The Gardener (2021)

This is it, we're finally covering The Gardiner on here, and finally getting Gary Daniels into the 60 Club with Dolph--who's technically in the 70 Club, but who's counting? In addition to us, The guys at Comeuppance and Todd Gaines at Bulletproof have covered this too.

The Gardener has the Bronson-faced Robert Bronzi as our eponymous hero, tending the garden for a rich family of Brits pretending to be Americans while living in England--at least that's the best explanation for why the family are all UK actors playing Americans while living in the UK. Anyway, at the same time Gary Daniels plays Volker, a baddie who runs a crew of guys who steal things from people's homes. After a recent break-in turns into a home invasion and double homicide, Volker wants this job done right. But when the daughter of the family decides to join her boyfriend during the holiday instead of travel with her family, they cancel their trip, leaving them ripe for these baddies when they break-in. Unfortunately for the baddies though, as their home invasion unfolds, the Gardiner has other plans for them.

What is there to say about this one? It's a home invasion movie that tries to pad out the home invasion by taking its time to get there, and does a decent job of it. Then they use the Three Stooges "there's a man in a gorilla suit taking everyone out in a mansion" paradigm, only here Bronzi as said guy in a gorilla suit--sans gorilla suit unfortunately, because that would've made this movie a ten!--is killing everyone, instead of tying them up and putting them in a closet for laughs. My one complaint would be that I'd like more Daniels, but when you see Bronzi's fighting, you realize pairing him with Daniels wouldn't work if they did it too much, so they have to save it for the end. I guess that's a good way to mitigate it. There were also weird decisions, like setting the film in the UK, and using all UK actors, but having the actors playing the family members play them as Americans. Why would you need to do that? Let everyone be Brits, that's my motto.

We finally got Daniels to the 60 Club, but we made it a year late, because he's now 61, which means Dolph remains the only actor on the site to have more films than his age. And a big reason for that was how hard this was to get on a free streamer. I guess I could've paid for it, but I got the sense from the trailer that this wasn't worth rental money, and I was right about that, this is more a good value for a free streamer or a streaming service you're already subscribed to. The thing is, he's had two films released since this one, Bring Him Back Dead and Repeater, which are both on Tubi, and it feels like this film was made for Tubi, but how can you know in the current streaming climate--though to be fair, this was on Tubi for like a week, then mysteriously was removed. After that it was on Prime for like two weeks, and then too was mysteriously removed, only to be as mysteriously restored, and I figured at that point I couldn't mess around. As far as a Daniels film goes, I think this is around the middle of his movies. It could've been worse, but we've also seen better from him. What I liked was how present he was. At this stage of his career he could start mailing in small cameos like his fellow stars, but he's not doing that, and I think I appreciate that in this film more than anything.

We're finally getting a Robert Bronzi film on the site, and it took Daniels to get us there. He really does look a lot like Bronson, and while he really isn't Bronson the way we understand Bronson with his screen presence, he does a good enough job here giving you Bronson-enough, if that makes sense? Like he's not just a look-alike, he's trying to channel him, which works enough in a movie like this that can use that kind of energy. I wouldn't want to see him in something like a remake of Death Wish--or hell even Death Wish V--but in the same way that Tito Ortiz can give you a cheap Vin Diesel, or Gruner or Bernhardt can approximate Van Damme, Bronzi works enough to punch up a DTV on-the-cheap UK production, which when you add in a name like Daniels, it can get you to the church on time. Speaking of Ortiz, it looks like he has a film with him coming up, which should be fun. Why not just do a whole Expendables movie with clones? I think there's a market for that--which is probably just us, but we're enough of a market... I think.

The only other name in this I recognized was Sarah T. Cohen, but I couldn't figure out from what, and when I looked her up on IMDb, I hadn't seen any of her films. Then I realized, she had been in films that starred, or were directed by or written by, people who were in films I'd reviewed. For example, she's done a few films written by friend of the site and podcast guest Tom Jolliffe. A lot of the films he does as more of a gun for hire like that are shot in the UK but made for American audiences, so all of the cast need to pull out their best American accents, like Cohen and the other family members do in this. She's had to play Americans so much that on her IMDb page she has an American accent demo reel. I guess it makes sense if the movie is marketed to Americans, but something like this that's more international, and actually set in England, I don't really get it--unless for Cohen and the other actors playing family members, a selling point was adding another clip to their American accent demo reel. "Hey, we can't pay you a lot for this, but we'll make the family Americans so you can further show the world how great your American accent is!" "My agent's telling me to take, fine."

Finally, this might be it for Daniels for a while, because after this film we have two Christian movies, a few foreign films, a 3-hour Bruce Lee biopic, and some film called A Stranger in Paradise that I can't seem to find. If you add all that up, if I were do do them all, that's only seven films--and I don't know how much any of them outside of A Stranger in Paradise I want to review--meaning he can't catch Dolph's 70. On the other hand, Art Camacho is at 52, and he probably has enough work out there to catch Daniels, but the next actor after him is Rothrock at 43, and I don't know that she has 17 films that haven't been reviewed in order to catch Daniels, so he's safe at two. Going into making the DTVC, I would've expected Dolph to have the most films, but I had no idea Daniels would not only be the second-most, but the second-most by an unreachable margin. 60 films is a big deal, and deserves its due. Here's to you Mr. Daniels, you're one of the greatest to ever do it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can get this on Prime, but that can change really quickly, as we've seen over the past couple years. It's worth it as a Daniels film on a free streamer, or a streaming service you already have, but I don't know if you need to rent it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11217036

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Astro (2018)

This is one that's been on the shelf for a long time. Back in 2020 when I did my Gary Daniels Letterboxd list as part of my 1000th post celebration, I watched this along with a bunch of others of his that I hadn't seen in order to inform my decisions, but unlike those others which I had since reviewed, this one lingered to the point where I needed to rewatch it, and when a film hits the dreaded rewatch list it can take that much longer to get it done. At least we're finally doing it now.

Astro is about a billionaire (Marshal Hilton) whose company finds an alien, and when they sequence its DNA, discover it's related to a human who used to serve in the military with him, the one and only Gary Daniels. Now he needs to get Gary to join him, but unlike the real world where people seem to love billionaires, at least in movies people are still suspicious of them, and Daniels is right to be, because this man has ulterior motives. He sends a goon squad to take Daniels and his daughter out, and when that doesn't work, Daniels infiltrates the company compound to the bottom of things. Just wait till he meets the alien!

This is pretty unremarkable, which was probably a big reason why I didn't review it sooner. The thing is, it wasn't like it was bad, just unremarkable. It's definitely made on the cheap, and it's definitely made quickly, which isn't the worst thing, but it has a complicated plot with a lot of backstory and moving parts, and that results in a lot of exposition and padding. The film did a good job in replacing that exposition with actual scenes instead of explanations through dialog, but the problem was there was a lot there to catch us up on, and a lot of it had to do with the billionaire guy instead of Gary Daniels, even though Daniels was our star. The film also sets up for a sequel that it doesn't look like is happening, and that leaves us with this open ending that doesn't resolve anything. I think at least if we had had a more definitive ending, the other flaws would've been forgiven, but we didn't, so ultimately I was left with a lot of blah, which, as I said above, isn't exactly bad, but it isn't good either.

This is now 59 films for Daniels at the DTVC, second only to Dolph's 70. I looked at his IMDb bio between 2015 and now, and there aren't a lot of projects, just 12 feature films--compared to Dolph's 25+--and of that, only 10 really fit what we're doing on the site. What that tells me is Daniels is being more selective in what he chooses, evidenced too by the fact that only Zero Tolerance and Dancin' It's On are smaller parts. With that in mind, I have to assume that Astro looked better on paper than it was in execution. While we here at the DTVC have always leaned more toward Mitch at the Video Vacuum's tenet of quantity of quality, if Daniels is going in the other direction, I can appreciate it. But this film shows where that quality over quantity can split both ways, because we get a more engaged, fuller Daniels performance here, but is this better than three smaller parts in some Jesse V. Johnson or Daniel Zirilli actioners? It's an interesting question, both for him as an actor, and us as fans, which would we rather have too?

The writer, director, and producer of this film was Asif Akbar, and while this is the first time we've done one of his films on the site, we have seen some of the films he's produced on the podcast, including Phoenix (speaking of Daniel Zirilli) and The Weapon. As a director and producer, he's working with some bigger names that are familiar to fans of the site, like Michael Jai White, Mickey Rourke, and Art Camacho, but in looking at his bio, this was the first film he did with a lot of recognizable names in it. I think it's always cool to see where people start out in the business, and how they grow and move up. As much as this film may have its shortcomings, I do respect that for Akbar it was just another step in the journey. It'll be interesting to see what we get next from him, but in anticipation of more of his films coming to the site in the future, I've given him a tag.

I could get into the fact that we have more from Dominique Swain, or that this is 12 films for Louis Mandylor and 17 for Michael Pare, but there isn't much to say about their roles other than they were there, and they did well enough. So why then do I have a screen of Gianni Capaldi? Well, one, he finally got his own tag with this being his fifth film on the site; and two, one of those previous four was one of the most egregious bait-and-switches in the history of the site, the Dolph film Ambushed. That film came out in 2013, and it feels like the DTV world has only become more cynical since then, especially with the explosion of streaming. For distributors it's less about putting out good content, and more about what it will take to get us to stream something. EFO created the blue print, and so many others in the business are jumping onboard. If I can say one thing about this film, it at least feels like an earnest attempt, and I'll take that all day over a film like Ambushed that sold us on one thing, and gave us something entirely different.

Finally, as we do with all members of the 50 Club, Daniels is getting a second paragraph. Where we go next with him is anyone's guess. The Gardener would be a good pick for number 60, the problem is it's only available to rent on Amazon. How is that one not on Tubi yet? From there he has his Christian films, The Mark: Redemption and Encounter: Paradise Lost, which, we have done the first Mark movie, so it's not totally outside the realm of possibility, but do I want to do a Christian film for his entry into the 60 Club? That might mean that he sits on 59 for a while, which, from an actor standpoint, Cynthia Rothrock is 17 behind him with 42 films, so it's not like he'll be passed anytime soon, but with Dolph having at least one film coming out this year, but potentially two, he's going to keep expanding his all-time lead with the most ever. Back to that quantity over quality debate.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This has been on Tubi since I first watched it back in 2020, and I have a hunch if someone sees this review ten years from now it will still be on Tubi. For me it's really about watching and reviewing another Gary Daniels flick, and if you're a fan of him, this is worth it from that standpoint.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6156656

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Repeater (2022)

This is one where there really wasn't much excuse for why I didn't get to it sooner. There was an outside idea that I might save it for a podcast episode, but really, this was the most recent Gary Daniels flick, free to stream on Tubi, I should've made it happen. Finding out Art Camacho was the stunt coordinator made it all the worse that it took us this long to get it in, but at least we're making it happen now.

Repeater has Paul Sidhu as an assassin who has a job go bad in Bolivia, and has to take a high-risk open contract job as a result. That job involves taking out hacktivist Nick Moran, who has stolen data from an unscrupulous business man that's about to sell his business empire and retire. That businessman has a long-time hatchet man of his, Gary Daniels, also after Moran, and when his boss gives him the go-ahead, Daniels's new job is to kill everyone. On top of that, Painkiller Jane is Moran's bodyguard, and she and Sidhu have some history. Now the question is, will Sidhu kill Moran when he gets the chance? Or maybe he'll help him across the border so Moran can get help from the US Marshals.

This was pretty good, but I think it was a bit longer than it needed to be, and had the classic "hit man saves the lady of the night from being a lady of the night, and she nurses his wounds for him" trope that we've seen so many times. The thing here though was we didn't need it, it just weighed the film down. Sidhu as the lead holds his own really well despite the other names in this, and I'd like to see him in some other R. Ellis Frazier flicks; Daniels is great as a baddie; and Nick Moran, while we could've done without the French accent, is solid as the hacktivist. Also really liked the stunt work Camacho did, especially with Daniels in the fight scenes. The other thing was the film looked really nice, R. Ellis Frazier knows what he's doing at least as far as directing a film goes. The story just got away from them a bit, and in cliched ways that we've seen enough already.

Mr. Daniels is now on 58 films on the DTVC, second all time after Dolph. He just turned 60 this year, so when we finally get him into the 60 Club, he'll also join Dolph as the only other person on the site to have the distinction of having as many films on the site as years on the planet. What we get here is a solid-enough baddie, which worked if we just want more Daniels movies, but I liked the role he had in Bring Him Back Dead better, where he got to be the lead. If this performance shows anything, it's that Daniels can still lead a film if he's given the opportunity. The question now is, where do we go from here with him to get him to the 60 Club? Astro is next on the docket, unless The Gardener suddenly comes available, which I doubt it since it's been this long, but you never know. After that he has his religious films, all of which are on Tubi now, and of which we've already done one, so that leaves us two more of those. The 70 Club where Dolph is headed soon is probably not within reach, but 60 by the end of this year should be.

Third in line for number of tags is Art Camacho, who now has 49, putting him one away from joining Dolph and Daniels in the 50 Club. In talking to Ty from Comeuppance, we have a film lined up for that one, Chinatown Connection, because he stars in it. Here's the thing though: according to IMDb, Camacho also did uncredited writing work on another R. Ellis Frazier film, The Line, something we haven't tagged him for on here. With what happened with Don "The Dragon" Wilson and us having to remove tags from him after films were erroneously credited to him, it might be better to keep his count where it is for now, and we can add that in later if we need, so the next post will be still 50 for us. (Speaking of Wilson, in the trivia it says that the Ray Liotta role in The Line was originally written for him, and then totally rewritten for Liotta to remove the martial arts content. Wilson cites losing that role as a reason why he took the hiatus he did, something that had been a bit of a mystery to us, so interesting to find out that that was a reason why we lost him for about five years.) When we get to that 50th post for Camacho, we'll talk about his contributions to DTV action more, but it's also cool to see him lending his talents to something like this, which just takes everything up a notch. Also cool to see him back with Daniels for the first time since 1998's Recoil (if we're not counting The Line), which I have up as my favorite PM flick of all time.

As R. Ellis Frazier films are wont to do, we had a bunch of other people in this. First off, Nick Moran, traditional British crime film mainstay, is in this as the French hacktivist everyone is after. Why he had to be French--complete with the French accent--is beyond me. It's not possible to be a British hacktivist? You can rewrite an entire role for The Line so Ray Liotta can take Don "The Dragon" Wilson's part, but you can change the hacktivist's nationality when you get Nick Moran for is? We also have Painkiller Jane, aka Kristanna Loken. When I first reviewed a film she was in for the site, back in October of 2007, Painkiller Jane was still on the air, so me, being snarky, put that tag instead of her name, and it's stuck. This is only her 5th film on the site, so who knows, maybe if she gets some more I'll swap that tag over, but it's kind of fun that she's remained "Painkiller Jane" on here long after that show was cancelled. Finally, we have Corbin Bernsen as Sidhu's fixer. We've seen him two other times on here, both Frazier films, so I figured it was time to give him a tag.

Finally, an R. Ellis Frazier mainstay whom I love, and want to give some more shine to, is Luis Gatica. He's only in this in the opening scene, which is too bad, because I prefer to have my Gatica sprinkled in throughout to keep my interest, but I'll take my Gatica any way I can get it. Here he's like the opener in baseball, which, the purpose of the opener is to use a reliever to start the game, get through the other team's top of the batting order, and then hand it over to the a starter to take over from there. Like Paul Sidhu is good, but he's not great--at least not yet--but Gatica is, so let him open the movie, get us through the tougher bats, and then when Sidhu takes over, Gatica has already started us off in a good enough place. It was pure professional Gatica, absolutely killing it, and while, again, I would have preferred to see him in this more, I respect the role and performance he put in and its importance to the film. This isn't my first Gatica appreciation post when doing a Frazier film, so I was surprised I hadn't tagged him yet. We've remedied that now, this is film number 5 for him here. Here's to you Senor Gatica, you're one of the greats.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Freevee, Plex, and my favorite Tubi, here in the States. As this is a bit on the longer than it needed to be side, free streaming is the way to go. Sidhu is solid, you get the Daniels you want, with some great Camacho stunt coordination too. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7979692

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

City Hunter aka Sing si lip yan (1993)

This is one I watched a few years back when I was doing my Gary Daniels list on Letterboxd, and I planned to review it soon after, but it never happened. And then late last year, I was a guest on Scott Murphy's All 90s Action, All the Time podcast, and we were covering this film, so I watched it again, with the plan to review it soon after as well. Now with Daniels's 60th birthday coming in a few days, I figured this is as good a time as any to get it done.

City Hunter has Jackie Chan as the hero, Ryo Saeba, based off of the Manga comic of the same name. He gets a job to track down a rich newspaper magnate's daughter, who ends up taking a cruise, meaning Chan has to follow her onto it. The problem: terrorist Richard Norton and his gang, led by his head henchman Gary Daniels, are taking the cruise hostage so they can extort the rich people onboard for their money. Now it's up to Chan to be the fly in the ointment. He's not alone though, we have a baccarat player who's also an expert card thrower, and a government agent undercover as a young lady hoping to pick up some rich businessmen, who are also able to help him. Will they ultimately prevail?

There are a few places to go to with this. Let's start with the action and martial arts. Exactly what you want from Golden Harvest starring Jackie Chan. Some really inspired scenes, culminating in a great finale between Chan and Norton. We also had the iconic scene with Chan and Daniels where they played Street Fighter characters, giving us a sense of what it would be like if Daniels ever got to play Ken. The other place to go is the comedy, and one could make the point that a lot of it didn't age well: we have homophobia, gross chauvinism, with a dash of racism thrown in; beyond that though, I think some of it just wasn't funny. Bits would go on past their saturation point, leaving me wanting the old Vaudeville hook to come off-screen and pull whoever was in the joke off the stage. Some of the humor did work though, especially with Chan, who is not only a fantastic martial artist, but also a great physical comedian, and he delivers that Buster Keaton vibe you want when you see Chan on the tin--and like Keaton, who did black face in College, Chan employs some brown face here when he plays Dhalsim in the Street Fighter scene, but I digress. I think between the novelty of seeing Daniels and Norton together in a Jackie Chan Golden Harvest film, plus the level of the martial arts, this is worth checking out, even if some of the humor will make you cringe a bit.

With Daniels turning 60 in a few days, it's interesting to look at this one from 30 years ago, when Daniels's career was in its earlier stage. Even more interesting is, only two years after this, he did Fist of the Northstar, which was the one he expected to catapult him to the big time, but unfortunately didn't end up working. From there though, he spends the next 10-15 years putting together one of the greatest DTV CVs ever, with films like Bloodmoon; the "three Rs" of PM, Rage, Riot, and Recoil; and Cold Harvest. But then something happens, the 2000s come, and guys like Seagal and Van Damme drop down to DTV, and while someone like Dolph was able to survive, Daniels was given fewer leading roles, in some cases needing to settle for religious films shot in Thailand. He wasn't alone in this though, Rothrock and Wilson also suffered a similar fate, the only thing was, it seemed like Daniels came out on the other side in a bit better place, getting some starring roles again in films like Skin Traffik, Misfire, and Rumble. But when we come back to this one, he has a smaller role, but you can see where he was going, and it's not a surprise that he'd get a part like Kenshiro in Fist of the Northstar, the surprise is that he never quite made that big screen level.

This is our first Jackie Chan film on the site, after almost 1200 posts. I know he doesn't do a lot of DTV stuff--and this technically isn't DTV either--but you'd think we'd at least have a Wild Card post or something like we've had for guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone. I think the big reason why we haven't seen more in his case, is he doesn't have a lot of films like this that have other names, which is the kind of the thing we have to review it whether it went DTV or not. Due to issues with the director, Chan said this is one of his least favorite films, but his martial arts and stunt scenes are what you want from him. What's interesting, if you compare him with Daniels, this is also two years out from Rumble in the Bronx, the movie that got him fame here in the US, and led to a string of big budget Hollywood hits, so while it didn't work out for Daniels, Chan was that marquee Hollywood name for a time. For me, that's what got me to go back to his Hong Kong stuff like this film, after seeing Rumble in the Bronx in the theater, and fortunately as a result of that success, more of it became available. If this ends up being the only time we see Jackie on here--or if we don't see him again for another 1200 posts--at least we got him this one time on the DTVC.

The other Hall of Famer in this was Richard Norton in what is now his 25th film on the site, meaning the 30 Club is on the horizon for him. He's probably one who should've been there sooner, but we tend to lose him for months at a time, and often review films like this one where he's a secondary name to someone like Daniels, which is too bad, because he's big enough on his own, as he demonstrates here. Between the total scenery chewing of his baddie, to the great final fight with Chan, it's all there, everything we love about Norton. One thing that's helped him in recent years has been the advent of YouTube and the availability of some of his rarer titles on there. Something like a Blood Street that I had trouble tracking down, I can now find on YouTube and get reviewed on the site. I think as we wrap up guys like Daniels and Dolph, we'll have more openings for guys like Norton, so it'll be cool to get some of those up on here.

One thing I realized when I reviewed Operation Seawolf a few weeks back, is I'm reviewing Dolph films at a greater clip than Gary Daniels films, and the proof is there in looking at the archives: my last Daniels post was in early December, and since then we've done three Dolph films. I could make excuses, like how Dolph has had more films come out recently and I've needed to prioritize them, but I've also had movies like this in the can for a while now that also have needed a review. Either way, we're now at 57 films for Gary Daniels, three away from joining Dolph in the 60 Club--and joining Dolph as the only stars to have as many films as they have years on the planet--and he's still the only other member of the 50 Club with him. I don't know how much the lack of Daniels has been my fault though. If you look at his IMDb bio, Repeater just came out on Tubi, so I can get that one in; but The Gardner is still only available to rent, Astro wasn't that great and is one I'm reviewing just because it's Daniels, and then he has a couple more religious films, which I do plan to do at some point since I've already done one of his others, but how do you make them a priority when there's so much else out there. All that to say, we'll get Daniels in the 60 Club, but Dolph my still put some space between them for first and second most tags all time.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can stream this free on Tubi here in the States. That version is the Hong Kong release with English subtitles I believe. There's also an American cut with dubbed voices that may be more your speed, and I think that may be on Amazon. No matter how you see it, this is a fun one that you'll want to check out. And also you'll want to check out the conversation I had about this with Scott Murphy on his podcast All 90s Action, All the Time. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to it on your favorite podcatcher.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103950/

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Bring Him Back Dead (2022)

I popped open Tubi last weekend to watch a couple movies for upcoming podcast appearances, and what do you know, this bad boy was there! I figured it would be VOD for a period before a free streamer like Tubi got it, but here we are, so I bumped my other planned posts down the list to make this one happen. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Bring Him Back Dead is about a jewelry heist gone wrong after a member of the gang who looks like a cross between Carrot Top and Jesse Eisenberg (Ryan M. Shaw) kills a guard. Driver Gary Daniels is none too pleased, as is the guy who organized everything, Louis Mandylor. Things get crazier when Daniels drugs everyone except for Mandylor's daughter (Katie Keene), and the two take off with the satchel of diamonds from the heist. When the rest of the gang wakes up, they're understandably upset, and Mandylor sends them out to get the diamonds, his daughter, and Daniels--about whom Mandylor says "bring him back dead!" Now it's a forest slog aka game of cat and mouse, as Daniels and Keene need to fend off the rest of his gang and make it out alive so he can bring the diamonds to his new fence, Daniel Baldwin. 

This isn't horrible, especially at 89 minutes long, but I don't know that it's worth a watch beyond being a Gary Daniels completist. We've seen the heist gone wrong film before, and we've seen it done better. We've seen the forest cat-and-mouse game done before, and we've seen it done better. Director Mark Savage does a great job of shooting the dramatic scenes, but the fights didn't look as great, especially Daniels as the one key experienced fighter. Even some of characters' motivations, like Daniels needing money for his son's kidney transplant, we've seen before, and seen done better--think Dolph in Castle Falls for example--I mean, the sheer volume of diamonds they stole would've meant Daniels's cut if they'd just cut out Mandylor would've covered what he needed, he didn't need to screw over his whole crew I don't think. All that said, again, at 89 minutes on a free streamer like Tubi, especially for a Daniels completist like me, you could do a lot worse.

We last saw Daniels back in July, and this is only his fourth film review for 2022. I was trying to figure out why that happened, and I think a big part of it is I only have two other films of his left to review, Astro and City Hunter, and Astro was scheduled to be this post until I saw this was available. Beyond those other two, there's The Gardener, which after a year out still isn't on a free streamer yet, then he has three Christian films, and a movie I have yet to be able to track down, A Stranger in Paradise. If you add those numbers up, he's at 56 films now, so that means he could pass the 60 Club mark with Dolph next year. There was a time, when his output was higher, and Dolph wasn't doing as much, that we thought Daniels could actually pass Dolph for the all-time top number, but that's flipped now, with Dolph doing, if not more DTV films per year, at least as many as Daniels. On the other hand, Daniels is pretty secure in his second spot, as the next closest to him is Art Camacho, who will probably join Daniels and Dolph in the 50 Club next year, but is still far enough away.

Getting back to this movie and how he did, I think this is his first starring role since 2018's Astro, and only the fourth total since 2015, the other two being Rumble and Skin Traffik. To see him back as the star of a picture, with a lot of screentime, was refreshing, and good to see a film feature him that way. Also good to see him up to the task, which he was here. I think for us who have been fans of his for a long time, it's a no-brainer that he'd be leading DTV pictures like this, but I think for the rest of the film industry, he's still being forced to prove himself worthy of roles like this--at least that's how it feels--and he keeps proving why they should have faith in him. I don't know too if from a name standpoint he's not considered big enough be cast as the lead as often. Maybe that's the case, but one hope I have is, with the trend of more DTV action coming out of England, he'll be a natural choice to get cast in some of them, and his profile will grow with it.

Starring with Daniels are two actors who are no strangers to DTV supporting roles, Daniel Baldwin and Louis Mandylor. Baldwin looks like he's slowed down a bit, but in the 2010s he was on a shortlist of actors looking to become the next Eric Roberts; and Mandylor hasn't slowed down and looks like he's still looking to gain that title. The thing about Mandylor though is, despite being in so much, most of his parts aren't the one-scene appearances Roberts does--or Baldwin does here. At the very least, what Mandylor is doing is setting himself up to be a 21st Century Charles Napier, which I think would be fantastic, and I hope he continues on that track--he's at 9 films now on the site, which puts him near Napes's 11. Between the two here though, I preferred Baldwin's one-off character, and it would've been nice if he'd had a bigger part--though not enough to warrant a longer runtime. According to the tags, this was only Baldwin's second film, the other being Crossbreed, which I thought sounded low, but after I went through his bio, I only found one other, Knight Moves. It looks like Baldwin has a lot of DTV films I've been meaning to watch, but haven't yet, so we may see more of him soon.

Finally, according to IMDb this was released on DVD here in the States on August 2nd of this year, meaning within four months we had it available streaming free on Tubi. On the other hand, you have The Gardiner, which has been out for almost a year now, and still is only available to pay to rent on demand for $5.99. I get that there's a large, complicated calculus that goes into whether or not a film should be on something like Tubi, or if it makes more money with $3.99 or even $5.99 rentals, but in terms of generating buzz, it feels like including it on some streamer, whether that's Tubi like this film, or one people pay for like Hulu, would do a better job of that. Would I have bumped this up in my review queue if it was still a rental? Of course not, I have too many other films to cover--including two other Daniels films that are on Tubi. I'm not saying we should never pay, or there isn't a case for initially having a pay-to-stream period when the film first comes out, but it also feels like putting it on something like Tubi sometime after can maybe generate more interest than keeping it at rent only--and for a higher number like $5.99.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi. I think that's your best bet, especially if you're looking for more Daniels. He's good in this, and it's good to see him as the lead in something. If you're not a big Daniels fan (and why wouldn't you be?), I don't know if this has enough for you, but as a 90-minute free-streamer, you could do a lot worse.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14385300

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge (2014)

I first saw this back in early 2015 when I did a solo podcast episode on it, and at that time I planned to give it a proper review as well. Unfortunately I went on an unplanned hiatus, and when I came back almost five years later, this wasn't on any of the streaming services. So I waited. And I waited. Until finally, in the summer of 2022, Tubi got it here in the US. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this as well.

Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge is supposed to be a prequel to the first movie? It has Kane Kosugi as Kazuya, who wakes up in a hotel room and has no idea who he is. A military SWAT team raids the hotel, and as he's escaping, he's captured by a commune led by Rade Serbedzija (and that will be the last time I type his full name in this review). Because Kazuya is blessed with a certain set of skills, Rade makes him work as a hit man for him, but when one of those hits is Bryan Fury (played again by DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels), Kazuya realizes there is a way out. At the same time, who is this mysterious Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa playing Heihachi Mishima that's lurking around spying on things? That can't be good, right?

The enigmatic Wych Kaosayananda, aka Kaos, strikes again. What he was going for here, it's hard to say, and I tried in the IMDb trivia to see if I could find out, but nothing was said about it. We have some good fights and kills by Kane Kosugi, but the same way Patty Smyth and Don Henley said "sometimes love just ain't enough," sometimes some good fights and kills by Kosugi just ain't enough. This did have two writers, so I don't know if that explains the story we got here, and perhaps Kaos's attempt to save it and make it coherent. To be fair, beyond the nicely shot action sequences, Kaos as cinematographer also had some well-framed moments like this, that almost made it stylistically something that worked in spite of itself, but not quite. The whole being caught by Rade and his bad commune and being forced to work for them thing is a tough sell in a movie; not to mention the whole main character has amnesia but we all know who he is is hard to pull off. When we were kids and we played basketball, sometimes if we missed we'd ask for a "do over," and I kinda think a Kaos-Kosugi-Daniels-Tagawa do over could yield some nice results here, and maybe divorced from the Tekken franchise it wouldn't have any expectations to live up to, so it could exist better as its own thing.

With this film Kane Kosugi finally gets his tag here at the DTVC, clocking in at 7 movies, which isn't bad. We first saw him on the site with his dad Sho in Black Eagle, the Van Damme film from the 80s, so he's come a long way since then. He doesn't do a ton of stuff, but his skills are legit, and seeing him in this, he could definitely be an action lead in more movies if he were cast in them. He did Ninja II and (technically did) Zero Tolerance with Scott Adkins, but I'd love to see the two of them team up in a high-octane actioner, maybe directed by any one of Isaac Florentine, Jesse V. Johnston, or Kaos. Like just watching the two of them tear through Bangkok would be fantastic. Kosugi brings a lot to the table in this role, and I think if it didn't have the expectations of the Tekken franchise, it might have worked even better for him--but the fact that it didn't work as well as it could have wasn't Kosugi's fault either.

Gary Daniels is now at 55 films here at the DTVC, which is second all-time behind Dolph. While we have Art Camacho, Albert Pyun, and Cannon Films in the 40 Club, the next closest actor is Cynthia Rothrock with 39 movies, so he's comfortably in second place. He isn't in this one much, but the one fight scene he has with Kosugi is 100% official, and I think that's all we can ask for from him. I was looking at what we have left, and I have two that are watched that I plan to mix in soon, and after that, it's waiting for his newer films to be available free to stream, his Christian movies to be available to stream, and a movie called A Stranger in Paradise with Catalina Sandino Moreno and Byron Mann to be available to stream, and we'll have them all. He's definitely bound for the 60 Club with Dolph, it's just a matter of when.

This is the third film directed by Kaos that we've done on the site, the other two being One Night in Bangkok and Zero Tolerance; but, he was also cinematographer on the one Daniels Christian film we've done so far, The Mark, and did additional camera work on the Seagal flick The Asian Connection. He has a very unique style in his storytelling, but then also really likes to have his camerawork and editing showcased as well. In this film there were moments when it worked--Kane Kosugi doesn't look bad walking in slowmotion like a hero in an old Western; but there can be moments when it's obtrusive too. I thought that was more evident in One Night in Bangkok, where letting the scenes breathe more would've helped; but in this movie where it looks like more than one story idea was being put together, maybe he needed to dress it up as much as he could. Either way, he's growing on me, and I'm looking forward to what he has next.

 

Finally, we have to get to my ultimate beef with this: it didn't correct the wrong committed in the first film, which was leaving the Kings out. If anyone could successfully mix in a Mexican wrestler with a jaguar mask, I'd think it'd be Kaos. He needed to come in and giantly swing Rade off the commune; or catch Kosugi in a frankensteiner. When I played Tekken Tag, I almost exclusively used King and Armor King, and won the majority of my matches; then in taking a look through a guide book on that game at a local bookstore, we discovered that they were unbalanced, and I wasn't as good as I thought, I was just using characters who were better. Is that why neither film has featured at least King? How would Kosugi beat him? I remember when people used Kazuya against me, with King I could grab his leg out of midair when he tried to spin kick me. I get it, what do you do with that? Even Kosugi would have trouble.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can stream Tekken 2 on Tubi here in the States. If you're looking for some sweet Kane Kosugi action, are a Daniels completist (me), or you're curious what Kaos has cooking here, this is worth it. Beyond that, it's a bit sauteed in wrong sauce, especially if you're looking for a Tekken tournament movie.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3462696

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Dancin': It's On! (2015)

When I was going through Gary Daniels's filmography for the Letterboxd list I made, this mysterious gem stood out--along with The Wrong Child--but it seemed it was nowhere to be found. Alas, I kept looking, and lo and behold, Tubi picked it up. At the same time as I was watching it, Will from Exploding Helicopter was watching it too, and thought it would be best to take advantage of fate by having me guest on his podcast to discuss it. That episode was released last year, so you can check it out in the show archives.

Dancin': It's On! has Witney Carson of Dancing with the Stars as young lady who's been sent to live with her estranged father, Gary Daniels, who owns nice hotel resort in Panama Beach, FL. She's into dancing, which brings her into the orbit of a young man, Chehon Wespi-Tschopp of So You Think You Can Dance, who is also quite the dancer. This is an issue, because he's just a dishwasher, and Daniels does not want his daughter dating a dishwasher. At the same time, there's a big dance contest, and it would seem these two would be perfect for this. Will fate bring them together the way it brought Will and I for the podcast episode we did?

As you can imagine, this isn't our usual fare here at the DTVC, so with that in mind, I probably should approach this one differently as opposed to a Dolph actioner or Troma horror flick. It has its holes for sure, like how Wespi-Tschopp as a dishwasher seemed to be washing dishes off and on all day--which as a former dishwasher myself was particularly grating; or why Daniels didn't want her to date the dishwasher, but the guy he did want for her was the head bellhop, like that's that much more of a high-end career? But overall it's kind of fun, and I think David Winters's earnest attempt at making a last dance film for his legacy is something to appreciate. Then there's the exploding helicopter, which is what brought this into Will's orbit. Wespi-Tschopp, after getting into a fight with Carson, has one of those angry dance routines, a la Bacon in Footloose, and when the routine brings him to the resort's pool, he starts throwing patio furniture into it. At the same time, David Winters is dreaming about his son dying in a helicopter explosion while serving in Iraq, which causes him to wake up and see Wespi-Tschopp tossing lawn chairs into the deep end as part of his angry dance routine. He intervenes, explaining to the young man that he was once a dance star himself, and he'd be happy to help him train for a routine that doesn't involve throwing anything into a pool.

This is 54 films on the DTVC for 50 Club Member Gary Daniels, but the first of the new year. This, like The Wrong Child and his religious movies, is another quirk in his career. Unlike The Wrong Child though, where he was one of the stars, he's very much a supporting character here, which had us wondering why he did it at all. He doesn't have a dance number, and the closest thing to action is when he hits a punching bag while working out to try and intimidate Wespi-Tschopp. The thing is, if they'd removed the construct of Daniels wanting Carson to date the head bellhop (played by another dancer, Matt Marr), they could have given Daniels more to work with. Just the same, this is an interesting addition to his filmography, and the only reason we're reviewing it here is because he did it. We'll get back into more of his straight-ahead actioners from here, but we need to do them all eventually, so why not get this one in the can now.

This was one of the last films written by the great David Prior, who, with David Winters, put out a lot of DTV flicks through AIP. No, this doesn't feature a corrugated iron building shanty town, or appearances by his brother Ted or the great William Zipp, though those would have been some nice touches for us DTV action fans. We lost prior in August of 2015, only a couple months before his 60th birthday, and only a couple months before this film came out. When you think about it, you combine his passing with Albert Pyun's debilitating illness sidelining him around the same time, that's two heavy hitters in the DTV world no longer putting out work, and I think we felt that loss of work more than we've realized. With all the talk of how the overall quality of DTV films has dipped since the 2010s, this was one reason we haven't considered, but I think it is important.

Getting back to David Winters as director, for someone who was more into the musical/dance film genre, he has some solid DTV actioners to his credit, including some Ginty classics like Code Name Vengeance and Mission Kill--plus the Reb Brown MSTK great Space Mutiny. In addition to this, as mentioned above, he did a lot through AIP in producing many more gems. I've finally, with this movie, given him the tag he so greatly deserves, which puts this as his sixth film on the site. Out of all of them though, this is the one that feels like the passion project, which makes the DTV action that much more astounding. It's like if Gary Daniels didn't do just one dance film, but 15, plus produced another 20. He left us in 2019 at the age of 80, and while I think he'd want his legacy to be all the dance work he did, he also leaves behind an indelible contribution to the golden age of 80s and 90s DTV action, for which we'll always be appreciative.

Finally, I was trying to think if this is the first film with a mime in it that we've done on the site. When I saw it, I tweeted at Will to see if this was the first exploding helicopter film to feature a mime, but he thought A View to a Kill did as well; and it was through that tweet that he realized we were watching this at the same time, and decided to have me on the podcast episode. I feel like, 1100+ films in, we must have had a mime at some point, even if it was just a goofy Paris establishing shot, or even a guy as part of a heist disguised as one, but if there was, I can't think of it. Unfortunately, while the mime makes an appearance, spoiler alert, he doesn't have any scenes with Daniels, let alone any scenes where he has to fight Daniels. Tell me that wouldn't have made this film an instant classic? Maybe Daniels roundhousing the mime through a cheap plaster wall?

Alas, we get nothing of the sort here, but if you're a Gary Daniels--or an exploding helicopter--completist, this is a must, just for the quirk factor alone. As of my writing this, it's available free on Tubi here in the States, so you don't even have much of a financial commitment. And if you haven't yet, you need to check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast. I get it on iTunes, but I think it's available on most major podcatchers.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2598580

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Misfire (2014)

With the year coming to a close, I realized we hadn't done a Daniels flick in a while, and I had a bunch in the can that I still needed to review, so why not make one happen. In looking back, I realized the last two Daniels flicks we did were Santa's Summer House and In Between, so this is the first real Daniels-led actioner we've done since we did Skin Traffik in December of 2020, so it's been a while. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance have covered this as well, so you can go there to see what they thought.

Misfire has Daniels as a DEA agent searching the mean streets of Tijuana for his missing journalist ex-wife, thinking the cartels, led by the great Luis Gatica, may be behind it. As is often the case, things aren't always what they seem; and as is also often the case, a beautiful young woman comes along to help our hero sort out all these aren't what they seem situations. Will our hero figure it out in time to save the day, or will the baddies prevail and our hero not make it out of Mexico alive. My heart is in my throat with anticipation.

 

This is listed at 28 on my Letterboxd Daniels list, and the note I wrote on it was "I think this is my favorite of the Daniels/R. Ellis Frazier films." That's probably true, but what does that mean? On the one hand, we have a pretty standard plot that drags in places, even for a 90-minute film, where even the plot twists are pretty expected. On the other, Daniels feels really invested in this, and it shows in the fight choreography (of which there weren't many fight scenes), and in the performance Daniels gives in the non-action scenes. The other thing is, as paint-by-numbers as this might be, it doesn't have the assembly-line cynicism of a DTV flick shot on the quick-and-cheap in Michigan or Louisiana with Bruce Willis slapped on the tin for five minutes of sleepwalk work, of which 3 is probably fake Shemps. I think that has to count for something, especially in the modern DTV ecosystem.

We're at 53 for Daniels, who is still firmly in second for most tags here at the DTVC. The problem is, somehow we lost him this year, with only two other reviews, both of which weren't real Daniels actioners--and with In Between, he was barely in that. I don't really know how that happened, because we have other films of his in the can to review, with this, City Hunter, and Astro all watched and waiting for me to do the write-up--plus Dancin' It's On, which fits more into the category of films like the other two Daniels films I've reviewed this year. Recently I watched the interview he did with Scott Adkins for Adkins's YouTube series on action stars, and he really gave more insight into what drives him in this industry. Yes, he is at his core a martial artist and action star, but he also looks for films that can stretch his dramatic acting skills, and I think that's why he'd gravitate to a project like this. On the one hand, we want to say "why Gary, just keep busting heads!", but on the other, with the oeuvre that he's turned out across his career, I think he's turned out enough great stuff that later in his career it's not the worst thing to want to push himself in films like these instead.

 

Vanessa Vasquez played the female lead helping Daniels out. Looking at her IMDb bio, she's done a lot of TV work, the biggest perhaps being the Hulu series East Los High. That show debuted in 2014, the same year this was released, and she really doesn't do any films like this after that. I get it, because unfortunately, as much as she tries to make this part more than the one-note pretty female costar, that's really all that's written here. It's like "how many scenes until she and Daniels hook up?", and from the standpoint of the actress looking at the script, there has to be a sense of "what do I do to make this more than just the pretty female costar?" I think the fact that she does try to be more than that one-note role helps the film, but I also have to wonder, had she known East Los High was coming, if she even would have looked at this script, let alone made this film.

And who do we have to blame for the one-note-ness? None other than the infamous R. Ellis Frazier, who with this post, finally gets his tag. I don't know if any of his films captures the R. Ellis Frazier dilemma better than this one. One the one hand, it is rather unremarkable and covering pretty well-worn territory; at the same time, there's an earnestness in his filmmaking that trickles down to the stars, so we have a Daniels who is also doing the fight choreography and is really invested; a Vanessa Vasquez who's trying to make more of a generic character despite the way Frazier wrote her; and of course, Ellis mainstay Luis Gattica as the main cartel baddie, just killing it in every scene he's in. It looks like his next film with Daniels, Repeater, should be coming out soon, so we'll see how that one looks.

 

Finally, back to Daniels, since it's been so long since we've reviewed a film of his like this, we should give him some more space on here. Back in September, I had the guys from Comeuppance Reviews on the podcast to discuss our top five Daniels films, and for the most part our lists were the same, but the overarching theme was that 90s DTV wouldn't have been 90s DTV without Daniels. The energy and athleticism he brought to the action genre in that decade, especially in his PM flicks, played a huge role in making that decade so fantastic. The problem isn't that Daniels is making more films like this now that aren't the high-octane actioners we loved from the 90s, the problem is there weren't more Gary Danielses to come in behind him and take up the torch. Scott Adkins is the biggest one, but after that, who else is bringing the same combination of action and theatrical presence to the screen the way Daniels did back then? When we think of guys like Michael Jai White and Mark Dacascos, they're closer in age to Daniels than they are any next wave. The other thing is though, beyond what Adkins is doing with Jesse V. Johnson and Isaac Florentine, no one else is making the DTV action the way they were made in the 90s, so how would we know if anyone other than Adkins would be out there as the next wave. Luckily we have things like YouTube and Tubi to allow us to go back and watch those gems, and we have Daniels to thank for a lot of those gems being gems in the first place.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This is available for free on Tubi, and I think that's your best bet. In my mind, this is probably for Daniels completists only, but it's not a "let's just get it over with" one for completists, if you know what I mean. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3207160

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

 

 

Santa's Summer House (2012)

Last December I had our friend Mitch from the Video Vacuum on the pod to discuss this movie. It was a curiosity on a lot of levels, as it has some big DTV action names in it with Daniels, Rothrock, Bernhardt, and Kathy Long, plus it was directed by schlock auteur David DeCoteau. I figured now, in July, I could post it as a "Christmas in July" kind of theme. In addition to us, Mitch also reviewed this for his site, so you can go there to get more of his thoughts. Now, without any further ado. 

Santa's Summer House is about some people hoping to go to a resort, but whose van gets lost and they find themselves at a mansion. While the driver looks to see if he can get them back on track, the nice couple who own the mansion allow the people to stay there. You've probably already guessed that this mansion is the big man's summer house, and these people are here for a reason: they have shit they need to work out, and the big man and his wife want to help make that happen. But before they do, we're treated to some croquet. A lot of croquet...

 

This is exactly what you'd think it is: David DeCoteau throwing something together in a week or so, all in the same location, with a group of stars who probably had a week between projects that could be tossed in. The problem is, as a Christmas movie, it doesn't have the schlock fun that a Lifetime thriller DeCoteau's been doing lately would've had. One of the toughest moments was the extended croquet scene that Mitch compared to "rock climbing" and "sandstorm" from MSTK, and it definitely had that element of Deep Hurting. In the pod episode, Mitch and I discussed what we thought this movie could have been. Give us people at a Christmas resort, and somehow there's a hostage situation, and our action heroes need to take them down. Of course, that costs money, and this film was made on the cheap. Ultimately what this is, is a novelty for DTV action fans, and as a completist like me who feels like he has to see them all, I had to do it. If you don't have that desire to see all of Rothrock or Daniels's films, you may want to skip this one.

We'll start with Gary Daniels, as this is his 52nd film on the site. He almost plays the same busy businessman that he played in DeCoteau's The Wrong Child. Again, at least that one had the Lifetime fun thriller element that this one lacked. It feels like we've lost him a bit since he had his 50th movie on here, and I don't know that reviewing this makes up for that, even if he's getting his 52nd tag. It's a reminder that we need to get to more of Daniels's action stuff on the site, especially since I have a bunch in the can that just needs to get reviewed. 

 

The film's other Hall of Famer, Cynthia Rothrock, also hasn't been getting a lot of run on here lately either, which needs to be rectified. She's now at 37 films on the site, and closing in on joining that 40 Club. Unlike Daniels though, we don't currently have any Rothrock in the can that we need to review. I'm probably going to need to dig into her Hong Kong stuff, and see how much of it is on YouTube, if we're going to keep her posts going, as we've done almost all of her US DTV stuff--there's also more like this, like A Doggone Hollywood where she plays "Mom in Car." It's going to test my completist sensibilities for sure. 

Let's have a hearty warm welcome back to the great Daniel Bernhardt, who we haven't seen here in almost 10 years! I have to say, out of everyone in the film, he was playing the jerk character who becomes less jerky later, but to me he seemed like the one I'd most like to go on vacation with. Imagine walking around a resort with him in open polos and linen pants. Let's load up on the best of everything and have our run of the place. And I think a European resort would be even better, with a guy whose Swiss, I wouldn't feel as much like an Ugly American. Total European bros just kickin' it.

 

The superhero movie has become really popular recently, but when you think about it, Santa maybe has the strongest set of powers. He's pretty much omnipotent, at least by this film's standards. He was able to make a fog that redirected the resort van in the direction of his mansion, but also could magically make all of these people book a stay at a local resort. He also has the ability to be omnipresent, as that's the only way to explain how he can put presents in so many houses in one night, even accounting for different time zones. How would you beat Santa then if he became evil? He's like Thanos with all the Infinity Stones. I feel like that kind of power could rip the fabric of time and space. How do you stop someone who could be anywhere at any time? 

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. As of this writing, this is only available to rent on Prime for $.99, which in my mind is still too much, unless you're an extreme completist. If you want to hear more about our discussion, you can check out the podcast episode on iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify. Thanks again for coming on Mitch, it was a great time!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2350954

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!