Back in Action (1993)

PLOT: A botched drug sting takes a giant shit in the punch bowl called Life for cop Frank Rossi and a cab driver named Billy. Rossi’s partner is killed during the violent fallout. Billy’s sister is dating one of the drug dealers at the scene and escapes unharmed. Since she’s a witness, her boytoy’s gang thinks she’s going to snitch and wants her dead. As both men go vigilante to exact their revenge, the body count skyrockets to levels unseen since the launch of the McRib.

Directors: Paul Ziller and Steve DiMarco
Writer: Karl Schiffman
Cast: Billy Blanks, Roddy Piper, Bobbie Phillips, Matt Birman, Nigel Bennett, Kai Soremekun

PLOT THICKENER:
It should surprise no one to learn that the people behind the 1993 action vehicle Back in Action probably hate Looney Tunes. Not because they’re Hanna-Barbera guys (though they might be), but because their film is almost always buried in search results by Joe Dante’s 2003 animated feature, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Are they justified in these hostile feelings that I made up and projected onto them? Doubtful.

Dante’s effort was the first Looney Tunes feature film since 1996’s Space Jam.  It was the second Looney Tunes feature to blend their 2-D characters with live action. The franchise was returning to action following a long layoff. Hence, Back in Action. Frank Rossi (Piper) is removed from an investigation by his boss and is forced to go rogue in order to get vengeance for his partner’s death. Billy (Blanks) is an ex- Special Forces soldier trying to rescue his sister from criminal drug dealers. But what exactly are these guys coming back from? A Caribbean cruise? Nasty colds? In light of the facts, this title makes no fucking sense. Thankfully, these types of action movies rarely do.

Billy Blanks really stretches himself artistically with this film role, portraying a high-kicking bad-ass named Billy. His years in the elite fighting ranks of the U.S. military somehow translated to him driving a cab in Toronto, and he has the added frustration of trying to support his deadbeat sister, Tara. She’s a real winner: won’t look for a job, has no discernible life skills, and dates a guy who looks more like a New Age percussionist than the drug-dealing gang member he purports to be. (Full disclosure: this describes all of my ex-girlfriends.) Since Tara fled the shootout with Billy instead of waiting patiently in the car until everyone exhausted their ammo, the gang wants her and her brother dead. When you want the job done right, you send in your top men with the best firepower money can buy. Because this is an early 90s Shapiro-Glickenhaus film, the gang sends a pair of unarmed twins in Zubaz pants, tank tops, mustaches, and mullets. Billy fights them in nothing more than his boxer briefs and kills them both. And detective Frank Rossi is left to pick up the pieces.

After watching his partner get stabbed to death during the botched sting, Rossi (Piper) is on a mission to bring his killer to justice. As the hardened narcotics detective, Piper gets to put his fingers in a lot of different pies: the chief-hating anti-authority pie, the street-fighting cop bent on vengeance pie, and also the Helen the news reporter pie, played by Bobbie Phillips. While Frank is her go-to cop for public comment, he’s also an evolving love interest. Most action films would use the romance as an excuse to show gratuitous nudity, but this is no ordinary action film. The closest we get is a picture on the back of the DVD showing the two in a bubble bath. In the film, the pair simply hangs around in towels and talks. Hmm.

Billy and Frank repeatedly cross paths as the former storms through the criminal underworld looking for Kasajian, the gang leader who he believes kidnapped his sister. (In reality, she’s gone into hiding with her loser boyfriend.) At first, Frank sees Billy as just another thug but begins to appreciate his brand of vigilante justice after learning of their common enemy.

When you have action heroes as unhinged as Piper and as skilled as Blanks, the villains in your story need to be equal to the task. Unfortunately, the baddies in Back in Action are pure villainfiller. Chakka, the dickweed in designer glasses who killed Wallace, consists of two-parts Color Me Badd and one-part giant gold medallion. His fighting skills are subpar and while he does some pretty evil shit in knifing people and shooting members of his own gang, I thought the character required a more grizzled and world-weary portrayal. He plays violent enforcer to Kasajian’s foppish mastermind, who spends most of his scenes in a robe and flip-flops. Played by British theatre actor Nigel Bennett, Kasajian is the type of villain I hate to see in this kind of movie: a relaxed and unmenacing douche who pontificates constantly and never actually fights. I could certainly see him running a meditation and spiritual wellness retreat. And I can’t help but imagine him standing in front of his mirror late at night doing the Buffalo Bill tuck-and-dance. But this is the vicious leader of a Toronto drug gang? Not buying.

The action throughout the film comes fast and furious. Piper, forever dogged by the high standards he set in 1988’s They Live, still brings his enjoyable blend of street-fighting and wrestling moves mixed with light comedy. His selling of strikes makes for some very convincing fights, particularly in an early skirmish with Billy at the local watering hole. Blanks operates almost exclusively in invincibility mode, growling and screeching as he mows down a variety of straw men. While none are a match for his fighting skill, they come in an entertaining array of shapes and sizes, from the mulleted Zubaz twins, to a dude that looks like Kenny Powers, to a 7-foot giant who yells a lot and moves really slowly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out what has to be the crown jewel of Billy’s path of destruction. While infiltrating the late-night drag racing scene, he realizes he needs a more covert ensemble, as his all-denim motif would surely give him away. So he sneaks up on an unsuspecting dude leaning against a pillar who, at first glance, appears to be urinating. However, there’s no stream and his zipper is closed; worse, the man’s hand appears to be making a stroking motion. I can only conclude that in an effort to ward off would-be solicitors, the miscreant is pretending to jack off. Billy is unfazed, and he knocks out the phantom-masturbator and steals his sleeveless hoodie. Most of us would have simply walked away in that situation so this is quite commendable; that he’s willing to confront a guy faking a wank underscores Billy’s determination to bring his sister to safety.

Of course, we can’t discuss a Billy Blanks movie without mentioning his incredible outfits. As with most of his films, Blanks wears nothing more than pants and sweat during the story’s epic climax. The vibrant vest he sports in the opening scene is similar to the clothes my mom wore when she was experimenting with found fabrics and her new sewing machine circa 1989. During his bar fight with Rossi, he’s decked out in a full Canadian tuxedo, and spends the majority of the film wearing yet another vest, but without an undershirt. I rarely dip into hyperbole, but I’ll brave it here: Billy Blanks has done for vests and denim what Bruce Lee did for yellow-and-black tracksuits and Onitsuka Tiger sneakers.


VERDICT:
Tango and Cash. Bodhi and Utah. Tequila and Alan. Add Rossi and Billy to whatever random list of action cinema team-ups you have stuck to your fridge (assuming that’s where you keep it). While the weak and one-dimensional villains in Back in Action could have ruined lesser films, the combination of Piper and Blanks somehow cuts through these and other weaknesses. The filmmakers strike a nice balance in letting Blanks loose and building the majority of his scenes around his fighting prowess, while giving Piper plenty of scenery to chew in addition to some solid fight scenes of his own. This might actually be Blanks’ best good guy performance; he comes off as especially stiff when paired with equally wooden martial artists but Piper is animated and emotive enough to bring a little flavor to their team dynamic.

AVAILABILITY:
Your best bet is on VHS. Of course, you can try for an out-of-region DVD but you may have to sift through dozens of pages of Looney Tunes results to find it.

5.5 / 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

No Retreat, No Surrender 3 (1990)

PLOT:
Two brothers are forced to put aside a bitter sibling rivalry when their father is murdered by a lethal terrorist syndicate. While each follows a different path towards an inevitable showdown with the villains, they both manage to fuck up in equally illogical ways.

Director: Lucas Lowe
Screenwriter: Keith W. Strandberg
Cast: Loren Avedon, Keith Vitali, Rion Hunter, Joseph Campanella, Wanda Acuna, David Michael Sterling


PLOT THICKENER:
When the day comes to finally retire, I plan to walk away from the world of business fully cashed out with no loose ends. I will grow a wily and unkempt beard, live somewhere deep in the woods, and brew my own mindbending moonshine. Retirement is a difficult proposition that, for some, leads to part-time consulting or inspires an outright refusal to quit. For those involved with the dangerous world of covert operations, the concept doesn't appear to exist at all. The field is a dangerous web of death and deceit that never fully relinquishes its grip from those who partake in the madness.

John Alexander (character actor Joseph Campanella) is a classic case of the former workhorse who can't walk away from the game. He keeps former agency cohorts as social buddies and his son, Casey, is deeply entrenched in the "Company" work as a hard-kicking field agent. Portrayed by Keith Vitali, Casey leads a quiet and modest life. A carousel of smoking hot ladies, a shiny performance sportscar, and designer suits at least two sizes too big are a few of the luxuries in which he indulges on a regular basis. Having followed in his father's footsteps, he is regularly lauded by John and his CIA friends as he consistently farts excellence as a model of covert greatness. Very quietly, of course.

Not all of the senior Alexander's clandestine genetics were passed onto his progeny though. His younger son, Will (Avedon), stands firmly against everything his family's employers do. He refers to the lot of them as babykillers and has no qualms about rocking a swanky Soviet-inspired denim jacket at his dad's birthday party with scores of CIA employees in attendance. He ain't no fairy peacenik, though, working as a karate instructor by day and ... probably something in retail at night. Despite his ambiguous academic credentials, he lives the grimy undergraduate lifestyle. His wheels: a used VW Bug. His meals: loaves of bread and cola in the can.

Will is not unlike many younger siblings in feeling overlooked and underestimated due to his older brother's stature. The source of the tension between the two brothers isn't explicitly stated but we can infer it has something to do with Will being a stubborn nancy and Casey being a cocky prick. Papa Alexander recognizes his sons' unique differences but wants nothing more than for the three of them to spend quality time together. His silly insistence on investigating a terrorist syndicate sorta puts an end to that aspiration, because they show up to his pad after his birthday party and give him a surprise present: a Rolex! Ha, kidding. It was actually a violent and bloody death.

Leading the group of assholes-for-hire is the devious Franco, played by Rion Hunter. A veteran of action television with few film roles under his belt, Hunter more than holds his own in this early and rare role as main scoundrel. Other than a trademark deathblow, the cardinal rule for any martial-arts villain is a striking visual presence and Franco nails it in every conceivable way. His signature look forgoes sinister for stylish -- an incredible bottle-blonde mullet paired with a rotation of turtlenecks and stylish jackets with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. It's Miami Vice meets Dynamic Dudes on Don-Niam-as-Stingray Boulevard and it works to great effect. His deathblow is equally memorable: a bird-sized metal dart launched with expert precision.

Not only does Franco walk the walk, but he talks the talk with several great lines. He remarks at one point that singed human flesh smells much like roast pork, and while this is a precarious assertion at best (I'm in Camp Grilled Chicken) he sounds confident saying it. Throughout the film, Franco's line delivery boils over with a relaxed arrogance befitting a terrorist leader who has consistently evaded capture and while neither he nor his minions appear to have any concrete political beliefs, they definitely have demands. We never learn what those demands are, but Franco insists that they definitely have some. Furthermore, the group is based in that most fiendish cesspool of terrorist strongholds -- Florida. My guess is their list of demands begins with a better hangout in a different state.

Most of the second act follows Will's adventures in planning and executing an infiltration of Franco's gang and Casey's attempts to prevent his brother from getting in over his head. Throughout this process of push-and-pull, the energy normally reserved for hating each other is instead used to fuel their collective thirst to avenge their father's death. I'm not sure what that says about the human condition, but I can say that the net result is a lot of fucking kung-fu. Among the three entries in the NRNS franchise, Blood Brothers has the slickest action choreography and highest volume of hand-to-hand fight sequences by far. That being the case, it also has the highest amount of visible stunt doubles and the most ridiculously convuluted plot in the series. And while I sincerely feel the original NRNS set the bar for technically inept American martial arts filmmaking, the boom mic here makes so many onscreen appearances it should have been given an acting credit. I'm not sure how director Lucas Lo managed to overlook this most egregious set of errors but I have a feeling he was too busy shooting technically proficient fight scenes with visible stunt doubles.

The film culminates with several kidnappings, an incredible showdown inside an airplane hangar, and even a cameo by a certain 41st President of the United States. Also: buckets of drool, sweat, blood, and slo-mo, though I'm not sure if it's possible to place slo-mo in actual buckets. While Avedon is rock solid across all categories and Vitali's fighting skill barely manages to overshadow his atrocious (though amusing) acting, Rion Hunter shines through as the overall prime performer of the bunch. His Franco is the best creation of villainy in the NRNS franchise and while that might not seem like the biggest compliment, he's one of the best villains in the history of Western martial-arts film, though that doesn't seem like such high praise either.

VERDICT:
Marked by great fight choreography and even better late 80s hair and fashion sense, Blood Brothers is the final official sequel in the No Retreat, No Surrender trilogy. This subtitle is fitting since the central characters -- much like the three films in the NRNS franchise -- have nothing in common with one another but find a way to work together because of the bond to the person who created them. As mentioned, it has the best fight scenes of the three films and much of it is on par with most Hong Kong output during the same era. It's a shame Rion Hunter didn't do more villainous film roles, but given the sheer volume of random black belts who won tournaments getting film roles during this period, it's no great surprise he didn't have long-term traction in the genre. A certain must-see, if not a must-own.

7 / 7

King of the Kickboxers (1991)

PLOT:
There are two main types of family dramas in cinema -- those with tearjerking human conflict and those with kickboxing. You should be able to guess which camp 1990's King of the Kickboxers falls into. If you said “both,” give yourself a silver star for being half right.

Director: Lucas Lowe
Screenwriter: Keith W. Strandberg
Cast: Loren Avedon, Billy Blanks, Keith Cooke, Sherrie Rose, Richard Jaeckel, Jerry Trimble


PLOT THICKENER:
Two American brothers leave an arena following the elder’s victory in a championship kickboxing match in Thailand. While the younger Jake is worried that the locals are pissed about a foreigner winning, the older and wiser Sean is all “STFU Jake, they just wanted a good fight. You’ll learn these things when you’re older and you understand the cost of razors and free markets and the warm caress of a woman.” During the ride home, they come under attack from a gang of thugs led by the villainous Khan, played by future fitness guru Billy Blanks. Why? Because apparently, the locals are pissed that the American won. After a thorough beatdown, both brothers are left for dead, but only one actually dies.

A decade later, Jake is an undercover New York City cop with a penchant for purposely blowing his own cover to force confrontations with criminals. In the aftermath of the most recent incident involving an impressively mulleted dealer played by Jerry Trimble, the lieutenant gives Jake a harsh reprimand. But Jake knows that the means are secondary as long as the bad guys get put away and we get that sweet delicious oil. To get the loose cannon out of his hair, the lieutenant wants to send him to Thailand to infiltrate the martial-arts snuff film underground. Because of the traumatic events of his youth, Jake balks at the proposition. He takes the case file home anyway, perhaps hoping for a misplaced episode of the Arsenio Hall Show on one of the videotapes.

As Jake and his dog watch a film from the file that night, he laments the waste of time that is straight to video martial arts films. This made me question how I choose to use my free time. But an actor in the film catches his eye and he pauses on a close-up of a menacing and familiar face. He reflects deeply, like Michael Keaton in the first Batman film when a televised statement from the Joker triggers the traumatic memory of a young Jack Napier fatally killing Bruce Wayne’s parents in front of him and we all feel the boyhood tragedy of future Batman. But Jake’s epiphany isn’t so much dramatic or heartfelt as it is an insert of the first ten minutes of the film. A phone call from the lieutenant snaps him out of this trance and Jake angrily reneges; he’s taking the assignment and he’s going to Thailand. With his master out of the country for the next several weeks, the dog makes plans to hump every piece of furniture in the apartment.

It doesn’t take long for Jake to impress his brash arrogance upon everyone he meets after arriving in Bangkok. He makes contact with a grizzled vet from Interpol but scoffs at any suggestion that he’ll follow a pre-heated plan from some covert stooges. Later, a neighborhood kickboxing academy accommodates his unwelcome visit and he repays their hospitality by pummeling several students. He even has the gall to interject when a gang of thugs has a whimpering American girl cornered in an alley. He gains their trust by feigning interest in a gangbang then wins the confidence of the distraught victim by beating up the miscreants. We learn that that the woman, Molly, is not unlike so many other American girls who dream of fashion shoots, Paris runways, and fame but end up in Thailand as sex slaves in high-waisted pants.

Why was she fleeing in the first place? Because an evil snuff film production company forced her into a hotel room rendezvous with Khan, their biggest star. Rather than subject herself to poorly acted martial artist sex, she smashed through a bathroom window and fled. This was apparently not an anomaly. It's widely-known that Khan has had a long streak of bad luck closing the deal. Even with sex slaves.

So the film bosses try to keep Khan as happy as they can by duping talented fighters into thinking they’re starring in exciting films when they’re really just chum for a vicious Great White shark of a man who is actually black … or Afro-American, if you prefer. I’ll give you a few seconds to have your mind blown by the mixed metaphor of kickboxing sharks with afros.

The constant need to replace dead talent with new talent leads the film bosses to notice Jake’s tussles around town. But they’re not the only nipples who have perked up as a result of his brawling ways; an advanced fighter from the kickboxing academy has been trailing Jake and confronts him about Khan. In a gesture of goodwill, he kicks Jake’s ass to show him that his fighting sucks and then directs him to get training from an alcoholic master named Prang who lives in a remote hide-out with a chimp. It’s a weird relationship, but it’s the 90s – who are we to judge?

Prang (Keith Cooke) is your classic martial arts film archetype who has infinite fighting wisdom but is content to get shitfaced all the time. Like any drunkard, he is prone to rambling incoherently and tries to convince Jake to “hear the sound of one hand clapping.” But what he lacks in communication, he makes up for in physical training. He prepares Jake for Khan’s trademark kicking combo using a swinging set of logs (y’know – because they’re just like a person’s legs.) And requisite Groinalyzer: check.

Following his training, Jake gets in on the local underground fighting action and finally makes contact with one of the snuff film representatives. He agrees to appear in the company’s pending production but is unaware that Khan’s recent suggestion that their films should involve more “tension” and “people” means that the classical acting motivation methods of “kidnapping” and “murder” are going to be utilized.

On the day of the film shoot, Jake shows up to a set inspired in equal parts by Beyond Thunderdome and not having enough money left in the budget for metal and settling for bamboo. He makes quick work of a few scrubs before being confronted by Khan. The final showdown unfolds much like one would expect: there’s a lot of grunting, one-liners, Billy Blanks shirtlessness, and both guys drooling uncontrollably while getting hit in the face.

VERDICT:
Following No Retreat, No Surrender 3, King of the Kickboxers was the last film in what could have been a long and rewarding marriage between Loren Avedon and Seasonal Film Corporation. Avedon was one of the most talented American screen martial artists of that time and his quickness was a good fit for the Hong Kong-style fight choreography which marked that subset of films. While he’s done many films since, Avedon never looked better from a fighting perspective; the final blowoff between he and Blanks is arguably the best fight scene of either actor’s career and while no one will confuse it for the climax of Drunken Master II, it’s an eminently watchable showdown. This also marked a rare villain role for Billy Blanks and the film does a good job of portraying him as a legitimately cold-hearted bad ass, wooden dialog delivery aside. It’s got kicking, ‘splosions, drunk gurus, comedic chimps, and glorious late 80s hair and fashion and is a must-own entry in any B-action movie collection.

7 / 7

No Retreat, No Surrender 2 (1987)

PLOT:
American kickboxer Scott Wylde travels to Thailand to visit an old friend and his college sweetheart. When she gets kidnapped, his vacation sorta goes downhill. With the help of friend Mac Jarvis and a kickboxing helicopter pilot named Terry, he must save his woman from an evil Soviet force based in Cambodia.

Director: Corey Yuen
Screenwriter: Keith W. Strandberg
Cast: Loren Avedon, Max Thayer, Cynthia Rothrock, Matthias Hues, Hwang Jang Lee


PLOT THICKENER:
Romantic love can make you do strange things. It can make you drive eight hours to spend four hours with someone. It can make you cook an elaborate meal, or write thoughtful notes and leave them around the house as surprises. For Scott Wylde (Avedon), love means busting out of police custody, killing 40 people with arrows and bullets, and climbing up a fucking waterfall. As much as you may love your spouse or partner, you will never love anyone as much as Scott Wylde does.

Shortly after arriving in Thailand, he makes a visit to a Muay Thai kickboxing school frequented by his old friend Mac (Thayer). He instead finds a bunch of guys who don’t speak English and a sassy American named Terry (Rothrock), who rocks an Esprit workout shirt almost as hard as she busts heads in the ring. On his way out, Scott drops a snide “your mother” joke which pisses off a Thai fighter and leads to a quick kickboxing scrum. After all, mom jokes are universal and kickboxing is the only logical resolution to such differences of opinion.

After a sweaty day of backpacking, Scott checks into a hotel haunted by the constant moaning of either whores or ghosts. He phones his Asian fiance, Sulin, to arrange the night’s plans and they end up going out for a dinner of fried bugs and tiger balls, dishes she insists he try in order to impress her father.

If the mustachioed man leering at them from afar during dinner wasn’t a bad enough omen, Scott brings Sulin back to room #13 at the hotel. After sex that we can only assume followed the slow-motion removal of their clothing, the couple is attacked in their room by a group of thugs. They carefully wrap Sulin in blankets to prevent damage during transport and two others stay behind to kill loverboy. He counters their blades and poisonous syringes with asskickery and jets over to Sulin’s family’s house to break the news that their daughter has been kidnapped. They have bigger things to worry about though -- they’ve been murdered! The police are suspicious of Scott’s presence at the house and take him into custody. Missing from the crime scene is Sulin’s wealthy father, who watches from behind closed doors as Scott undergoes a very sweaty interrogation back at the station. Roy Horan, who co-wrote the script, makes a cameo here as the American consular who mandates that Scott be deported to Singapore. As you might have guessed, Horan does not fight Bruce Lee in this film.

As protagonists tend to do, Scott escapes police custody the next day (thanks a fucking lot, Roy Horan). He tracks down Mac at a go-go dancing/arm-wrestling bar and to escape the heat of cops and bounty hunters, they head to a low-key restaurant outside the city. For an extra layer of cover, Scott wears a hat with a big floppy brim, perfect for a day of laying by the pool if you’re a girl. A group of bounty hunters are unswayed by this clever disguise and demand that the two come with them or die. Scott schools the baddies with acrobatic strikes and Mac utilizes his bad habits to great effect. He burns one guy’s face with a lit cigar, and wastes precious food by smashing eggs and melons into enemy heads. For his final act, he tosses a cobra at a gunman who Scott recognizes as one of the kidnappers from the night before. During a brief interrogation, they learn Sulin is being held in Cambodia at place called Death Mountain. It’s quite majestic between September and February but the weather’s a bit on the mild side.

At Mac’s warehouse of weaponry (he’s a black-market arms dealer) our heroes load up on enough firepower to fight an army and expel enough exposition to kill a horse. Mac posits that the Soviet-North Vietnamese forces have kidnapped Sulin to exploit her father, who is funding an anti-Khmer Rouge resistance movement. The two embark on their trip early the next day, but not early enough to evade the Thai authorities camped outside. A helicopter arrives just in time to fly them to safety, but the pilot turns out to be Terry, the wise-cracking kickboxer. Apparently, she and Mac have an intense history of sexy feelings and constant bickering. Mac is annoyed by her presence, Terry is frustrated by the assignment, and Scott is again very sweaty from the oppressive Thai humidity.

Shortly after their arrival in Cambodia, they make contact with a local resistance force to whom Mac has sold arms in the past. The colonel agrees to help them locate the Soviet camp, but only after Mac agrees to trade a battle tank for opium. To put this in perspective, it looks a lot like an F-16 worth of psychedelic mushrooms. Without warning, the camp is bombarded with explosives from above. The crew evades certain death by diving into a pond but their prospective guides have been blown to bits. With Plan A firmly in the shitter, they turn to Plan B -- wandering the jungles of Cambodia without the benefit of maps or a compass.

The Soviet camp where Sulin is held captive is run by a brutal general named Yuri, played by Matthias Hues. In a display of cruelty, he challenges an injured prisoner to a fight and dangles the promise of freedom as incentive. After inflicting punishment in the form of internal bleeding, Yuri lets him limp towards the exit for about ten feet before shooting him in the leg and ass. He then throws him into a pit full of crocodiles. While laughing hysterically. Following this comical turn of events, he turns to Sulin and assures her that he won’t harm her. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, our heroic trio is trudging through the jungle without the benefit of sunscreen, insect repellent, or moisture-wicking clothing, because it hadn’t been invented yet. They come upon a riverside camp of Buddhist monks, which reveals their deeply ingrained prejudices about non-Western religions. Mac doesn’t “trust people who don’t eat meat” (true, they don’t). Scott thinks they “sing and shake beads all day” (not entirely true). Terry states that “they’re harmless” (demonstrably false). The “monks” attack them and what follows is a legitimately great fight scene involving some slick rope work and gruesome kills. Though it must be said that for a guy purporting to frequent a Muay Thai gym, Mac doesn’t do an awful lot of kickboxing. After the scrum, Terry tries to start up a motorboat for a getaway but gets captured by a group of Yuri’s rogue military men and is whisked away upriver.

Back at the Ruskie Ranch, Terry is forced to fight Yuri’s second in command, an officer played by the legendary Hwang Jang Lee. After a brief show of skill by both fighters, Yuri steps in and asserts his authority. For reasons I’ll leave undisclosed, he decides that both she and Sulin will be executed by overly elaborate means the next morning. However, Mac and Scott have discovered the camp and set a number of overly elaborate traps, bombs, and self-firing machine guns under the cover of night.

Yuri decides to kick off the morning with an crocodile feeding, with both hostages suspended over the pit with nothing to counterweight them but a pair of sandbags. Terry remains defiant, remarking that Yuri would be a “big hit at the circus” (oddly prescient since Hues played “Oscar the Liontamer” in Big Top Pee-Wee just a year later). Scott and Mac awake to Sulin’s screams as both women are lowered into the pit. Before unleashing their bag of goodies, Scott and Mac share the first on-screen fist bump I can recall and the chaos commences. Bombs send soldiers flying, gunfire splatters the camera lens with blood (in 1987!), and arrows pierce flesh with pinpoint accuracy. And the girls are saved! Sort of.

Scott and Yuri battle hand-to-hand all over the compound in a climax filled with screaming and flag desecration and crocodiles. The fight is gloriously over the top and might be the best of Hues’ career. After the bloodshed and multiple ‘splosions, Scott cryptically speaks, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Intentional or not, I’d like to think this 1980s martial-arts actioner was dropping some subversive commentary on the military presence of the United States in Southeast Asia with this last bit of dialogue. But I also cracked up at the “Thanks To” credit to Mike Miller at the end of the film, because I pictured the Miami Heat shooting guard:

VERDICT:
While a sequel in name only, there’s something for everyone in No Retreat, No Surrender 2 and it’s probably the best in the series. The kills are plentiful, the action is well-choreographed and well-shot, and there are reasonably good performances from all the principals. What really held it together for me was Thayer’s screen presence; as a real-life military vet and star of several Filipino action/war films of the 1980s, he’s a natural fit and seems very comfortable as the grizzled arms dealer. I’ve seen him comparatively positioned in other reviews as a Han Solo type and I’ll echo that sentiment here as well. In the first of his three-picture run with Seasonal Films, Loren Avedon is damn good; his acting, while raw, still has personality, and his fighting is excellent. Rothrock plays cocky reasonably well despite some grating dialogue, and Hues is good as the heartless Russian monster despite a fairly obvious German accent. You may be able to find this on Youtube in its entirety but action aficionados will want to acquire the readily available import for their collections. Followed by No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers.

7 / 7