Showdown in Manila is about a cop, Alexander Nevsky, who gets his team killed when a bust goes bad. He starts a PI firm with former LA cop Casper Van Dien, and gets a case dumped in his lap that may get him the revenge on the baddies, Cary Tagawa and Matthias Hues, who killed his team, when Tia Carrere hires them to find the same men who killed her husband, Mark Dacascos. If Nevsky and Van Dien are going to pull this off, they'll need to call in some DTVC Hall of Famers.
This one was missing something, and I think the problem was there was too much shooting and too little anything else. And it was that kind of shooting where you see one person firing a weapon in one shot, and then someone else in an entirely different shot getting hit. The other thing is, when you have the names this had, you need more than just one Mark Dacascos fight and one Cynthia Rothrock fight for that to pay off. I don't need Olivier Gruner and Don "The Dragon" Wilson to just fire weapons, anyone can do that, I need to see them take out a few guys at once with their martial arts. I feel bad, because I think I'm judging the movie more on what it could have been as opposed to what it was based on the cast, but the trailer was selling me that too, and in my mind it just didn't quite deliver.
Another issue the film had was, it really was supposed to be Nevsky's, but Casper Van Dien was stealing every scene they were in together. It made me want more of him, and the scenes that were Nevsky-focused had me waiting for when Van Dien would be back. Then, as Van Dien is shining in every scene the way he was, I starting thinking "why isn't his character the one this is centered around? He's more compelling." That's a situation you never want to be in. If you look at another "showdown" movie, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Brandon Lee was fantastic, but Dolph could carry it so well that they played off each other and the whole thing worked. The other thing is I think Dolph had had more acting credits at that point than Brandon Lee, whereas Casper Van Dien has been around much more than Nevsky, and it showed in their scenes together.
Alexander Nevsky has made a few films over the past five years, and I think he could, with the right material, be one of those actors after Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White who could carry the torch after some of the old guard have retired--and to some extent, I think this movie was a bit of a passing of the torch with the names who were supporting him. The problem Nevsky faces was staring at him in the person of Matthias Hues: the bad guy is usually the hulking Eastern European, and a lot of the stars working with him in this picture made their money taking down their share of Alexander Nevskys in their careers. What that means is he's working uphill versus the high-octane martial arts of Adkins and White that make more sense to us as action fans. I would add a Tony Jaa to that list. I'm not saying I don't think Nevsky can have a career in DTV action, I personally would love to see him make it, I just think he needs the right material as he gets his feet under him, and I don't know that this film was it.
As we discussed, there are three DTVC Hall of Famers, and all three of them come in for the jungle scenes in the last half-hour or so. Part of the reason why all three of them are Hall of Famers is we're used to them leading their own films--Gruner has 20 films on the DTVC, Rothrock 28, and Wilson 30. You could also add Dacascos and his 16 films to that list, but seeing that he was also directing, his smaller role was more understandable. The point I'm making is, adding headliners to this movie without giving them headliner roles I think brings us back to the idea that this film feels like it could have been more. For example, Cynthia Rotherock had a good fight scene where she took out a bunch of henchmen, but that's the kind of scene an up-and-comer should get to show us what she's got, not someone who has helmed 5 DTV action franchises: China O'Brien, Rage and Honor, Martial Law, Lady Dragon, and Tiger Claws. She's one of the biggest reasons why I got into DTV action, and to see her in this small role supporting Nevsky didn't feel right. Same could be said of Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Olivier Gruner. We may see more of this kind of thing going forward, where DTVC Hall of Famers take smaller supporting roles, and I don't know how we mitigate this issue of how much we're used to them being the lead, unless you only have them be baddies. I'm not saying I need them in roles where they do a fight scene every 10-15 minutes--they've already done plenty of those for us, and plenty of great ones at that--, but I think you have to give the audience something they can really sink their teeth into so they leave feeling satisfied.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT*****
I wanted to discuss the very end of the movie, so if you don't want to know what happens, don't read this paragraph. The way the film ends, the guys capture Tagawa, and take him back to Manila, where Matthias Hues has been lying in the trunk of their car. They have the guys in handcuffs sitting in chairs in their office, when Tia Carrere's character comes in, and shoots them both in cold blood. I don't want to get into the idea of victim's rights in real life, and whether or not a victim's family should have the right to get revenge like this. Real life is one thing, but a movie is different, and it seems off when the heroes do it. Again, this isn't real life, Mark Dacascos didn't really die, so in the construct of a movie, I think you have to have the baddie go for a gun or do something threatening to justify killing them. They can't be restrained and defenseless, it just doesn't play well, at least to me.
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For me, I unfortunately can't fully recommend this. It had its moments, but I feel like the bigger cast made me wish they had done more. I like Nevsky, and think he could have a big future, but there were a lot of names that overshadowed him. In fact, many of the big names made their careers in films where they defeated Nevsky-types, and I think that undermined what they were going for. You can find this on Amazon Prime, so if you're a Prime subscriber, this won't cost you anything more.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4586626
Don Wilson and Rothrock's other recent collaboration Death Fighter is much better, comes recommended.
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