Cop Game (1988)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and seeing it recommended to me countless times on Tubi, plus considering I needed to get more Bruno Mattei on the site, I decided to finally take the plunge. In addition to us, Ty and Brett and Comeuppance (whose review was quoted on the Severin Blu-ray) and Simon at Explosive Action have covered this as well.

Cop Game is about a special forces unit in 'Nam that's gone rogue and is killing officers during the last days of the war. Military Police detectives Brent Huff and Max Laurel are called in to find out what's happening, and end up getting a lot more than they bargained for. This either goes all the way to the top, or is somewhere in the middle but is causing issues for the top, but either way, it's not good for anyone. As Huff and Laurel go in deeper they don't know who they can trust, and it doesn't help that the Vietnam War they're living in looks like late '80s Manila. Will they get out alive?

This one was a fun time, but I think it may only qualify as a fun time for people who like these kinds of movies. Like do you get a little thrill if you see Mike Monty or Jim Gaines? Then it's for you. Do you like seeing what name Bruno Mattei will be using instead of his own? Then it's for you. ("Bob Hunter" if you're wondering.) Do you like Brent Huff yelling at people and dressing like he just rolled out of bed? Then it's for you. Once you get past those things, I think the most it has to offer is Mattei not caring how much his movie that's supposed to take place in the closing days of the Vietnam War looks like it took place in 1980s Manila, which adds to the charm when you're watching it in 2026. Also, Tubi has the Severin version, which looks really nice, and while I think there's additional charm in finding an old Japanese VHS with hardcoded subs, my eyesight is getting worse as I get older, so a cleaned up version helps. Maybe not the classic for me that Strike Commando or Robowar is, but how many things are? If you're looking for some Mattei fun to help you forget your troubles for 90 minutes, this will do the trick.

We're now at six movies for Mattei, which is low, but in looking at his IMDb bio, I don't know that we'll get him that much higher, I see maybe four or five other movies of his that we could review. That's okay though, in this case it's quality over quantity, so to speak, because he's made some classics, and while this one isn't quite that for me, it's plenty fun enough. Nines are wild for the three other names people would recognize here, as this is the ninth film for Brent Huff, Mike Monty, and Jim Gaines--who is finally getting tagged on here, not sure why it took so long. Obviously Huff is the star, and while on the surface he looks like he cares as much about his role as Mattei does about anachronisms, as you watch the film you can see him bring it, which is what gets this thing over the goal line and makes it enjoyable. Monty I believe has one blink and you'll miss it scene that's been taken from another movie where he's piloting a helicopter, which isn't much, but enough to get him another tag. And then Gaines is one of a character named Ludge's henchmen (that's his character name, "Ludge's Henchman), who we're going to get into in the next paragraph. It's definitely more than Monty--and was actually newly shot footage!--but still a small part. Either way, we'll take any Gaines we can get.

Back to Ludge, he's in the shot above, holding Huff at gunpoint. He's getting his own paragraph here because his name is Donald Wilson, credited as "Don Wilson." That's right, the same name as DTVC Hall of Famer and one of the greatest to ever do it, Don "The Dragon" Wilson. You may remember a controversy that came up a few years ago where we didn't know how many movies Don "The Dragon" Wilson had been in based on his IMDb bio, and we here had reviewed two films, Siege of Firebase Gloria and Saigon Commandos, that we gave tags to "The Dragon" for, only to discover IMDb took those movies off his bio. That led to a delay in getting that Don Wilson into the 40 Club. I believe Will at Exploding Helicopter had a similar issue, because removing these movies lowered Don "The Dragon's" films with exploding helicopters count. Now we have a face to put with the other Don Wilson, who's now listed on IDMb as "Donald Wilson" to avoid confusion. He's a bit of a Philippines movie mainstay, maybe not at the level of Monty or Gaines, but he's done a good number of films with greats like Mattei and Cirio H. Santiago, so we'll definitely see him again. As far as the confusion goes, this is what happens when we wade in the murky waters of 80s DTV films, combined with relying on the murky waters of a crowdsourced site like IMDb, but we wouldn't have it any other way--actually we would, we'd like to have a reliable way to know exactly how many movies each actor has done! 

As much as I've been extolling the virtues of this film, it had its flaws, and not all of them were endearing like Mattei not caring about making the film look more early 70s or more Saigon. First, in our quest to find more Presidential Portraits, Mattei teases us with all these shots of governmental offices, yet sans Presidential Portraits! How am I supposed to take these governmental offices seriously as governmental offices without a Nixon hanging on the wall? And we need a Nixon, we've never gotten one before! One theory is these movies didn't want to platform Nixon based on how bad he was, which is an interesting one. Like in 15 years will movies have Trump portraits? I mean I guess if we go full fascist like it looks like we're going, it might be required to have his portraits in everything by then. Either way, the search for a Nixon continues, with no help from Mattei. He also didn't help our friend Will with any exploding helicopters, but the same way he teased us with multiple governmental offices, he teased us as well with not only multiple helicopters, but helicopters engaged in firefights! Come on Mattei, you didn't have a stock helicopter explosion you could mix in? (And I selfishly wanted that exploding helicopter so I could get my number on his Letterboxd list up.) The only thing we had was the Manila Chinatown, which we'd seen before in Bloodfist, but here we also had the Friendship Arch, plus the novelty that it was supposed to be in Saigon, so I guess you take your wins when you can get them.

Finally, we get a great theme song in this, one of the best parts of the movie actually, but despite that, I had "Head Games" by Foreigner replaced with "Cop Game" in my head. Growing up in the 80s, I know Foreigner is a big deal, but they haven't had a hit in a long time, and I worry that they'll be a victim, if they haven't been already, of this growing trend of kids saying a huge band or artist from the past is "underrated," just because they've never really heard of them. Again, maybe I'm creating a strawman here because I haven't seen anywhere that anyone has said Foreigner is underrated, but they're the kind of act that would be labeled as such by the kids. The worst offender was one my wife told about where a kid said George Michael was underrated. No, he was rated, and a quick check on Wikipedia would tell you that. "Regarded as a pop culture icon, he is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time... [h]e was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004." That's literally in the first paragraph about him, he was never "underrated." For any of you kids reading this, if you have a notion to say "Foreigner is underrated," I also suggest looking them up on Wikipedia, where, again, in the first paragraph, it says: "Foreigner is one of the best-selling bands of all time, with worldwide sales exceeding 80 million records, including 38 million in the US."

And with that, it's probably best that we wrapped this up. If you're into physical media, Severin has a Blu-ray that's on sale as of this writing--and again quotes Ty and Brett's review on the cover. If you want to give it a test run first, the Severin transfer is on Tubi, which maybe doesn't have the charm of hard-coded Japanese subs, but it looks nice. Either way, this is a fun time and worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094909

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Double Target (1987)

When I said we were going to get more Miles O'Keeffe on this blog, I wasn't kidding (I also knew because I got this one at the same time I got Phantom Raiders, so that helped). The Miles O'Keeffe Philippine 'Namploitation flick isn't something we've hit that much to this point, so it's been good to check a couple out. We're working toward finally being able to say our blog has Miles O'Keeffe, but at this point, I'd say we're still at Feet O'Keeffe, maybe Yards O'Keeffe.

Double Target has Miles as Robert Ross (no, not Bob Ross the TV painter), a Vietnam vet who goes back to the country to get the son he sired with a woman there. He's met by Bo Svenson and his Soviet terrorist cell working out of Vietnam, and they try to kill him. That's when old war buddy Mike Monty calls him in to help out in weasel senator Donald Pleasence's mission to attack the terrorist cell. If Miles succeeds, he gets his son. If he doesn't, Pleasence leaves him to rot in Vietnam. Miles can't let that happen, he needs to get his son, and return to base to make Donald eat his inhaler and shove his briefcase up his ass.



This is pretty fantastic. Take everything you think of with a Bruno Mattei directed 'Namploitation flick starring Reb Brown, only replace Reb Brown with Miles O'Keeffe, and that's how awesome this is. Huts exploding everywhere. Plot devices that make no sense but we love them anyway. Great one-liners from Miles, and great lines that aren't one-liners but sound great with his Tennessee accent. This is a little long at 102 minutes, but I think the fun factor allows it to transcend that. Easily one of my favorite Miles flicks.

Oh Miles, let me count the ways. To quote Ben Stiller impersonating Bruce Springsteen while interviewing Diddy (then Puff Daddy) for MTV, "why are you so awesome?" He has this one scene early on where one of Svenson's cronies punches him in the face, and he's like "you son of a bitch" and starts doing all kinds of karate on the guy. We cut to some other people talking, then back to him running the halls of this building, taking out dudes coming out of every doorway. And it just gets better, with him then running through an open air market in a foot chase. With each film we review on here, I feel like a bigger heel for not having Miles O'Keeffe on here more earlier. It'll be fun to make up for lost time though.



Do you like you some exploding huts? Well this one has them. In one scene, Miles and his buddy notice that the local village has been taken hostage by Svenson and his men. So what is Miles's brilliant plan to save them? Blow up every hut, that's what. In the interests of verisimilitude, aren't people technically supposed to be living in those huts, i.e. the villagers? I mean, is it really a rescue if Miles levels their village with a bazooka? I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? Good guys, bad guys, if they're blowing up huts, we're good with it. The extras are just Filipinos that'll collect their fee and go back to their shantytown outside of Manilla, they don't really live in the huts.

Vincent Dawn directs this. I was thinking maybe I should go with an Italian name for the times I review Mattei flicks where he uses an alias. My name in Italian would be Matteo Pero. Maybe I should just go Mattei Pero. I love that he calls himself Vincent Dawn though. If I didn't think my comment box would be filled with "you know Vincent Dawn is really Bruno Mattei, right?", I'd refer to him exclusively as Vincent Dawn in all the films he goes by that alias. I think if I ever have a son, I'll name him Vincent Dawn, or maybe a daughter named Dawn Vincent.



I know in the Phantom Raiders post we gave some shine to Italian B movie mainstay Mike Monty, but I thought we might as well do it again here. Maybe I'm romanticizing what it must've been like to have a career in Italian B movies, travelling to exotic locations (the Philippines is exotic, right? Italy's nice at least), donning a beret and mean-mugging it for the camera, only to have to go in after to redub your scenes in English. Maybe it really sucked. Maybe their accommodations in the Philippines sucked, no A/C, gross spiders, cheap hookers, warm beer, constant attacks of Montezuma's Revenge. Well, if it did suck, all I can say is, thank you for your sacrifices, everyone involved in making Philippine exploitation flicks, because they've given me tons of enjoyment.

And on that great note, let's wrap this up. Japanese VHS might be the best way to go. That's what I was watching, a rip off a Japanese VHS, complete with hard subs. This would definitely be a collector's piece, and a worthy addition on your shelf. This is what you came for, a Vincent Dawn directed Miles O'Keeffe hut explosionfest with some great co-stars too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092921/

Cruel Jaws aka Fauci Crudeli (1995)

I think we sometimes forget that The Asylum didn't invent the rip-off (or for those late to the party, SyFy). The rip-off has been a part of the movie industry for as long as there's been a movie industry. And in the 80s and 90s, Italian director Bruno Mattei made it into an art form. With this one, he even had the audacity to label it Jaws V, as if it were a sequel as opposed to a rip-off-- not that the other sequels weren't rip-offs of the original in some way too.

Cruel Jaws takes place in a small town near Miami, where a marine biologist comes to visit some old friends, and is pressed into duty when people are found eaten by a shark. A rich landowner in the town doesn't want panic to set in and threaten his windsurfing race or the area's tourism, so he filibusters the sheriff and the marine biologist's attempts to close the beaches. As the sheriff so eloquently points out, "it's like an all you can eat buffet for the shark!"



This is riff-tastic. One of the ultimate bad movie night flicks. In fact, you could pair it with Shark Attack III, and it would be perfect. It's everything you'd want in a Bruno Mattei rip-off film: bad dubbing, bad dialog, bad acting, music ripped from Superman or Star Wars, scenes ripped from anything that already had sharks, bad edits, stuff that comes out of nowhere-- in short, 90 minutes of pure awesome. This is what you wanted baby. I could go into all the amazing moments, but as I usually do, I'll leave that to the comments section, so I don't give too much away. (Even though when I do that, I often get the "oh my God, how could you have not mentioned this!" Well, now you know why.)

This is the fourth Bruno Mattei film we've done, the other three being Robowar, Strike Commando, and Strike Commando 2. For those three, he went under the name Vincent Dawn. For Cruel Jaws he went with William Snyder. I wonder where he gets these names from? Vincent Dawn is almost porn star or action lead, while William Snyder, in it's full form is like a baseball player, but using "Bill" instead sounds like an accountant or local contractor. "Hey, did you talk to Bill Snyder and get that estimate?" In some ways, it's a window into how Italians view us Americans by the fake names they choose to make themselves sound more like us. "Ah, you'ah know, ah-Willeeum Snyderr. Dat sounds-ah verrry Americano, no?"



The thing I love about the shark movie is, as good or as bad as it's done, it's always a fun time. I think that's because sharks make such great baddies. As the movie states, they're like genetically engineered killing machines. All they do is swim, eat, and make babies. You can't bargain with an enemy like that, it doesn't care if you're young or old, if you're in the water, you're fair game. Plus, they're real, and people really have been attacked by them. One of the interesting things about this is, as much as it has that "throw everything in and see what happens" quality, Mattei does a great job of building suspense, especially in the early going. It's the shark attack itself, of course, that leaves something to be desired and is so funny.

Our hero's girlfriend is not a nice person. She's upset that he has to help deal with a killer shark menacing the local coast, which is understandable, it is their vacation after all. What she does in response is a bit much though. She cheats on him with the main heel. Really? I wonder if Mattei is telling us anything about what he thinks of that, or if maybe he had a woman in his life cheat on him, and what he wanted done to her. You'll have to watch the movie to see for yourself.



Finally, loved this guy who looked like a guy dressing up as Hulk Hogan for a kid's party. The Fu Manchu is the best part. I had a buddy tell me once that he thought I should grow out the Fu Manchu, James Hetfield style. My thinking was, I couldn't really pull it off, and the only scenario it would work would be if I were called to be on Maury. You could see me in the greenroom with all these punk kids with their whisper thin fuzz on their upper lip, then I show up with the Hetfield Fu Manchu, all like Larry Bird in the Three-Point Contest: "Okay, which of you boys is coming in second?" Otherwise, the Fu Manchu wouldn't work for me, not like it did for that guy up there.

I guess used VHS is the way to go, or maybe DVD, especially if you're a Region 2, because I know there you can get it both in English and Italian with English subs. You could also do the Japanese VHS, which works here in America, and like their cars, the Japanese VHS is much sturdier that ours. However you get it, just get it and make this happen. You won't be disappointed.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112747/

Strike Commando 2 (1988)

This is the second of two Strike Commando films sent to me by our buddy from Down Under over at Explosive Action, so we thank him again for that. I watched it the first time with a friend while we were house sitting over a year ago, so that just shows you what my To Watch list looks like when something like this can be lost in the shuffle for so long.

Strike Commando 2 I guess picks up sometime after part 1, only now instead of Reb Brown, we have Brent Huff as our hero, Michael Ransom. His old major, Vic Jenkins (played by none other than Richard Harris--yes, that Richard Harris!) is kidnapped, and Ransom has to pay a ransom of $9 million in diamonds. Along the way, he picks up sexy spitfire Rosanna, and both the action and the sexual tension heats up as the two brave the wild Filipino--err Vietnamese--jungle and try to bring Richard Harris back safe and sound.

This is a great time. No, it's not the total classic Strike Commando is, but it's very serviceable for a Bruno Mattei under the name Vincent Dawn Vietnamese actioner shot in the Philippines. Brent Huff works, even though he's not Reb Brown, the Richard Harris factor never ceases to be puzzling and fantastic--seriously, what the hell was he doing in this?--and the silly Romantic Comedy element between Huff and Mary Stavin (Rosanna) is equal parts something to laugh at and something that's actually charming. Then there's all the stuff you want from this, like the rip-off plot--lots of Indiana Jones especially--the inappropriate music, which sounded like something you'd hear in a kids' movie fantasy romp scene where something magical and wondrous is happening, mainstays like Vic Diaz, and then all the stuntmen craziness and explosions you can cram into 90 minutes--Mattei even went the "ninja" route, simply using it as a ploy to double up on stuntmen by obscuring their faces so we can't see that they were just shot two scenes ago.

I'm serious, Richard Harris is in this. What was he doing? A friend told me a story about how his grandfather, back in the 50s, was drinking with some of his buddies, and one of them got really drunk. Long story short, his grandfather was rich, and he and his friends sent the guy on a plane to Havana, his grandfather footing the bill. I have to imagine that's what happened here, Harris was on a bender, and some of his rich actor friends sent him to Manila. Once he sobered up, he was probably like "fuck it, I might as well make some cash," or maybe Mattei offered to pay his ticket back. I mean, did he really take this gig on his own accord? Did the same agent who booked him Harry Potter book him Strike Commando 2?

If, in a sequel, you're going to take the lead star a step down, I think Brent Huff is a sold step down from Reb Brown. Maybe not Ted Prior good, but good enough. I had a lot of fun with him here at least. The best was when he'd yell at Mary Stavin when the two were in Romantic Comedy mode, because he was trying to sound exasperated, but it came off more like he had Tourette's syndrome or was hard of hearing or something. There was also an element of the tongue-in-cheek here as well, as if he were really playing the action lead to the hilt, which was great too.

I think it's a movie like this that makes me wonder where the art of the B-action film is going, because it's hard to find something this fun being made anymore. So many are just these overproduced, MTV-style edited, with a bad soundtrack and an even worse plot that dominates the movie more than some quality, fun action. Mattei has it figured out: throw some famous movie plots into a meat grinder, hire a bunch of local extras, and blow shit up. And the thing is, it really works. DTV movie houses need to go back to their roots and stop thinking they can put lipstick on a pig, when their audience doesn't want them to to do that.

The Romantic Comedy element led to an interesting dynamic as far as the lead female role in this movie went. It wasn't as simple as boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl gets kidnapped, boy rescues her. Both were pretty much equals, and Mattei pits the two against each other as if they were in their tenth year of marriage. Even the scene here, where Mary finds herself bound and gagged in the back of a truck that Huff is driving--long story short, the work of ninjas--it's not played as a damsel in distress, but more like Mattei telling us "sometimes I'd like to do this to my wife when she's giving me a hard time! But in the end, I still love her." I'd like to see to some degree we in the States get to that level of interplay between male and female in our B-movies, but I think it takes someone with a European sensibility to make that happen.

The version of this that I received was a DVD burn off a Japanese VHS rip, which is probably roughly how you'd have to track this down. For our readers in the States, there is the bonus that we both use the same format; and in getting a Japanese VHS shipped to you, there's less worry about breakage, because they make their tapes much sturdier than we make ours (this sounds like the Japanese vs. American car debate from the past 30 years, huh?). Anyway, I wouldn't spend too much unless you're a heavy duty collector, but if you are, this is one worthy of your collection.

Note: Severin Films now has a Blu-ray of this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098398/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Strike Commando (1987)

This was another one of the films our buddy from down under, Sutekh, sent us in a package that also contained Deadly Prey and Robowar. Like Robowar, Strike Commando is a Japanese VHS rip, which comes complete with Japanese subtitles. If you want you can check out his review of both this and the sequel, at his site, Explosive Action.

Strike Commando stars DTVC favorite Reb Brown as Sgt. Michael Ransom, the best guy we got, doing special forces work in Vietnam. He ends up stranded, thought to be dead, after a mission goes wrong-- because evil colonel Christopher Connelly screwed it up. Now Reb is back at the US base, and he has proof that the Russians are involved. Connelly wants more proof, so he sends Brown back in, only for him to get captured and tortured by the evil Russian officer Jakoda. Problem is, all they've done is awoken a sleeping bear, because Reb Brown is pissed, he's armed, and he's beefy, and everyone's gonna pay!



This is fantastic in every way imaginable. Is this good Reb Brown? No, it's great Reb Brown. Is this great Bruno Mattei? No, it's exceptional Bruno Mattei. Is this a good Vietnam War in the Philippines movie? No, it's pretty much as good as it gets. This is just the perfect get your buddies together and laugh at the screen kind of film. I know my buddy and I watched it while he was house sitting last year, and we loved it. It might be a difficult one to find, but if you can get it, by all means.

What do you think of when you hear the name Reb Brown? Beefiness combined with screaming, right? And this has all of that. I uploaded the end fight scene with the major baddie (you can check it out on the image page), but I easily could've uploaded seven or eight more. There's the torture montage, which shouldn't have been funny, but was. Or the tearful goodbye where Reb Brown tells a kid all these lies about Disneyland as the kid dies in his arms. Come to think of it, any scene with Reb Brown in it in Strike Commando is great. (I don't want to give away the context of that first image above, but it's equally fantastic.)



This is only the second Bruno Mattei film we've looked at, the first being Robowar-- and both with him credited under the pseudonym "Vincent Dawn". That number will only go up as we swim in more of his circles, but his movies aren't exactly the easiest things to find either. He passed away in 2007, and of his last five or six films, I'm not sure that any were released in the United States. At the very least, we still have Strike Commando II to cover, so we're not done with him yet.

Christopher Connelly plays the bad colonel. If you've watched any TV shows from the 1970s, you'd recognize him. He passed away shortly after this was made, though there were two other films released after his death, Night of the Sharks, co-starring Treat Williams and Antonio Fargas; and Django II, starring Franco Nero and Donald Pleasence-- both films were Italian productions, though neither were directed by Mattei.



The best judge of an action film is how many end fights they have-- and how great they are. This has two-and-a-half, each one better than the first. I uploaded the first one, with big baddie Jakoda. Then he has one against the American that double-crossed him. Then he has a half of one after that against Jakoda, just to finish things off. This is a very important lesson for people who drag their films on. First, if you cut down on the boring early on, you can get away with multiple endings; but second, and most importantly, each one needs to be better than the first. If you're thinking of drawing your film out more, go to Strike Commando for a clinic on how to do it properly.

This can either be purchased on VHS, or is available on a big Grindhouse collection, which the reviews of on Amazon describe it as varying in quality. Really, anyway you do it, this is very worth it. It's some of the best Reb Brown you can ask for.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094059/

Robowar (1989)

Our buddy from down under, Sutekh, who runs the great blog Explosive Action, sent me a copy of this along with a bunch of others, including Deadly Prey, almost a year ago. Don't ask me why it's taken me so long to get this and the others he sent me reviewed up here, I guess it's always a matter of timing, but we're finally making it happen.

Robowar is 85 percent Predator, 12 percent Robocop, and 3 percent Philippines Vietnam War film (which equals 100 percent awesome by my calculations, but we'll get to that in the next paragraph). Reb Brown plays the head of a rag tag bunch of ass kicking special forces dudes sent into the jungle after what they think is a band of guerrillas. Not the case, it's actually a cybernetic killer created by the US military that needs to be tested by the best the Army has to offer. Will our boys figure out what they're up against before it's too late? Is it too late anyway?

Did I mention this was awesome? Yes, in a Deadly Prey or R.O.T.O.R. sense, but still awesome just the same. Reb Brown is Reb Brown, and everything else is as simply fantastic as that synopsis above would suggest. I watched it initially about a year ago with a buddy while he was house sitting, and we were in agreement, this belongs up there with some of the best bad movies ever.

Yep, that's Reb Brown in a belly shirt. And yes, Reb Brown screams a lot in this movie. And no, he doesn't wear the belly shirt the whole time, this scene is the last time we see it. And yes, Reb Brown screams a lot. Did you know this is only the second film of his we've done? I think it's just a by-product of the fact that a lot of his movies are in that third or fourth tier--maybe fifth tier--and we're still working our way through the first and second tier of the DTV world. As we get more films of Hall of Famers out of the way, and as I finally give up on those new punchfighting movies, I'll make more room for Reb Brown on here, something that's probably been long overdue. Besides, Sutekh also sent me Strike Commando, so we'll always have that bad boy.

This is Jim Gaines. He had a significant role in the Gary Daniels classic Final Reprisal, and he's something of an icon in the Philippine cinema world, though if you look at his IMDb bio, he has as many bit parts and cameos as he does big roles like he did here and in the Daniels film. Also of note on his IMDb bio: he apparently was in the new The Rock movie Faster. I haven't seen it yet, but even if the movie sucks, the fact that he's in it, for however long he's in it, is awesome. Here's to you Jim Gaines, you're one of the good ones.

Another one of the good ones: Catherine Hickland, who plays Virgin. I think it was supposed to be Virginia, but that's what they listed her as in the credits. I guess it's apt, considering the land of Virginia was named after the virgin Queen Elizabeth. Anyway, I thought I recognized her as a Soap actress, and I was right, One Life to Live, but even better, she was married to The Hoff, as in David Hasselhoff, and co-starred in a couple episodes of Knight Rider, including one where The Hoff infiltrates a rock band. Now she's married to a dude whose real name is Michael Knight, but I guess she filed for divorce there too.

I wanted to point out this scene, because it hit me, the reason why these movies from the 80s and 90s worked so well, and these newer ones don't so much. You can say what you want about Bruno Mattei, good or bad, or about Albert Pyun, or about any other B-movie director, but the one thing they always are is a movie director, not a music video director. I mean, would we see a scene like this in a modern DTV flick? Not just the skull rock, but holding on the shot, and holding on it for more than .1 seconds. I think if you're an quick-cut filmmaker, you should watch Robowar and know that you're not better than this, as much as you'd like to think you are.

Obviously this is a tough find. Sutekh sent me his copy of a Japanese VHS--it even had the Japanese subtitles. Amazon doesn't have it, but it is on YouTube as of the writing of this post, cut into multiple parts, and with the same Japanese subs. I won't put the link, just because those things change as people add and close accounts, but if you go to YouTube and type in Robowar, it'll pop up.

Note: updating this post in 2024, Severin Films has a Blu-ray version.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096000/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/