Ultimate Justice has Dacascos as the head of a mercenary group who decides he's had enough after one of the team gets killed on a mission. So he sells the company at a big profit and has a big party to celebrate, where his business partner Wolfgang Riehm meets a beautiful woman. 8 years later Dacascos meets Riehm at his beautiful house to have dinner with him and his wife, and after he leaves, later that night, some baddies break in, rape and kill the wife, and beat up Riehm. Now Dacascos has to get the gang back together to exact Ultimate Justice!
For me, I was of split mind on this one. On the one hand, there was some great action, which I enjoyed; on the other the story was really contrived and to some extent not plausible, and I think it hampered things a bit. Yes, I always say good action outdoes bad story, but this one was a bit too convoluted for me. The other problem was the film's revenge construct meant we lost a lot of great characters just as we began to like them. No spoilers, but in some cases these characters were really put through the ringer, only to just be killed off. When you go down the list of rules for action movies, I think killing off characters with impunity is one we don't see often, but it still counts. Action is similar to horror, in that we in the audience won't always go with you if you kill off characters we like, and this movie didn't seem to care--and for me, the film suffered as a result.
We've seen Mark Dacascos as both the lead hero and the lead baddie, and he does both equally well. In this movie his character is more of a jerk than either of those two, and unfortunately that isn't a good look on him. That may come from the old adage that the best baddies in movies are played by people who are really nice in real life, and Dacascos seems like a genuinely nice person in real life. World domination is one thing, but stealing his buddy's woman didn't seem like good fit for him. On the other hand, the action scenes he has in this are fantastic, and that's really what we come for. I think from that respect, this movie really works, and why I think a lot of people weren't bothered enough by the plot and enjoyed this.
When Ty and Brett came on to discuss Dacascos, I think the main theme was that Dacascos is one of the best out there doing this, and while he should have gotten better big screen roles, his career has by no means not been successful. When we see his name on the tin, we know what kind of electric martial arts he's going to bring, and for us fans of the genre, that's all we ask. This film marks his 20th on the site, so he has some time to go before he hits the 30 Club and beyond, but the DTVC Hall of Fame? I think that could be in his future this fall.
Speaking of tags, this is 15 for Matthias Hues, but I believe this is his first as a good guy. I have to say, I often enjoyed rooting for him as a baddie, so it was nice to be able to root for him guilt free in this one. He has a good amount of stuff out there, especially in those late 80s/early 90s Golden Years of DTV, that I haven't touched yet, so we should be seeing him here a lot in the future. When we look back on the 1000+ posts we've done on the site, Hues is one that, while we don't put him up there with a Dacascos, without him, the 80s and 90s for DTV wouldn't be what we know it as. Oh, and look at the screen I took of him. Best scene since Bolo Yeung was working a food truck in Tiger Claws II.
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