is what the post-apocalypse of Dragon Fury has to offer: fog, disease, torn t-shirts, sword fights, dirty robes, motorcycles, chokers with cock-rings, expensive bread, undercuts, and homing devices that turn into swords but look like vibrators. Here’s what it doesn’t have: adequate lighting, readily available firearms, oil drum fires, endangered water supplies, studded leather, lasers, or decent healthcare.

Beyond his brief cameo as a nerdy newlywed, David Heavener also contributes as the film’s director and writer. This is his sixth film, and I would shudder at any insinuation that this is his best effort. The post-apocalyptic costumes are lame even by b-movie standards, the villains are undercooked, the plot is meandering and silly, and the fights lack any sense of drama or danger for the most part. Some of the stunt set pieces, both large and small, are fairly competent though. Take a look through the credits and you’ll see the name of Parole Violators star, Sean Donahue, who served as the film’s stunt coordinator. He dons silly wigs, falls down flights of stairs, and does all of the little things that great stunt work ethic encompasses. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him the MVP of the film, but you could argue that he served the cinematic equivalent of James Posey on the 2008 Boston Celtics: a valuable role player without whom a championship would not be possible. In this case, that championship is The Best 1995 Film Bearing the Name “Dragon Fury.” (This film went undefeated).

Frankly, I was a little surprised to find that T.J. Storm had made so few appearances in films we’ve reviewed thus far. It *seems* like the dude is in everything. That said, the man best remembered around these parts for getting tricked into painting a garage and getting punched by Bolo Yeung during a solo dance sequence, is featured here as the main heavy, Fullock. Heavener seemed to have a clear idea that he wanted the character to be an Arnie-aping, man-of-few-lines, T-800-esque automaton. Storm is a little goofy at times, but I can’t blame him for the lack of engaging characterization. He’s hulking, throws some intense glares, and carries himself well during fight scenes. Seriously big hair, too.

Even if a film’s plot is silly and the sole ownership of acting chops resides with Richard Lynch and his ~72 hours on the set, not all is lost. Great or even good film fights can go a long way in raising the quality of the overall product. Lack of urgency notwithstanding, the fights here were okay, though it’s certainly a case where the energy level outstripped the choreography. The sword fights were bloodless duds, but Storm in particular looks good during his hand-to-hand fight scenes, and he and Chapin have a nice chemistry together. The fight settings are not particularly varied, though. Underpasses, L.A. concrete, parking garages, and warehouses are (once again) the most dangerous places around if you’re trying to avoid a martial arts fight.

VERDICT
The vast majority of b-level martial arts films have steered clear of time travel, with good reason. It can be a heady scientific story element probably best left to polished science-fiction genre filmmakers like Robert Zemeckis and Shane Carruth. However, I’m glad that Heavener decided that the ethics and philosophy of time travel could be conveniently discarded as long as you had plenty of tubing and strobe lights at your disposal. Fleeting moments of enjoyable absurdity or lively fights, but mostly forgettable.

AVAILABILITY
For hard copies on Ebay or Amazon, VHS is your only format option. The film is also freely available through Troma’s channel on YouTube.

3 / 7 

Expect No Mercy (1995)

PLOT: An entrepreneurial madman is using a high-tech virtual reality program to build an army of assassins. Can the two agents charged with infiltrating his organization stop him before the company goes public with the inflated IPO price so typical of tech start-ups?

Director: Zale Dalen
Writer: J. Stephen Maunder
Cast: Billy Blanks, Jalal Merhi, Wolf Larson, Laurie Holden, Anthony De Longis, Michael Blanks, Real Andrews, Sam Moses


PLOT THICKENER
A couple of Stanford Ph.D students felt that search engine results based on the number of times a word appeared on a page sucked; their alternative became Google. The seeds of Netflix were planted after Reed Hastings got pissed about having to pay $40 in late fees for a copy of Apollo 13. The tech sector is rife with stories of small improvements that led to huge, globally successful companies. The 1995 film Expect No Mercy takes a compelling look at how such technological developments gain traction, reach critical mass, and change human lives in meaningful ways. The movie’s villain is an even bigger asshole than Mark Zuckerberg.

People pay good money to attend the Virtual Arts Academy, a high-tech facility that uses virtual reality technology to turn normal humans into lethal fighting machines. By donning goofy headgear and shoulder pads, any average joe from your Tuesday night karate class can become an expert after two years of sparring with the program’s simulated “fighters,” each one more skilled than the one before it. Not content to merely collect tuition money, the Academy’s founder, Warbeck (Larson) is using some of his more advanced graduates for private aims informed by his global ambitions: he’s assembling an army of assassins to execute contract killings. As Warbeck asks during a wide-eyed rant to a colleague later on in the film, "if the government can kill, why can't I?" Starting with his most trusted students, the ring of assassins is a pilot program of sorts, not unlike Google Glass.

Working from the inside to bring Warbeck's empire down is Eric (Merhi) a lead trainer and self-described "hacker" who's trying to keep his true intentions concealed from fellow trainer and maybe-more-than-a-friend, Vicki (Holden). When the Federal Security Bureau sends in an technophobic fighter named Justin Vanier (Bily Blanks) to pose as a student, Eric might just have the partner he needs to finish the mission. Can Eric get access to the files he needs to bring the VAA down? Whose side is Vicki on? And what kind of conditioner does Warbeck use to maintain that majestic mane? Maybe it's just egg whites and coconut milk.

Admittedly, I went into this one with a cautious posture. Merhi's previous films have been enjoyable on some levels, but also fairly uneven, so you can imagine my surprise when the results were solid. Perhaps the biggest difference was the action, which was frequent and sometimes silly, but also fairly well choreographed. Fight scenes were faster, the moves were more fluid, the combinations were more technical, and there were more moves-per-shot than the usual Film One fare. There's even an extended shootout, and a brief car chase to switch things up. I also appreciated the improved chemistry between Blanks and Merhi. Their relationship lacks the usual reluctance and friction, but their differences are well established. Merhi plays the more uptight square whereas Blanks goes with the flow and has an irrational fear of computers. If you've never seen a character visibly repulsed by the appearance of a compact disc, you'll want to add this one to the watchlist.

In a role that was nearly offered to Gary Daniels, Wolf Larson is really entertaining as Warbeck. My general rule of thumb for martial arts b-movie villains is that they need to be presented as physical threats to the heroes, and their bad behavior needs to encompass more than just drug-dealing or being an old, rich, white guy. Not only does Warbeck get a climactic fight scene with one of the protagonists and provide a hammy YouTube-worthy rant, but his giant face is hung throughout the halls of the Academy campus as visual confirmation of his dickish megalomania. I don't know that Daniels would have been able to capture Warbeck's arrogance and self-satisfaction -- and I'm not saying Larson knocked it out of the park -- but it was a lot of fun watching him try.

The de facto leader of Warbeck's group of killers is Damian (De Longis), an expert with a bullwhip and a no-nonsense tough guy of the highest order. He's flanked by Spyder -- played by Michael Blanks in his only onscreen collaboration opposite brother Billy -- and iguana enthusiast Alexander (Williams) who brings his scaly pet to every job and exchanges uncomfortable kisses with him before the crew performs the hit. Other than being a good way to get salmonella this is the kind of odd character flourish that made so many of the movie's secondary characters compelling during their screen time.

For fans of The Walking Dead, this is a great opportunity to see a young Andrea Taggart on the screen as one of the Academy’s instructors. Do you think Laurie Holden has ever done a panel at Comic-Con and been asked, “what was it like to make out with Jalal Merhi?” Would she deny that the movie ever happened? Would she flip the table and angrily lunge at the audience member who asked the question? Would she compare Merhi’s breath to any particular foods? Merhi looks like a guy who would eat a lot of quinoa and kale chips, but who knows. These are the things that keep me up at night.

At least in terms of frequency of collaboration, actor Jalal Merhi’s favorite director is clearly Jalal Merhi; the pair has worked together a half-dozen times. Merhi’s directorial efforts have suffered, perhaps in part, due to his taking on too much of the workload (acting, directing, choreography). Uneven fight scenes, unemotional line delivery, and lulls in plot development have been just some of the results. These issues are either absent or minimized due to the solid direction of Zale Dalen, however. A veteran of CBC productions and director of the 1977 Canadian crime drama Skip Tracer, Dalen brings a steady hand that helps to elevate the production well above other films like it. The plot cooks, the action is well shot, and the characters are (sort of) believable. Apparently, Merhi handled the fight scenes as second unit director and Dalen directed everything else; is it any wonder that the fights are among the best in any Merhi movie?

On the heels of films like The Lawnmower Man and Johnny Mnemonic, I’m sure the inclusion of computer-generated “virtual reality” imagery seemed like a good idea at the time. Then again, so was Crystal Pepsi. So was selling the farm for Beanie Babies. It’s not so much that the computer graphics are outdated, it’s that they’re silly sub-Tron dreck and they look awful. By all indications, they used the effects just because they could, which is consistently the worst reason to do something in a film. That said, it did give us the most popular image of Jalal Merhi on the Internet: his disembodied head floating in the ether of the digital universe. To the film's credit, the effects aren't nearly as terrible as the graphics in the film's accompanying Mortal-Kombat-ripoff computer game.

The shame of it is that I have no idea to whom we should point the giant finger of blame for this particular hot mess. Special effect supervisor Stan Zuwala? Eh, he worked on Death Wish V so he’s off the hook. Visual effect supervisor Francois Aubry? He has 37 credits to his name, so he probably knew his shit. Responsible for the “digital assembly” of the visual effects was George Kourounis, who never worked again in film. CIRCLE GETS THE SQUARE... thanks for nothing, G-Kour!

VERDICT
While I can’t proclaim that Expect No Mercy is the greatest Blanks-Merhi collaboration ever -- TC 2000 did happen, after all -- I can say without hesitation that this one achieves a campy, b-movie sense of fun better than any of their other films. While the outdated VR graphics might have you yearning for the glossy production values of Kasumi Ninja, the story moves at a good clip, the dastardly Warbeck joins the list of great martial arts b-movie villains, and the action is solid throughout. The best part: no Merhi banana hammock! Recommended.

AVAILABILITY
DVD is available new or used on Amazon, EBay. Try it out on YouTube for a test drive.

4.5 / 7

TC 2000 (1993)

PLOT: The earth is dying a slow and terrible atmospheric death. The elite have retreated underground, leaving the rest of us to choke on the aftermath. The inconvenient truth is that this is the straight-to-video martial arts movie Al Gore wishes he had invented.

Director: T.J. Scott
Writers: J. Stephen Maunder, Richard M. Samuels, T.J. Scott
Cast: Billy Blanks, Bolo Yeung, Bobbie Phillips, Jalal Merhi, Matthias Hues, Kelly Gallant, Harry Mok, Ramsay Smith, Bill Pickells

PLOT THICKENER:
While many will knock the glory days of straight-to-video American martial arts films as inconsistent, campy, or mostly bad, no one can say there was a lack of variety in the genre’s stars. You had the quick and kicky fighters like Jerry Trimble, Cynthia Rothrock, and Loren Avedon, wily workhorses such as Don Wilson, and underutilized talents like Keith Cooke and Kathy Long. Another prevalent subset of talents were oft-glistening strongmen such as Matthias Hues and Billy Blanks. Throw in the original Chinese Hercules, Bolo Yeung, and you’ve got yourself a party with 1993’s TC 2000. Someone definitely spiked the punch with whey protein.

Through narration that recalls equal parts Peter Falk in The Princess Bride and Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, we learn the lay of the land from Jason Storm (Blanks). In the not-so distant future, the earth’s atmosphere has rebelled after years of abuse and pollution. The rich have moved underground and safeguarded their resources with high-tech security, while the less fortunate scrap away for survival on the surface world. These poor souls huddle around oil drum fires, refuse to brush their teeth, and battle over bags of drinking water in underground fights held above-ground. It’s best not to figure out the logic there.

Storm and his partner, Zoey Kinsella (Phillips), are security officers called trackers who respond to security breaks in the ruling class’s underworld emporium of food storage and boiler rooms. As of late, sabotages have skyrocketed and the head of operations, the Controller (Smith) is none too pleased with the attacks. Zoey suspects that the tracker patrol schedules are being fed to the aggressors, The Controller’s right-hand man Bigalow (Hues) thinks that Jason is a punk bitch, and Jason thinks that the recipe for mussels and pasta he got from Epicurious is absolutely delish.

Meanwhile, The Controller and his head scientist are working on a secret cyborg prototype called the TC-2000 X, but they need a dead body to get the project rolling. Where the fuck are they going to get one of those with so many healthy, breathing people walking around? As they say, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade and mix it with Robitussin and Jolly Ranchers, then set up a lethal hit on one of your own people.

The cyborg born out of the Controller’s scheme immediately makes contact with the recent saboteurs, the Picasso Gang, led by Niki Picasso (Merhi). A clunky alliance is forged and Picasso has designs on a full-scale overthrow of the underworld. Only after listening to some vinyl, though, because his crew is comprised of high-fashion hipsters dressed to the nines in leather berets and faux furs. Admirably, Jason strikes out on his own to put a stop to the hipster takeover, but discovers that he alone can’t compete with their knowledge of obscure post-punk and ironic facial hair. Teaming with a surface world martial arts master named Sumai (Yeung) is the only chance he has to squash their ambitions.

Technically speaking, this is one of Film One’s slickest productions given the limited budget. The trackers wield laser stunners which exhaust both enemies and 90% of the post-production budget with electrocution effects. During chase scenes, viewers are treated to intense close-ups of Billy Blanks’s face, intercut with Terminator-esque first-person perspective utilizing “tracker view” overlay graphics. The locations are mostly well-scouted and integrated, and the film is thankfully short on generic warehouse scenes. To compensate, it beats you over the head with “people in lab coats frantically pushing buttons in a control room” scenes. Last, it was nice to see some thought and care went into the costume designs for the Picasso gang, even if they look the same as every other post-apocalyptic gang of thugs trotted out in leather, fur, and unnecessary face paint.

What would an early 90s DTV martial arts flick be without some hilarious missteps? There’s visible boom mics and crash mats aplenty, an incredible man-on-fire scene, and heaps of awful dialogue. Just when you thought you’d seen the last of villains consulting a watch before telling the heroes, “it’s time to die,” along comes TC 2000 to get your leather pants all swampy with cliches. Worse yet, Jalal Merhi gets not one, but two scenes where he makes out with the beautiful Bobbie Phillips, because mashing tongue with the female lead is in his contract. Cue the jealous angry fist-shaking now.

We’ve been harsh on the way fight scenes are often handled in Film One productions, but this film gets the viewing angles and editing correct more often than not. First-person and over-the-shoulder perspectives are used sparingly and fights are well-paced without too much reliance on fighters standing around while huffing and furrowing their brows at each other. The choreography is mostly substandard, but there are plenty of funny fight screams, grimaces, and sweaty embraces mid-battle between Yeung, Hues, and Blanks.

VERDICT:
TC 2000 cribs freely from the buddy-cop formula, Demolition Man’s reanimated-corpse-as-troublemaker, and science-fiction film’s general fascination with cyborgs. These elements alone are cause for concern. However, the story keeps its focus on the right elements for the most part. In stepping to the side as a supporting player, Jalal Merhi manages to deliver what is arguably his best (or least wooden) performance. While TC 2000 isn’t fantastic by any objective stretch of the imagination, it’s a pretty serviceable 90 minutes of goofy sci-fi action fun, and an upper-tier entry in the leg-sweeps-and-lasers subgenre.

4.5 / 7

Knights (1993)

PLOT: Humanity’s last hope for survival against a horde of blood-sucking cyborgs is an orphaned kickboxer with long, kinky hair and ample quadriceps. Surprisingly, that kickboxer is NOT Gary Daniels!

Director: Albert Pyun
Writer: Albert Pyun
Cast: Kathy Long, Kris Kristofferson, Lance Henriksen, Gary Daniels, Scott Paulsin, Vincent Klyn




PLOT THICKENER:
So, your funding just came through and you get to make your movie. Not only that, but you get to film your movie in the highly cinematic Utah regions of Monument Valley and Moab. However, it’s not enough to do a movie in Utah, you need some stars. Your quality screen presence comes in the form of veterans Lance Henriksen and Kris Kristofferson. The acting chops are nice, but you’re filming an action movie, so you need some quality fighters. Answering the bell are kickboxers Gary Daniels and Kathy Long. All this action and drama are nice, but you need some wacky costumes. You get the wacky costumes, plus some horses. Wait, why are people riding horses? Oh, it’s after the apocalypse. Why did the apocalypse happen? Nevermind that, because the cyborgs are running this shit now, and oh, by the way, the cyborgs need to extract human blood to stay alive, so they’re vampire cyborgs. These are the elements that kept Albert Pyun awake at night during the filming of Knights, released in 1993.

Real-life Aikidio/Wing Chun/kickboxing/Kung Fu San Soo dynamo Kathy Long plays Nea, a woman orphaned during her youth after a group of cyborgs led by the treacherous Job (Henriksen) slaughtered her village and her family, save for a younger brother. As the tribe of cyborgs move across the region’s remaining human settlements, their objective is to obtain as much of the red stuff as possible to achieve immortality.

During one such raid years later, the now-adult Nea is shot with an arrow by human mercenaries and left to the cyborg, Simon (Paulsin), a lackey of Job. However, a hooded rider (Kristofferson) appears on the horizon and immediately takes out a group of bandits before settings his sights on Simon. After disposing of the wise-cracking cyborg and then getting Nea to safety, we learn that this savior, Gabriel, is also a cyborg, albeit programmed with an entirely different objective: destroy the other cyborgs within his one year life-cycle. Following training that will show her the cyborgs’ strengths and vulnerabilities, Nea is going to help him do just that.

Tough and rugged ladies of action are few and far between. Those who immediately come to mind include Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise and Linda Hamilton in T2. Knowing her experience and capabilities, I want to put Michelle Yeoh in that group too, but her actual look doesn’t necessarily scream “tough chick.” In Knights, though, Kathy Long looks the part of a nomadic kickboxing warrior who’s less dolled-up than dirtied-up. In fact, I don’t know that you could put anyone else in her spot while preserving the same level of plausibility. Karen Sheperd and Kelly Gallant are possibilities but neither has the same essence. Cynthia Rothrock might be a popular choice, but in addition to being more petite, she lacks that visually tough look. So while Rothrock certainly can fuck you up, Long can and will fuck you up.

When the action sequences in Knights get rolling, the sparks literally fly. Pyun adds plenty of smoke and sparks to the various sword-fights and cyborg kills and it’s a welcome touch without it being overstylized to the point of being illogical. While no one fight scene sticks out due to the repetitious but passable choreography, there are plenty of impressive stunt falls and jumps strewn throughout to visually exaggerate the impact of blows received by the combatants. Gary Daniels, as cyborg henchman David, breaks up some of the monotony with excellent kicking displays during his limited but effective screen time.

Beyond the unique action sequences, the two other major visual boons are the shooting location and the costumes. Pyun maximizes just about every frame in using the Utah landscape as a stand-in for the wasteland of his cyborg-dominated universe. Lots of wide shots help to establish the size and scope of this barren existence and the deep oranges and reds are a nice change from the yellows and browns of most other post-apocalyptic action films (I’m looking at you, Cirio). While his location scout should have received a generous bonus for his or her efforts, the costume designer also deserves a nod. Most of the humans are decked out in the requisite rags and fabric scraps, but the cyborg army is decked out in flowy blue and red ensembles that seem almost Moorish in origin.

Even though his best film work came during the 1970s with titles like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Convoy, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Kristofferson is fairly solid as Gabriel, the cyborg with a heart of gold. He acts as the guide through this unique Pyun universe for both Nea and the audience as he back-fills a lot of exposition when not training his prodigy on the finer points of killing cyborgs. The tone of his performance is rather interesting. He’s either: a) purposely mechanical because he’s a cyborg; b) stoic, in order to provide a grizzled and world-weary quality that evokes his experience in Westerns; or c) dry and squinty because he was really annoyed to be filming an Albert Pyun movie in the middle of the fucking desert. Even if it’s option C and Kristofferson wasn’t pleased with the production, it couldn’t be any worse than working on the set of A Star is Born with Barbara Streisand.

Henriksen appears to be having a grand old time playing the villainous Job. While my favorite performance remains his excellent and over-the-top turn as Emil Fouchon in John Woo’s Hard Target, this is as quirky and memorable a role as he’s ever had. What few scenes aren’t accented by him drooling as if he’s been overmedicated before an invasive dental procedure, instead find him doing equally odd things like wearing new-wave sunglasses while kissing a parrot. Making a concerted effort to steal every scene in which he’s involved, Henriksen cut loose and went to a lot of fun and weird places with his character. I can’t say I envy Lance though, because the comically oversized cybernetic hook-arm he drags around for the entire film no doubt gave him terrible hip and lower-back pain. Shit looked uncomfortable.

VERDICT:
Despite the occasional pacing and narrative flaws, I rather enjoyed the 90 minutes I spent in this world of drooling, blood-sucking cyborgs parading around the state parks of Utah. Knights is Pyun operating at an 11 on the Pyun scale of campiness: we get a silly plot, zany action sequences, twisted humor, clunky Biblical undertones, and majestic wide-angle shots. It’s a film that knows exactly what it is and just about everyone got the memo on what it wasn’t, so no one overreaches. I’m not the most well-versed of Albert Pyun scholars out there, so I won’t be so presumptive as to say it’s one of his best, but I’d have to think that good or bad, this ranks as one of his most entertaining. Take that as you will.

AVAILABILITY:
VHS only.

4 / 7