Death Fighter has Matt Mullins as a cop whose mentor, Joe Lewis, is killed in a bust gone bad. Now he wants revenge, so he goes to ex-mercenary Don "The Dragon" Wilson for help. So he, Wilson, and Wilson's silent partner Otto, load up the gear and head into the jungle for their revenge. At the same time, they come across a makeshift hospital, and the woman there tells them about the slave trade this baddie has been running. So we have drugs, slave trades, and jungles. What more could we want? Maybe a Rothrock-Wilson fight?...
I think this was a set up to showcase some up-and-coming talent alongside names we already know, so the question is, how well did it work? Part of the problem is, this is a heavy-duty Jungle Slog, and while the movie may have been fun for Wilson to make (see his comments on the IMDb page), for us watching it, we don't get to see the fun behind-the-scenes stuff he got to enjoy. In fact, for us movie geeks, that probably would have been more fun for us too. It wasn't all bad, the martial arts were fantastic, especially with Mullins, Jawad El Berni, Chiranan Manochaem, and Prasit Suanphaka, they were all in high-level scenes that showed how well they could get after it; plus Wilson and Rothrock were no slouches in their scenes either; the problem is, the modern Jungle Slog is hard to pull off without any of the charm of the late 80s/early 90s, and this suffered from that.
When we last saw Wilson, it was in a tiny part in Showdown in Manila. This is a much beefier role, which helped. The other thing was seeing him cast opposite Mullins, his experience onscreen was really pronounced. Before the Showdown in Manila post, we last saw him in 2011, and part of the reason for that break was he went on his own hiatus in '07, and didn't do another feature film until 2015's Scorpion King 4 (which I haven't seen yet, and am not sure I will, considering it comes in at a whopping 105-minute runtime. Are you serious?). Now he's got tons of stuff out there that I need to catch up on. If it's more this movie than Showdown in Manila, I'll take and am excited to get after it. He's not just a Hall of Famer, he's a member of the 30 Club and one of the best to ever do it, and it was nice to see a film like this where that was well represented.
Our film's other Hall of Famer and member of the 30 Club, Cynthia Rothrock, plays the main baddie's number one hatchet person. As you can imagine, that didn't work at all. When have we ever seen Rothrock in a role where she takes orders? Call it a trope, or a standard movie convention, but we almost never see women as main baddies unless the hero is a woman too. Why does that have to be the case? Rothrock as the main baddie would have been absolutely killer in this. The same barriers that kept movie houses from wanting to cast her as the lead, are here and preventing her from being the top baddie as well. For once I'd love to see a movie take a chance like that, and there's no one better-suited to take that chance with than Rothrock.
What's one of the worst things you can say about a talent in the DTV action realm? To me, it's "I don't understand the concept of [x person]." For example, I personally don't understand the concept of either Vince Murdocco or Ian Jacklin. Many people in this blogging sphere are fans of both though, right? On the other hand, many of my fellow bloggers can't understand the concept of Loren Avedon, and I'm a fan of him. Compare that to Don "The Dragon" Wilson or Cynthia Rothrock. Have you ever heard anyone say that about them? Right, and look where they are. My point is, Matt Mullins is on the edge of those two territories, and I think the thing that will ultimately keep him out of the former is the filmmakers he's working with not putting him in bad situations. High-octane fight scene where he's taking out multiple baddies? Great situation. The image below where he looks like a kid whose mom woke him up at 2pm and is making him clean his room? Bad situation. I don't want to be saying "I don't understand the concept of Matt Mullins," I want to be saying "I can't wait for that next Matt Mullins flick to come out."
And that's the thing, when you pair Mullins with Jawed El Berni, you have some explosive new talent where I'm excited to see what they have next for us. Their fight delivered everything you'd want from it. When we think of who's next, Scott Adkins is at the top of the list. I don't know where you put Michael Jai White, because he's closer in age to Gary Daniels than he is Adkins, so he may not be next wave as much as current wave. Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais are two other names; and then Natalie Burn is another who can bring it. I put these two right up there with them. I get that they don't have the names some of those others do, so maybe they couldn't carry their own two cops on the edge buddy picture set in Eastern Europe without another name on the cover, but it would be cool to see. Maybe you cast Rothrock as the baddie for that for the name recognition.
We made it to paragraph number 8 quick. Right now you can get this on Prime, so if you have Prime, it's worth checking out. I'd like to see it move to Tubi so everyone can get it for free. For a Jungle Slog, there are some great fights that are worth watching, but it's too much of a Jungle Slog for me to suggest paying for it.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3724490
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