The Perfect Weapon (1991)

It's our 1400th post! And for a milestone like this that's not quite 1500, but still a hundred that's over a thousand, I thought we'd do something special and go outside the usual DTV flicks to a classic that's not DTV, but is a ton of fun and was a must watch for any of us growing up in the early 90s. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance Reviews, Simon at Explosive Action, Kenner at Movies in the Attic, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have all covered this as well.

The Perfect Weapon has Jeff Speakman as a martial arts prodigy who gets kicked out of his house while he's in high school, then comes back to LA when he's grown up after family friend Mako runs afoul of the local Korean mob. When they actually kill Mako, all bets are off, and Speakman goes on a one-man revenge tour of Koreatown looking for who's responsible. Maybe this James Hong character who seems eager to help is a possible resource--or does he have ulterior motives? Could he or someone else just be using Speakman to take down his enemies, making him... the perfect weapon?

This is that good, it's that much of a classic. I hadn't seen it in like 30 years, mostly due to how difficult it was to find, but now it's on Pluto, plus has a Blu-ray, so it's out there. It makes a great double-feature with another 1991 classic, Showdown in Little Tokyo, which also features a white guy beating up Asian gangsters--I guess it's like how Hollywood puts out two volcano movies in the same year. Anyway, the Speakman is masterful, from the moment he's practicing his technique to the tune of Snap's "I Got the Power," all the way through to his end fight with Tanaka (in a stunning twist, played by Professor Toru Tanaka), Speakman delivers, and a ton of great stunt guys deliver around him. It did have a rocky production, which is why we barely see Mariska Hargitay (I saw more of her at the Knicks game when she was featured on the big screen while sitting in the crowd), but rocky or no, it's the kind of action we want, and it's a shame we didn't get more of this kind of thing with Speakman.

It's a DTV story as old as time, right? Speakman's picked by Paramount to be their Seagal or Van Damme, he gets a three-movie deal, things are looking up. Then there's a regime change at Paramount, his deal's cancelled, so he tries Cannon, but they're almost bankrupt and can't do any publicity for that film, Street Knight, so it does even worse than this one did. The next movie, The Expert, is also beset with production issues, and doesn't even get a theatrical release, and that's it, it's DTV from here on. He's not a Hall of Famer, in part because I haven't reviewed as many of his films as I should have, but also in part because he hasn't done as many. Still, an argument could be made in his case that it's quality over quantity, with this film being the bulk of the quantity, but what sweet quantity it is, isn't it? On the one hand, there's the sense that we wished we had more of these movies, but on the other hand, we got this one, and we're lucky enough to have it.

We've got a veritable who's who of 90s stuntmen and supporting actors in this, many of which did double-duty here and in Showdown in Little Tokyo, reinforcing the idea of that being a fun double-feature. (Also, the two movies combined are less than three hours, how can you beat that?) Some of those names in both films include Cary Tagawa, James Lew, Al Leong, Phillip Tan, Roger Yuan, and Leo Lee. Then we have Brandscombe Richmond doing one scene as a bartender who gets his face smashed into the bar. That's what we love, Brandscombe Richmond taking one for the team. Then James Hong and Mako, who have been in six movies together, but nothing after this, and nothing before this since 1979's TV movie When Hell Was in Session, so it was a bit of a rarity at that time that we'd have them both in a movie together. Finally, Cole S. McKay plays a man in the alley with fellow stuntman Carl Ciarfalio, and they try to rob Speakman. That puts us at 73 movies for McKay, and we may get even more before we're able to do is 70 Club post in November. With the volume of stuff we see him in, he'll probably pass Dolph soon for the most period, which will be quite a moment here at the DTVC, as Dolph has held that title for a long time.

The big baddie in this is Professor Toru Tanaka, who, coincidence of all coincidences, plays a character named Tanaka! I remember as a kid watching him and Mr. Fuji tearing up the WWF tag team circuit, throwing salt in people's eyes while the bumbling ref was distracted. It would've been nice if this film paid homage to that by having him throw salt in Speakman's eyes, but I guess the fact that he was so big was considered an advantage enough--though had he even stored an Alka-Seltzer tab in the waist of his pants a la Bolo Yeung in Bloodsport and crushed it and threw it in Speakman's eyes as a last resort I would've been for it. The end fight is a great deal too, where Tanaka arrives on a speedboat. So while Bloodsport was better for the use of the Alka-Seltzer tablet, had Bolo Yeung arrived at the end fight with Van Damme via speedboat it would've been even better. It was a great move on the part of this film to cast Tanaka, because they spend the bulk of the 83-minute runtime establishing how unstoppable Speakman is, so to just have a regular baddie would've seemed pedestrian, while with Tanaka we're like "how is he going to beat him?" Spoiler: he does figure it out.

Finally, above I mentioned that at the Knicks game I went to, Mariska Hargitay was on the big screen at Madison Square Garden longer than she's in this movie, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. She was supposed to have a bigger part, and in the TBS versions she does, but in the video and theatrical versions, the only pieces that remain are her seeing him after he attends Mako's funeral, and at the very end when they're in the dojo together. Because Hargitay became so huge with the copaganda extravaganza that is Law and Order: SVU, it makes for this odd viewing experience, where the biggest actor in the film now has what amounts to the role of "woman at dojo." As far as the Knicks game, I got an $80 ticket to a game against the Jazz in early January of 2024, and I bought it a month or so before Jalen Brunson went on a tear and became one of the best players in the sport, so I imagine that ticket cost a lot more by the time the game happened. I checked now, and the cheapest tickets to most Knicks games is over $200, with a few games against lesser teams at like $185, so my $80 was a great deal, and I'll always be able to say I've been to a game at Madison Square Garden, where I saw Mariska Hargitay on the big screen for longer than she was in The Perfect Weapon.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this on Pluto, which is a great way to go. If I was more on having a physical media collection though, I think this would be a must have on the Blu-ray. One of the absolute classics for a reason, and a great one I think for this 1400th post. Speaking of which, thank you to everyone who has supported us in the myriad ways that support is given, whether you were with us from review number one, or you started more recently, I've always appreciated it. Here's to 1400 more!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102655

Fit to Kill (1993)

As we continue to work our way through all of Andy Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies films, we're onto this one from 1993. Maybe not as well known as some of the others, it does introduce DTVC Hall of Famer Julie Strain, so it has to at least be notable for that. In addition to us, Mitch from The Video Vacuum has covered this as part of his Sirens of Skinamax series, and SteveQ at Down in the Z Movies.

Fit to Kill takes place after the previous film, Hard Hunted, where our baddie Kane is still after our LETHAL Ladies, and has employed a new weapon: assassin Blu Steele (Julie Strain). Everyone is trying to get their hands on a huge diamond that Aki Aleong wants to give back to the Russian people through their emissary Rodrigo Obregon, and as more players get involved, Dona Speir realizes she may need to work with her hated rival Kane in order to bring everyone to justice--despite the fact that he's tried to have her killed multiple times. Will they succeed, or will this be the one mission where the baddies prevail?

You know the answer to that, and when our heroes take out the baddies, it's in spectacular fashion involving things like missiles attached to toy helicopters. This was also intended to be the final LETHAL Ladies film, and it has that feel that we're ending something big here, especially when Donna blows up Kane's yacht with all the baddies on it and says "my work is done here." What we get after this is almost a reboot with two films directed by Sidaris's son Christian, Enemy Gold and Dallas Connection, before Andy himself comes back in to finish the series with Day of the Warrior and LETHAL Ladies Return to Savage Beach, so in a way this almost is an end--maybe like Marvel Cinematic Universe phases, this is the end of Phase 1, where we know many stars like Dona Speir, Roberta Vasquez, Cynthia Brimhall, and the Abilene Who Can't Shoot Straight are bowing out, while others like Bruce Penhall, Gerald Okamura, and Rodrigo Obregon are staying on in a different capacity, and then we're also introducing our new lead, with Julie Strain taking over for Dona Speir in Phase 2 of the series. We also see a legitimate heel-turn in Kane (Geoofrey Moore), which was a first in the series--to this point actors who played villains came back as new characters to be heroes. Was Vin Diesel using this as his template for his Fast and Furious heel-turns? It might not be the best of the films, but it's everything you want in a LETHAL Ladies movie, and for that reason I enjoy it like I enjoy all the others.

Unlike Marvel, which has had trouble replacing Iron Man the main star of their franchise, this series does a great job of bringing us Julie Strain. Right off the bat, in her first scene, she's in this Catwoman-esque spandex bodysuit with over-the-knee boots slinking around a Vegas hotel, ready to assassinate Kane. Even though she doesn't succeed, we know we have someone important here, someone who could really challenge Donna Hamilton and make life difficult for the LETHAL Ladies. You could totally see why when this film is done Sidaris's son would've looked at her and thought "let me do some of these movies with her as my lead." Granted, she plays a baddie for those two films before she transitions to hero Willow Black for the final two films, but either way, she was a perfect choice to center the films around after Dona Speir left. With her being in the Hall of Fame now, our goal is to get more of her films on the site, and while we haven't been doing as well as we could with that, she's at 7 now, and we at least have two more of these films to cover, so we'll be seeing her again soon.

This is the final LETHAL Ladies film for Dona Speir, and part of me didn't want to do this film now so I could save it for her eventual Hall of Fame induction post, but she does have a couple other DTV films we could do for that, and I didn't want to hold off too long on finishing off this series of films. When she blows up that yacht near the end of the film and says "my work is done here," it's the capper on one of the greatest DTV action franchise runs. She starts in Hard Ticket to Hawaii, where, as a de facto sequel to Malibu Express, Ronn Moss was the lead as the next Abilene in line, but she still turns in a great performance. From there, when Moss is out in the next film, Picasso Trigger, we see the shift Sidaris makes, where we have Steve Bond playing another Abilene who can't shoot straight, but I think Sidaris realizes Speir is the one who can carry these, and with Savage Beach he turns the thing over to her, and the Abilene who can't shoot straight becomes a secondary character. So when she says "my work is done here," we can look at what her work was: some of the most iconic DTV actioners of all time, featuring names like Erik Estrada and Pat Morita, but she truly was the lead in them. Normally we would think of the Bloodfist series as the number one DTV action franchise, but watching these again, they have to be above those because we don't have the duds we get in the Bloodfist series, like VI or VIII. So yes, Dona's work is done here, but what great work it was.

As is often the case with the LETHAL Ladies series, we had a bunch of other names in this. In addition to Dona Speir, mainstays Cynthia Brimhall and Roberta Vasquez turn in their final performances in the series. Then we had mainstays Bruce Penhall, Rodirigo Obregon, and Gerald Okumura who we see here and then come back in different iterations in the second phase of the series. You could also say that about Ava Cadell, only in her case she comes back for the final film; same with Carolyn Liu's Silk, though she does come back as a different character in Day of the Warrior too. Our bumbling assassins Chu Chu Malave and Richard Cansino were back as well. This was the last go around for them, though Cansino had a part in Day of the Warrior. Finally, a name we were seeing for the first time was veteran character actor Aki Aleong, who I didn't realize hadn't had a tag yet! I went back through his IMDb bio, and discovered he had six films on here before that, so this marks 7 on the site now. And speaking of an "Aleong," I also tagged Al Leong because this has archived footage of him from the previous film.

Finally, with this being Speir's final film in the series, I thought I'd look at where she sits all time among female action stars. Number one has to be Pam Grier. Her 70s stuff is some of the best ever, and she should've been given the kinds of parts guys like Stallone and Schwarzenegger got in the 80s. Michelle Yeoh has to be next, and while she's getting more love after her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, if you go through that bio, it's a string of great action films. Third for me is Cynthia Rothrock, she has some of the best stuff in that late 80s/early 90s Golden Age of action, plus some fantastic Hong Kong stuff. It's here where I start to look at how Dona Speir slots in. Most lists will have names like Angelina Jolie, Linda Hamilton, and Scarlett Johansson, but they're all dramatic actors who have done some iconic action roles--and they're more for people who only understand action as TNT New Classics and other big budget films from the last 30 years. Speir helming a franchise for five films, and costarring in the two films of the franchise before those, put her above all of them. Milla Jovovich has to be above Speir for me, because she also helmed a franchise for 5+ films, and her franchise, Resident Evil, pulled in over $1 billion all time--and the total budgets of those films put together was less than The Marvels. Some other names I was looking at: Zoe Saldana, who was great in Colombiana, and stars in three major franchises, four of the top six highest grossing films of all time, and two of the top five when adjusted for inflation; another big budget star, Michelle Rodriguez, who also has the distinction of being the top women on Exploding Helicopter's top ten actors list; Ziyi Zhang, who had some of the biggest hits of the early 2000s; Olga Kurylenko, who on some levels is just getting started, but she's put out some great stuff, and currently is one of the top DTV action stars, man or woman; and finally Kate Beckinsale, whose Underworld films didn't have the run Jovovich's Resident Evil ones did, but still important as a female-led action franchise. I think looking at all that, I'd put Speir behind them as well, but only because this was her one franchise, and then she was done. That makes this my ranking: Grier, Yeoh, Rothrock, Jovovich, Rodriguez, Saldana, Beckinsale, Zhang, Kurylenko, Speir. So maybe Speir isn't as high as I'd have expected, but she's still in my top ten.

That was a bit of a long paragraph, so let's wrap this up. Currently in the States the LETHAL Ladies films are all available on Tubi. I don't think you need me to tell you how great these are, but I will say if you've already seen them but it's been a while, you could use a rewatch. They only get better with time, and they never get old.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106922

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

Hard Hunted (1992)

As we're trying to get all of Andy Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies films on the site, this was next on the list. I had initially seen it way back in March of '21 when I had Mitch from the Video Vacuum on the Pod to discuss Dallas Connection and the rest of these movies, so it's good to finally get it up on the site.

Hard Hunted involves a baddie named Kane--probably "Kaneshiro," but played by a new actor--who has a nuclear bomb triggering device hidden away in a mini jade sculpture. When Mika, one of our LETHAL Ladies, steals it, he sends Al Leong in a gyrocopter to get it back. Al kills Mika, but our hero, Donna Hamilton, and her partner Roberta Velasquez, get the jade and take it back to the rest of the agents in Hawai'i. Kane won't give up so easily though, and he kidnaps Hamilton, who tries to escape, but gets a nasty knock on the head that leads to a bout of amnesia. Now it's a race against time, as Velasquez, Bruce Penhall, and Cynthia Brimhall try to track her down before Kane and his baddies do. And who knows, maybe our lethal-est of LETHAL Ladies, will regain her memory. If that happens, the baddies won't know what hit them.

This might be my least favorite of these films, which doesn't mean I didn't like it, I just didn't like it as much as the others. The kidnapping and amnesia thing almost turns Speir's Donna Hamilton into more of a damsel in distress, and the part where one of the baddies convinces her that they were a couple, leading to their love scene, was uncomfortable. It may not have been a rape scene in a forced sense, but there was definitely a lack of consent there that put it along those lines. On the other hand, when Dona's character had her faculties, she was fantastic, which made it all the more frustrating when we lose it for that chunk in the middle. My favorite is when she's in the plane after she was kidnapped, and she tosses one of her captors out of the plane, then grabs a parachute and grenade. The pilot tells her "you don't have the stones," to which she says "I don't have the stones?" Then she pulls the pin and jumps out of the plane before it blows up. That's the kickass Speir we want. We also get Rodrigo Obregon back after missing him in the previous film. It's just not a LETHAL Ladies film without him, and he makes all of these better. Finally Al Leong and his gyrocopter were a great addition that added to the fun. While it may be my least favorite, it's still very entertaining.

With this film, Dona Speir now has 6 films on the site, which doesn't sound like much, but it ties her with Shannon Tweed and Jillian McWhirter for fourth most tags for a woman on the DTVC. Above her are Cynthia Rothrock, who has 42, and then a big drop down to Kathleen Kinmont at 8, and Lisa London at 7. We have one more LETHAL Ladies film that she was in, Fit to Kill, so that'll get her to 7, but after that it's slim pickin's, maybe a couple more that we could do, leaving her shy of 10. I don't know that it matters necessarily though how many she has, because the work she does in these as a female action lead, especially in the late 80s/early 90s, is most important. I'd say in comparing her to Cynthia Rothrock, this might be her Lady Dragon 2, only there Cynthia Rothrock is a more explicit damsel in distress, and her character is more overtly raped. I think with this one, the amnesia aspect might have just been a sign of a series that was running out of ideas, and they wanted to inject some intrigue into it, so this was what they came up with. As I mentioned above though, when Donna Hamilton has her faculties, she's fantastic, and gives us everything we want with her in a LETHAL Ladies film.

After Do or Die, which is the only post-Malibu Express entry in the LETHAL Ladies films to not feature Rodrigo Obregon, he's back with us now, fully scarred and eye-patched and chewing scenery. He's not the main baddie, we leave that to Geoffrey "RJ" Moore's Kane (more on him below), but what we get as sort of an intermediate baddie is fantastic. I remember in 2021 when I watched all of these films for the podcast episode with Mitch, my top actor for Letterboxd that year was Obregon, and my top director was Sidaris, a Holy Grail for a low-budget movie watcher like me--only topped in 2022 by both actor and director being Fred Williamson. For a movie series that's a lot of boobs, buttocks, and sex scenes, with shootouts and explosions mixed in, to have an actor like Obregon be one of the hallmarks is a testament to how great he is. Welcome back Mr. Obregon, we missed you.

Speaking of hallmarks, two of the hallmarks of the Fast and Furious films are one, no one ever really dies, and two, baddies become good guys in later films. Sidaris gave us the blueprint though on how that series should have done it. Ava Cadell plays an assassin in Do or Die, complete with a scene of her putting on her leather pants. She gets blown up, and that's it. Now that she's in Hard Hunted is there this whole story around how she survived the explosion and has been turned to the side of the Good Guys? No, she's just here now as new character who's part of the Good Team, helping them out by running radio station KSXY, through which she relays information to them. What about our baddie, Kane? In the previous film he was "Kaneshiro" and played by Pat Morita; now he's "Kane" and played by Geoffrey Moore. They even use footage from the previous film showing Carolyn Liu's Silk character creating the necklace that she gave Morita, and is now giving to Moore, through which the agency is able to track him. Does any of it matter to us, the fans of these films? Of course not, just like we didn't care that Erik Estrada was a baddie in Guns, and was a Good Guy as a totally different character in Do or Die. The Fast and Furious movies should've just relaxed and, instead of bringing people back from the dead, just had actors play new people. You like Jason Statham, but he was a baddie in Furious 7? Just have him play a whole new character in Fate of the Furious. It might actually be more fun for us--as these Sidaris films are more fun than the Fast and Furious films.

Finally, this is our 10th Al Leong film, which I think is a fitting one, because, while this isn't the best of his 10 films on the site, this might be his best performance. First off, I think he has more lines in this than all the other 9 combined. Second, he flies that fantastic gyrocopter, one of my favorite of all the Sidaris vehicles he uses in these films. The problem of course is, being a helicopter pilot and a baddie means he can only meet one end, and our hero Donna Hamilton was more than willing to send him there. Will from Exploding Helicopter talks about what he calls "Chekhov's Copter," which means a helicopter shows up for the sole purpose of being blown up in a later scene. In this case, we have Chekhov's Copter blown up by Chekhov's Gun, because what happens is, Al Leong is spraying our heroes with machine gun fire, hitting Bruce Penhall in the leg, forcing him to abandon his gun on the beach. Later, after our heroes have been disarmed, Donna Hamilton runs back to where the gun was left, and uses it to dispatch Mr. Leong in explosive fashion. With such fun devices being employed by Sidaris in these films, it's hard to stay angry with him for the whole Donna Hamilton amnesia thing.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This, like all the LETHAL Ladies films, are available on Tubi here in the States. While this might be my least favorite, it still has a lot of fun elements, and is worth checking out if you haven't seen it yet.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104391

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Savage Beach (1989)

After going seven straight reviews on newer movies, it was time to go back to the 80s, and back to our work on reviewing all of Andy Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies movies, which I've been doing since 2021 when I watched them all in one go for my podcast episode on Dallas Connection with Mitch from the Video Vacuum, which you can check out in our archives, episode 82. In addition to us and Mitch on his site, Joe Bob Briggs has also covered this, in a review he wrote in 1989 for the Orlando Sentinel, so you can see what he thought too.

Savage Beach follows our favorite DEA agent Dona Speir and her civilian sister Hope Marie Carlton, busting drug dealers while working under cover as air couriers in Hawai'i. On one such delivery trip, they get caught in a storm and end up stranded on a deserted island. Turns out it ain't so deserted, between the Japanese WWII vet who's been living there for 40 years, and then the Filipino Marxist dissident (Rodrigo Obregon), US Navy officer (John Aprea), and mysterious other guy who snuck into their group (Bruce Penhall) coming to find gold. Everyone is on a collision course to wackiness, but will our lethal ladies survive this savage beach?

This is another great one from Sidaris. Yes, there are a ton of moving parts, some of which don't exactly make any sense, but does it matter here? I'm okay with a guy on a computer talking about "probability vectors" if he's saying it to John Aprea, Bruce Penhall, and the great Rodrigo Obregon with a fantastic mustache. Joe Bob Briggs described the stranded WWII vet as "Claymation" due to the make-up they used to make him look old. In another movie maybe that's a detriment, but here it just added to the fun. One issue was, due to the myriad moving parts, we didn't get as much Dona Speir as the lead doing her action lead thing until the end, but that's a "minor quibble" (as the guy from Trekkies said) in what is an otherwise fun ride. Like all of Sidaris's other films, there is plenty of toplessness from both the women, and a couple of the guys, so if you're in a mixed group of movie watchers, this may not be as good a pick, but also like all of Sidaris's other films, if everyone knows what this will be going in, this is a sure bet for a fun movie night.

Going back to Speir as the lead, this is the first one in Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies films where he completely pivots to having her be the focus and completely diminishes the Abilene who can't shoot straight character--which is now "Shane Abilene," played by Michael Shane, who I believe was a Playgirl model in his own right--as an aside, I remember when my mom turned 30, her best friend got her a Playgirl magazine as a birthday present. I wonder if Shane was in that issue...? Anyway, this is supposed to be about Dona Speir. In the last Sidaris review I did, Picasso Trigger, I talked about how I had her fifth after Pam Grier, Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, and Zoe Saldana among top female action leads, right above Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez. You could make a case that Jovovich and Rodriguez could be above her, but not only did Sidaris give Speir the franchise with this film, but he did it in 1989, at a time when the film industry wasn't keen on female action leads, let alone giving women the leads in a franchises. The idea that we'd write off her contributions because she's taking off her top because her character is changing her clothes while piloting a plane that's about to crash land is also very 1989. Speir has "it" as the lead in this, and from the moment that plane crash lands, we know she's going to do whatever needs to be done to take care of this situation; and when she and Carlton are caught by Obregon, Aprea, and Penhall, and Obregon says "let's tie them up!" she warns them that that will be a mistake--we're not just here to be damsels in distress, we've got guns and we know how to use them! Yes, the myriad moving parts diminishes a bit of her first time officially taking the helm in this film, but she still takes it and affirms why Sidaris was right in making that move in the series.

Look at that James Lew hair! We haven't seen him in over two years, when we did Star Raiders, a film where he played a baddie who had the top half of his head missing, so to come back with this entry where he's sporting that beautiful lettuce is fantastic. Also love the skinny tie. This is how we need our Lew in a film, and I know father time has come in to steal that amazing moss from the top of his head, a true travesty, we can come back to gem like this movie and see it in its full glory for us. On top of that, we get a great fight between him and Al Leong, who, I had no idea, didn't have a tag before this post! It turned out, that kind of made sense, in that this is only his 9th film on the site--compared to now 15 for Lew. As I looked over his filmography, I see a few reasons for this: one, he doesn't have as many DTV credits as Lew, and also doesn't have as many of the meatier roles Lew's had--a lot of Leong's parts are "Asian Thug" in bigger screen roles. That's one thing that's great here, is Leong has a bigger part, but also we get to see him fight Lew, two 80s/90s bit part character actors facing off. In his review of this, Mitch said everyone has their favorite Sidaris moment, and for me it's in Hard Ticket to Hawaii when harold Diamond and Ronn Moss pass a man riding his skateboard with his hands, and Moss says "Man, he must be smoking some heavy doobies," but after that, that fight between Lew and Leong, just for the novelty of it, has to be up there. Here's to you James Lew and Al Leong, you are two of the greats.

Because I watched all of the Sidaris LETHAL Ladies movies in 2021, that year for Letterboxd my top actor was Rodrigo Obregon and my top director was Andy Sidaris. Beyond the fact that that was fantastic to post that on Twitter for my year-in-review, it also goes to show what a great run Obregon and Sidaris had together. Mitch calls Sidaris "the Skinamax Alfred Hitchcock," and like all great auteurs he has his mainstays, but it's hard to think of another pairing between actor and director that have been as fruitful and iconic. Yes, Scorsese has had his collaborations with De Niro and DiCaprio, or Ozu with Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu, or Kurosawa and Mifune, or Fellini with Mastroianni--the lists are endless, but there's something about Sidaris and Obregon that has a comfort food quality, like that first bite of an In-N-Out Double-Double when I'm on the West Coast, or a Wiz Wit cheesesteak at Tony Luke's--it's comforting, but almost unctuous in its comfort. I hadn't tagged Obregon before this, so I rectified that issue, and while the bulk of his now 6 tags are Sidaris films, he does have one that wasn't: the Olivier Gruner/Isaac Florentine Western actioner Savate. Also, if you're wondering, 2022's Letterboxd top director and actor for me were both Fred Williamson. I think if it wasn't going to be Sidaris and Obregon again, Williamson sweeping both was the way to go.

Finally, I wanted to vent about a pet peeve of mine. Often, and it seems to be in commercials more than anything, so that probably explains the inanity enough right there, but we see this thing where someone asks, thinking they're so smart and clever, "why does Hawai'i have interstate highways?" Oh you're so witty! That's hilarious! Don't forget your sly grin emoji! Why does Hawai'i have interstate highways? Because interstate highways get money from the federal government for their upkeep, and the people of Hawai'i pay federal taxes. Alaska and Puerto Rico have them too, yet no one mentions those in their witty commercial conversations that are telling us absolutely nothing about the product their selling--seriously, what does Jason Bateman asking about why Hawai'i has interstate highways have to do with a car's performance? Yes, they aren't technically interstate, but neither is Interstate 4 in Florida, or Interstate 27 in Texas. Also, the reason why we have 21 as our drinking age is due to the fact that the Interstate Highway system in America is funded by the federal government. When a group of prom-goers crashed their car in the late 80s, a group of Karens known as Mothers Against Drunk Driving lobbied the federal government to raise the drinking age, and they used federal highway funds to pressure states to raise the age to 21. Don't want go back up to 21? Fine, your Interstate Highways can fall apart then. So while you can go to prison or get killed in a war at 18 here in the States, you have to wait until 21 to buy a sixer of Pabst Blue Ribbon pounders. If only we had Twitter and Tik Tok in the late 80s, we could've shamed those MADD Karens into submission on social media before they got up a head of steam. Those Gen Z kids would've known what to do with them!

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can still stream the Sidaris LETHAL Ladies films on Tubi here in the States, so unless you invest in the DVD boxed set--which I will be soon--Tubi is a good deal--and if you're over 21, you can drink legally while watching them. This is a fun entry in the series, and notable both for Speir taking over the helm from the Abilene who can't shoot straight, and for the Lew-Leong fight. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098257

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

Double Dragon (1994)

As we continue our five-movie celebration of our 1000th post, we come in with Jeff LoPresto's suggestion with number 1001. Jeff has been a longtime friend and supporter of the site, even sending us screeners and copies of films he had for us review. The thing I couldn't believe when he suggested this was that I'd overlooked it for so long. I think I just assumed it was above the $10 million threshold for a theatrical picture, which wasn't even close to the case. Between that and the Patrick and Dacascos factors, this should have been a post years ago, but in a way perhaps it's fitting to have it here in this celebration. In addition to us, Cool Target Action Reviews has looked at this, so you can go there to see what he thought.

Double Dragon takes place in the near future/now recent past, after an earthquake has decimated LA. Robert Patrick is an evil businessman who got his hands on half of a sacred medallion, which on its own is pretty great, but with the other half makes him omnipotent. The other half is now in the hands of two brothers, and they'll do anything they can to make sure he doesn't get it.

This is one of those ones that, in 1994, wasn't anywhere near as fun as it is now in 2020. For one thing, 1994 was a bit past Double Dragon's prime as a Nintendo game, and as I remember, the franchise itself was trying to find ways to reinvent itself, like pairing with the Battletoads in one effort, so it wasn't the hot property other franchises were then. On top of that, this suffered from what a lot of other video game adaptations suffered from, like the Super Mario Bros. adaptation. It plays fast and loose with the canon, tries to make it on the cheap, and just piles up as many cliches and overused film devices as it can. They also have to be these origin story bildungsroman-type deals where our heroes have to be non-heroes to start and then find their heroism by the end of the film. In 1994 it all adds up to a bile of blah; but in 2020, it's a fun 90s nostalgia romp. Yes, there are still elements that are sauteed in wrong sauce, like Abobo's transformation, and later torture by being fed spinach by Alyssa Milano, but for the most part, even the bad works in that fun 90s nostalgia mode.

According to imdb, the original idea was more along the lines of the game, with Marian, who in the actual version was played by Milano, kidnapped by the Big Boss's gang, and the guys have to fight their way through the gang to get her back. It sounds like one reason why they didn't do that was to keep it PG for kids to watch. The problem is, for a 15-year-old kid like me, the one we got was such a turn-off, and I could go to my video store or fire up cable TV and see plenty of PM Entertainment flicks doing Double Dragon right and awesome. If it had been made more like the actual game, maybe this becomes a minor franchise. Maybe Mark Dacascos, who was 30 at the time, by playing someone who isn't a teenager, is seen as a more serious action lead and gets bigger parts in Hollywood films. On the other hand, if Alyssa Milano is essentially reprising her role from Commando, only now as an adult, maybe she isn't as interested and they need to get someone else. Maybe we don't watch this today with goofy 90s nostalgia, but with a "this is so awesome I used to watch it all the time when it came out" nostalgia.

And that gets to a different point when we look at movies like these, that are, for lack of a better term, flops. The people involved have high expectations for it. For Dacascos, maybe it's to get into that Van Damme/Seagal territory on the big screen. Maybe Scott Wolf is looking combine success here with his new role on Party of Five to be the next Andrew McCarthy. Maybe Alyssa Milano is hoping to move on from her Samantha on Who's the Boss stigma; or Kristina Wagner move past the world of daytime soap operas. Robert Patrick was probably hoping to build off his great turn as the villain in Terminator 2, which was one of the biggest films of the first half of the decade. When a movie like this ends up only grossing $2.3 million worldwide, even in 1994 numbers, it's not just a disappointment for the studio, it can seriously damage careers, or be the thing that keeps the people involved from making that move to the next tier of movie. If this becomes the blockbuster they were hoping for all of those careers are different. When we think of a movie like Pulp Fiction, we think about what it did for people like John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, but look at Ving Rhames or Eric Stoltz--or Tarantino, who is still able to make whatever movie he wants in Hollywood 26 years later.

The two names in this that we know the most on the site are Dacascos and Patrick. For Dacascos, again, the fact that he's playing a teenager at 30 should be considered a stretch; but according to IMDb he sprained his ankle on the set and hid it so he could continue on, meaning he thought this was going to be an important opportunity for him and his career. I saw him recently in Wu Assassin on Netflix, and for me, he was right there with Iko Uwais and Byron Mann as the show's standouts. So on the one hand, we watch this now and joke about how sauteed in wrong sauce it is, but on the other, I can't help but think what this would have meant for his career had it been successful. Same with Robert Patrick. This was a more scenery-chewing villain than the relentless killing machine he played in Terminator 2, but he added a level of fun to it that showed he could have done this villain in any number of great big screen actioners opposite Arnold or Van Damme. I wouldn't say that either career has been a failure after this by any means, but I think seeing them here in '94, you can't help but wonder if this had worked, if we wouldn't have seen them in as many films here on the site.

Finally, back off Warchild, seriously. Would you look at that: Albert Pyun mainstay and DTVC favorite Vincent Klyn is here in a one-scene cameo. How amazing would he have been as a boss-style baddie for Dacascos to have to take out as he fought his way to rescue Marian? Nils Allen Stewart played Abobo before his transformation. Again, another great boss if this were set up more like the video game. Either way, what's great is to see Klyn here during our 1000th post celebration. This is now his 18th tag on the site, which is amazing--and more than many Hall of Famers. Here's to you Mr. Klyn, you're one of the great ones.

And with that, we wrap up another post. Right now you can stream this on Prime and Tubi, so it's there for free to check out. There is also a blu-ray out there if you're looking for something more substantial for your collection. Thank you again to Jeff for suggesting this gem as part of our celebration, and also thank you for all the support you've shown the site over the years--you were one of the earliest. It has always been much appreciated.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106761

Steele Justice (1987)

This is it, this is Martin Kove's Hall of Fame induction post. Like many Hall of Famers before him, he has a lot of movies where he only played a small part, but as we'll see in a film like this, he's plenty capable of carrying the lead too, which is the mark of a true DTVC Hall of Fame actor. So without further ado... by the way, this has been covered before by Kenner at Movies in the Attic and Ty at Comeuppance Reviews-- and it's from Ty's that I hotlinked the cover image, so as always, just wanted to let you know.

Steele Justice has Kove as a Vietnam vet who's almost killed by the villainous General Kwan (Soon-Tek Oh) in the waning days of the war. He gets the last laugh, shoots a dart or something into the guy's chest, and heads home. In modern (1987) SoCal, Kove is a disgraced former cop whose former Vietnam and police partner is killed by Vietnamese gangsters-- and it smells like Kwan's work. His old chief, Ronny Cox, suspects that this could be a tough nut to crack, so he unleashes Kove unofficially on Kwan, with only his old buddy Bernie Casey to help out. Will he crack the case, or is he just too far gone to pull it off?



This one starts off slowly, but once it kicks in, it's pure 80s bad action, the kind of car flipping, stuntmen shimmying, monster rock montage-ing, shirtless male big gun shooting good time you came for. Let's take this one quote from Ronny Cox after Bernie Casey asks him if Kove has his old job back: "He isn't being recruited, he's being unleashed!" And after about thirty minutes of a drunken Kove in bad suits getting the crap kicked out of him, this film finally unleashes him on us, and it's oh so sweet. I embedded a YouTube clip of the too sweet montage clip on the image page-- it's only 1:30 minutes, with 30 seconds to start of a scene with he and Sela Ward dubbed in Spanish, just bear with that--, and I'll be posting some of the others on the DTVC Tumblr. This is just a fun time, plain and simple.

Martin Kove really can do it all, can't he? Lead star, lead baddie, cameo, baddie's hatchetman-- though if the head baddie isn't cool enough, having him as the hatchetman can backfire. This might be his best DTV flick-- er sorry, Steele Justice made a little over $1 million in the box office (sometimes people get nervous if I call a film that had a limited theatrical release DTV)-- definitely one of his best outside of the Karate Kid movies, which he's best known for. He's inducted into the Hall of Fame with this as his 13th movie, but with over 167 imdb credits, he has the potential for plenty more, maybe making a run at the overall tagging record. Martin Kove, DTVC Hall of Famer.



I had a lot of places to go for this paragraph with all the people in Steele Justice, but I decided to look at Renaissance Man Bernie Casey, who we've seen before in the Fred Williamson film On the Edge. He's great here as the Danny Glover-ish "I'm too old for this shit" detective who's close to early retirement, wants to get there in one piece, but knows that probably won't happen the longer he stays with Kove. Have you looked at his bio? You probably know about the pro football career, but he also has a BA and MA from Bowling Green, is an accomplished painter, and has published poetry books. The question you gotta ask yourself is, why the hell is he in this?, and I think the answer to that is he same he gave for why he played football: it pays the bills so he can pursue his art. Here's to you Bernie Casey, we're not worthy.

Now to look at everyone else. There was the always attractive Sela Ward as Kove's estranged wife. She mixed it up some in the action scenes, and played off Kove really well. DTVC favorite Ronny Cox was sweet as the dick police chief, but when is he not sweet? Not quite One Man Force good, but close enough. A personal fave for me was Joseph Campanella as Kove's old commanding officer. You may remember him best as the dad in No Retreat, No Surrender 3. The guy is 84 and still working. Shannon Tweed had a small cameo as I don't know who, maybe Campanella's daughter, but she was doing business with Soon-Tek Oh, who was also great as the main baddie. It seems like when you get these 80s actioners, the cast takes them more seriously than they would in a 2011 one, and though I get that the material might not be that serious, the fact that they all acquit themselves professionally adds to our level of enjoyment.



I inherited my complexion from my mom's Irish side of the family, meaning I don't tan that well, but if I did, you can bet shirtless with a pink sweatshirt tied around my shoulders is how I'd go during the summer months. It kind of makes me want to go to a tanning booth or get a sprayed on tan just to be able to do it-- no, I'm not shredded like Kove is, but I wouldn't be doing it for the ladies, I'd be doing it for me.

Um, so yeah, let's finish this one up. Though it starts slow, once it decides to finally "unleash" Kove upon us, it's a film worthy of his induction post. No DVD here in the States, so either used VHS, or for right now you can get it on Netflix Watch Instantly. This is definitely worth a look.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094034/

Deadly Target (1994)

I first saw this about five or six years ago when it aired on either EncoreAction or ShowtimeXtreme. I actually wanted to review it when I first started the DTVC back in 2007, but I didn't remember enough about it (in fact, I didn't even remember the name!), so I just forgot about it and it was lost in the shuffle. A few weeks ago, though, when I was looking for some films to review because Netflix didn't have available the ones I wanted, one of our readers, Michael, suggested I give this one a try. Of course, as luck would have it, it too ended up not being available, then the storm hit, and everything just got all backed up. Finally, here it is, Deadly Target, in all its glory.

Deadly Target has DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels as a Hong Kong cop in LA after Byron Mann, who's a big time drug dealer. The problem is, Mann's escaped, and Daniels has pissed of the LAPD to the point they don't want him involved. Lucky for him, a hot Asian chick has taken him in, and one dude on the force has taken a shine to him. Now it's only a matter of time before Daniels gets his man.



This is bad 90s action at it's pretty-good-est. I mean, it had some great fights, some great car chases, and some great explosions. Daniels did his thing, and believe me, we've seen much worse from him. Overall, I could dig it. One problem I had was with it though is his female friend who takes him in. She handles herself in a fight and with a weapon as if she's had quite a bit of training, when her character is depicted as a glorified Valley Girl grown up. That's kind of that point where silly becomes too silly for me, and not silly in a way that's awesome, like a car exploding from a minor collision as if it were filled with TNT.

I'm fighting an uphill battle to get all of Daniels' films up here at the DTVC. It seems like for every one film I get my hands on, Netflix makes two unavailable. The most recent victim is Fatal Blade. It could be worse. It looks like Netflix is systematically eliminating all of Jeff Speakman's library. I'm wondering if this isn't Netflix's fault, or rather the individual distributors don't want Netflix to have them. For instance, Albert Pyun's new film, Bulletface, is only available through the website, and not on either Amazon or Netflix (you can download a torrent of it, but I would never do that for a Pyun film, based on the support he's shown us here at the DTVC). Anyway, so maybe I shouldn't be giving Netflix all the blame.



One of my issues with this movie was the lack of a really great fight scene after the initial action. I mean, don't get me wrong, Daniels and his partner, Ken McLeod, were great, but with the studs they had, like Ron Yuan, Byron Mann, and James Lew, we should've been getting some of the best stuff we've ever seen. This shows yet again that you can line up all the talent you want, but if you don't use it, what good is it?

Daniels' love interest is played by Susan Byun, who was in one of my all time faves, Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD. I've never really done any Troma films here because I've always looked at them as a different category to what I'm doing. I know this might sound silly, but I've always seen them as an independent film company. With the DTVC Wild Card look at comic book movies winding down next week, I'm considering options for a new series of films to examine, and Troma seems like a logical next choice (another I was considering was vampire movies). I think we'll take a break for a little while though before I start something new.



I don't remember which MST3K episode it was, but in one of them, a dude gets punched in the face, and the fake blood that comes out of his mouth causes one of the 'bots to say "Cherry Starburst." Ever since that time, every time I see a similar effect, I'm forced to say the same thing. I remember at one kitchen job I had, we served this Starburst Cake, and I always called it "Cherry Starburst Cake", and my boss would always be like "why do you keep saying that?" I think he felt like there was some inside joke or pop culture reference I wasn't letting him in on. Anyway, James Lew has an amazing Cherry Starburst moment, and I had to capture it for the blog. It was a thing of beauty.

I'm not really sure you need to throw this on your Netflix queue over anything else you've been considering watching, but if you have a hankering for some Gary Daniels and you've seen everything else, why not give this a shot. At the very least, if it airs on EncoreAction or ShowtimeXtreme, you could do a lot worse than watch it. It's not horrible, it's just, for a mid-90s DTV actioner, it's nothing special, just a solid bad action film.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109573/

Die Hard (1988)

I'm often asked this time of year what my favorite Christmas movie is, and my response is the same every time: Die Hard. The response to that is always "I never really thought of that as a Christmas movie." Well, you motherfucking should. I couldn't give a shit less about families and kids and grumpy old men discovering the true meaning of Christmas-- the true meaning of Christmas is Bruce Willis in his bloody bare feet gunning down stuntmen with German accents. "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."

Die Hard has Bruce Willis as cop John McClane, who comes out to LA from NYC to visit his wife on Christmas Eve. Problem is, German criminal mastermind Hans Gruber has decided to steal the $600 million worth of bonds locked away in a vault in the building his wife works at. While he's there changing into his party clothes, everyone she works with is taken hostage-- but he escapes. Now he's the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench, the pain in the ass-- he's Hans' worst nightmare.



As an action fan, there is before Die Hard and after Die Hard. The idea of having a guy in a building full of criminals and making him fight his way through them was born here, and no one, including the film's three sequels, were able to do it better. The mixture of action, explosions, great one-liners, and 80s excess, brought together with the amazing talents of Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, makes this one of the best movies of all time, and, at the very least, my favorite Christmas movie ever.

According to imdb, Willis was the fifth choice for the role of McClane. It's funny to think at the time that that seemed right, because until then he'd only really been in Moonlighting and some other comedic roles. The idea of him as an action hero didn't make much sense, and maybe after it doesn't make much sense either, but in Die Hard he was so perfect. Just one of those things where the fates were in our favor, because anyone else and Die Hard wouldn't be Die Hard.



My favorite set of lines comes when Hans' men shoot rockets at the armored vehicle the cops send in to take them down. It goes something like "Hans you motherfucker you made your point, let them pull back!" "Okay Mr. Cowboy, I'll take it under advisement. Hit it again." I remember Jim Rome on his show quoted it as a metaphor for a Florida beatdown of Georgia, I think. There are so many other ones to choose from, though. Another one my friends and I used to do as a joke was "And the quarterback is toast!" That had to be like the geekiest cheesiest line ever. Thank you Clarence Gilyard jr. Also, if you're in for making your own one-liners, the terrorist who takes over the front desk looked a lot like Huey Lewis, so you could pretty much insert any Huey Lewis and the News title in when you see him.

What better Scrooge to have than Alan Rickman. I know he's playing a German, but the Brits always make the best baddies. Maybe it is that tradition of having one of the ultimate baddies, Mr. Scrooge, as a part of their legacy. Speaking of Brits, I wonder if anyone's made a Boxing Day movie. That would be awesome to have Rickman be a bad guy in that too. Seeing this again made me remember that I still need to see Snow Cake, which stars him and Sigourney Weaver. I just put it in my queue and realized it came out in 2006. Funny how a movie can be pushed aside for years like that without me even knowing it had been that long.



Before I wrap this up, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the comedic interplay between two great actors, Reginald VelJohnson and Paul Gleason. RVJ you may be familiar with from the Perfect Strangers spin-off Family Matters, where he essentially plays the same character he played in Die Hard. Paul Gleason, of course, is Principle Vernon in The Breakfast Club. How can you not love both of these guys? The only thing that would've made this pairing better would've been if RVJ asked Gleason if "Barry Manilow knew [he] raided his wardrobe."

And there you have it, my favorite Christmas movie of all time. I don't call it the best, because I know some people prefer horror, sci-fi, or comedies, so there are probably films out there that they would enjoy more. For me, though, it just isn't Christmas without John McClane saying "Yippee ky-ay motherfucker!" So, I'd like to extend my own warmest yippee ky-ay motherfucker to you and yours this holiday season.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/

Martial Outlaw (1993)

I've been meaning to get some Jeff Wincott up here for a while now, and Netflix's Watch Instantly had this among a couple others, so I went with it. The deciding factor when faced with a few Wincott options was the addition of Gary Hudson.

Martial Outlaw has Wincott as a DEA agent who comes home to LA on business, where he's forced to work with his older brother who's a beat cop in the LAPD. His brother, Gary Hudson, is hella jealous of him, despite having a hot wife, and he sees Wincott's operation as an opportunity. He signs on with the Russian mobsters Wincott's investigating and trying to bring down. Now Wincott's getting it from all sides, and it'll take all he's got to bring these guys down.



This is pretty sweet. Wincott's the man, and the movie doesn't spare any opportunity for him to flex his martial arts muscles. In one scene he has to fight a bunch of dudes standing in a circle around him. I could've gone for more explosions and car chases, but the fight scenes were good enough that I couldn't complain too much. Hudson was solid, as was Stefanos Miltsakakis as the baddie's hatchet man. All in all, a very entertaining early 90s bad actioner.

I had a conversation with my friend at Movies in the Attic about the future of the DTV action star. With Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme getting older, who's out there to step into those big shoes. I'd go one further and say, who's the next Jeff Wincott. Who is that thirtysomething martial artist from Toronto that can step in and do a ton of bad police action films. You could maybe see a Statham or Diesel dropping off the way Seagal and Van Damme did, turning to the DTV movie; kind of the way Wesley Snipes has. But where's the Wincott? The guy that only does DTV films.



Jeff Wincott also underlies one of my biggest issues in running this blog. There are only so many hours in a day, and the unfortunate reality is I don't make any money from the site. As such, with limited time, it's people like Jeff Wincott who end up being left behind like Kirk Cameron. I don't want to do it, because Wincott was a big deal for me growing up, and it's certainly not something I do on purpose, it just happens. That's why it's important to make your suggestions if you want to see a certain actor or movie up.

But Martial Outlaw underscores the point that I want more Wincott up here too, and with guys like Dolph and Seagal having nearly exhausted filmographies, there should be more room for a Wincott. Many of his films aren't available through Netflix, so it may take some time to get them via VHS. I have Open Fire available on Watch Instantly, so maybe that's where I'll go next, before I get the Martial Laws on VHS.



Getting off the Wincott subject, this film takes place in LA, and I just visited there a month ago. The reason I bring this up is this film uses the classic storyline of local boy leaves the small town he grew up in, makes good, and comes back to resentment. The only thing is, the small town he leaves is LA! I grew up an hour outside of Boston, and have been to many cities from London, to DC, to San Francisco, and LA felt big to me. Like really big. Maybe because it is really big. I don't know if they intended for the film to take place somewhere else, or maybe they just decided to go the postmodern route. In any case, it was a very interesting take.

This is a good time. If you find it cheap at your local video store or a bargain bin somewhere, go for it. And if you have Netflix Watch Instantly, this is a good deal. As far as I can tell, it's only available on Watch Instantly and VHS. I wish more movies like this were on there, like all the other movies I can only get on VHS.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107525/

Army of One aka Joshua Tree (1993)

My friends and I first came across this classic when we fell for the Punisher bait-and-switch. We were looking all over for the good Punisher--the one with DTVC Hall of Famer Dolph Lundgren in it. Most places only carried the new bad version with Travolta and a grimacing Thomas Jane. Anyway, this Bangor video store that rented both mainstream and porn videos told us over the phone that they had the film. They didn't, it was the new one, but we found this bad boy instead. If you're wondering, I eventually had to purchase the good Punisher from Amazon.

Joshua Tree or Army of One has Dolph as a trucker shipping illegal cargo for a dealer named Jimmy Shoeshine and a crooked cop played by Just Shoot Me's George Segal. Things go bad when a bike cop pulls Dolph and his driving partner over, and the partner and bike cop end up dead with Dolph taking the rap. While being moved from one detention center to another, two guards try to kill him, and he takes them out. Now he's on the run and he wants revenge. He takes Days of Our Lives star Kristian Alfonso as a hostage, and when she sees his too sweet abs she decides he's the side to be on. Now he's just gotta clear his name before the net closes in.

This is a good time--not that it ever isn't when Dolph's involved. There were some great chase scenes, especially later on when Dolph steals a red Ferrari and Segal counters with a Lamborghini. It was like the old days when me and my friends had Micro Machines and debated which car was cooler. If the chases weren't enough, there was plenty of shooting and explosions, and Dolph brought it in the fight scene department. Finally, just to complete the action film paradigm, Kristian Alfonso shows off her boobs. Cars, karate, explosions, and boobs: what more could you want?

Dolph was great in this except for one thing: his character name. Wellman Santee. What kind of shit is that? Look at the awesome Tank Concrete-esque names Dolph's had over the years: Lance Rockford (Defender), Sam Decker (Detention), Jack Devlin (Blackjack), Ivan Drago (Rocky IV), just to name four. In his newest three films he goes by Mike Riggins, Ryder, and Xander Ronson. How can any self-respecting film maker think Wellman Santee is a name associated with a guy who kicks as much ass as Dolph does? Someone should've made an executive decision and dubbed over all mentions of Wellman Santee with the name Brock Gridiron, or Todd Jackhammer, or... well, you get the idea.

Interesting choice of George Segal as the main baddie. He did Just Shoot Me about four years after this was released, but I didn't see it until well after I'd gotten to know him from the show. I just couldn't marry the concept of him as a crooked cop with the him I knew as a fashion magazine owner in my mind. I was waiting for David Spade to give him advice on how to kill Dolph. This is why it's important to cast the right baddie when making a film like this. Think of the guy from Die Hard: he never goes out of style. Neither does Brian Thompson. On the other hand, I can't think of someone I would've cast in place of Segal. He kind of fits. Maybe William Shatner or George Takei would be better, but that's it.

Anyone who's a fan of Days would recognize Kristian Alfonso as Dolph's leading lady. My mom was actually a fan of the ABC soaps, so I didn't come into contact with Alfonso until college, when a neighbor in my dorm watched it. He and I had class at the same time, and I would shoot over to his room and we would leave together. He always had to wait until Days was over to go, though, and so I followed the soap's storyline for an entire semester with only the last five minute wrap-ups each day. Anyway, with that in mind, I was pretty surprised when I saw her topless in this film. The only thing I can see is that in 1993 she'd been doing Days for ten years, and wanted to get into films, and figured this would be a way to break out of her soap star mold. Based on her IMDb resume, it didn't work.

There are some great co-stars and cameos in this. The sheriff helping Segal track down Dolph is played by Geoffrey Lewis, the guy who raised one of the Van Dammes in Double Impact. Dolph's murdered driving partner is played by Ken Foree. You may remember him both from Kenan and Kel, and Dawn of the Dead. In Dawn he was the guy who survived with the blond chick. I loved at the beginning when he tells her "I've lost a lot of brothers today," and she says "real brothers... or soul brothers?" to which he replies "both." His widow is played by CSI: Miami's Khandi Alexander. George Segal's wife is played by Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas. Then there's Nick Chinlund, who plays Lewis's deputy. You may know him from Chronicles of Riddick as the guy telling Vin Diesel "You should've dusted my dick when you had the chance."

Much of the film draws illusions to the Bogart classic High Sierra, and I get those. But I see another film and theater parallel: Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Much of Dolph's manhandling of both Kristian Alfonso and Michelle Phillips reminds me of Stanley Kowalski. One thing we know about that was Kowalski embodied some of Williams' own fantasies regarding being manhandled by a brutish young man. I'm not sure if the director or script writer is depicting his desires for Dolph through the women in this film, or if he just has a low opinion of women and thinks they need to be thrown around and roughed up from time to time. Either way, in both cases (Alfonso and Phillips), the female characters seemed to enjoy it.

This is a definite one to watch. It's in my top 15 of Dolph films. Even if you're not the Dolph fanatic I am, the bad action-ness of it alone is worth it. Like I said, it fills all the main categories of a great bad movie: cars, karate, explosions, and boobs. Plus there's plenty of recognizable faces. If you haven't seen this before, give it a shot. I've seen it listed more frequently on DVD as Army of One, but you may see it as Joshua Tree as well, so look for both.

Note: As one of the commenters mentioned, and I've since discovered, Alfonso wasn't nude in this, she had a body double.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106309/

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/

I Come in Peace aka Dark Angel (1990)

For my 150th post I felt it necessary to review a film that is very near and dear to my heart. Unfortunately, until recently, I hadn't seen the film in years, probably more than fifteen. I'm not sure why I hadn't bought it sooner, but I finally bit the bullet and got it on VHS used from Amazon. Hopefully soon it'll come out on DVD.

I Come in Peace is about an alien drug dealer who comes to Earth. The best drug in the galaxy is to pump humans full of heroin, then collect hormones from the adrenal glands before the person dies. Unfortunately this alien has stolen a bunch of drugs from a major crime syndicate, and they want them back. Dolph and his partner, Dream On's Brian Benben, are investigating both the drug syndicate, and the rash of forced drug overdoses that are killing random junkies throughout the city. Eventually they figure out an alien is involved, and bump into the extraterrestrial cop sent to stop him, played by ESPN NCAA basketball analyst Jay Bilas (seriously). He dies, but they get his gun, and Dolph has it out with the bad alien, finally taking him down.



This is a classic bad action film. We featured it at our biannual Dolph Fest a few weeks ago. There isn't that one or two good things that standout individually, but the film as a whole just exudes this extreme level of awesomeness. This is the standard I look to whenever I watch a bad movie, and I'm not sure why it's so hard to achieve it. Lots of explosions, lots of gun shots, lots of killing, big alien guys, very little plot exposition, and Dolph Lundgren. Is that too much to ask?

As one of his first movies, I Come in Peace really cements Dolph's legacy as an actor who will probably spend his time on screen doing everything he can to avoid the A-list. In a career that spans over twenty years, Dolph stands out as a sort of monolith in every film he's in. He may look slightly different from time to time, but he's still Dolph, no matter who he plays or what his character's doing. I appreciate that, and I think that's why he's attained the exalted status of Babe Ruth of the DTVC Hall of Fame. He's an action star in the truest sense of the word, a real Hack Blowfist, if you will. Here's to you, Dolph Lundgren, you're one of the Good Ones.



The bad guy in this is played by Mattias Hues. We thought for sure it was someone else, and just couldn't put our finger on it. When we looked him up on imdb, it turned out he wasn't who we thought he was, because we didn't recognize any of the other films he'd been in. (Kickboxer II was the best I could do, and I didn't remember him in that.) It's a shame this guy hasn't been used more often in bigger projects as a bad alien. I could see him giving Vin Diesel a hard time in Chronicles of Riddick, or teaming up with John Travolta in Battlefield Earth.

Brian Benben plays the annoying guy with the stick up his ass that follows Dolph around. You may remember Benben from Dream On, either on HBO, or the edited version on Comedy Central. He did a good job going from annoying to slightly redeemable by the end of the film, and I think that's what we look for in an annoying guy like that. Play it too annoying for too long, and we're good with you getting murdered. Be too cool too soon, and we lose respect for the main hero when he decks you for getting in his way. It's a fine art to being the annoying partner, and Benben excels in this film.



One interesting piece of trivia: this is the only theatrical performance for ESPN NCAA basketball analyst and former Duke basketball stand out Jay Bilas. He plays the good alien chasing the bad alien here on Earth. I'm surprised he hasn't parlayed his success on TV into a more lucrative film career. He's got the physique, plus, with his law degree, he can avoid being swindled by a shady producer with a crummy contract. I'm not sure how often that happens, but I'd imagine with the kind of bad films I watch, it happens enough. I'm sure there are plenty of stunt men who had trouble paying their rent one month because a scurvy shyster producer took the cost of all the shrimp cocktail they ate at craft services out of their paychecks. The guy probably sees his what he made, then sees the deduction, and groans, remembering how sick the shrimp made him anyway.

If you have never seen I Come in Peace, you really can't call yourself a bad movie honk officially until you do. It's only out on VHS, and you may have to get it through Amazon. If money's tight, then I'd say don't go the Amazon route, because you may end up spending over $10. Do keep your eye out for it in bargain bins and places that sell used VHS tapes cheap, though. It's worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099817/

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)

A buddy of mine recently had me and a few friends watch The Dark Crystal with him. He said it was an important film in his life because it's what started his interest in fantasy films. I'm not sure what vulture puppets called Skankies have to do with that, but I took his word for it. Then I thought about what films were seminal in my love of movies. I guess Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon would be the ones that got me interested in Bogey films; or La Strada and Yojimbo got me interested in Fellini and Kurosawa films respectively. But that's not what the Direct to Video Connoisseur is about, it's about bad movies, and when I think of the film that got me interested in baddies, especially bad action, I think of Showdown in Little Tokyo.

I had a friend growing up whose parents stole cable, and we saw this on Pay-Per-View; for free obviously. I was twelve at the time, and though I'd seen many other bad action films before this, Showdown was the one that made me love them, and I haven't looked back since. Now I'm not saying that without Showdown I wouldn't have eventually found something else to pique my interest in this kind of schlock fare, I'm just saying that this one was lucky enough to be the one.



Showdown in Little Tokyo is a buddy action film with DTVC Hall of Famer Dolph Lundgren as a police detective of Caucasian-American decent that's also a samurai. He's a loner, and can't keep partners. Enter Brandon Lee (before he died), an Amerasian who could care less about his Japanese half. Dolph teaches him to be more Japanese, Brandon admires his penis, and the two protect Tia Carrere while beating down Cary Tagawa and his Yakuza bad dudes. Way better than the Lethal Weapons or Rush Hours.

I don't know where to begin. One of the best scenes is in the beginning, where a bad guy is in police custody, and instead of talking to the police, he breaks his own neck. In school, my friends and I used to mimic this when a teacher was especially boring. I know necks break very easily in action movies, but this one takes it a step further.



In another scene, Dolph does Carrere in his rice paper hut, and Tagawa's men surprise them. A scantily clad Dolph tries to fight them off, and Brandon Lee remarks, after looking at his crotch: "[y]ou have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a man". This is the kind of line in a Van Damme film that a woman would say, and Van Damme would seem proud of himself. With Dolph, though, we know it's supposed to add to the tongue-in-cheekness, which makes it even better.

That's not Brando's only great scene. At the end, he throws a guy in a vat of something, and holding a lit Zippo, says "you have the right to be dead" then tosses the Zippo in, making a huge explosion. This is, to my mind, Brandon Lee's finest performance, and it's too bad this film doesn't get more run.



Tagawa and the Yakuza are great too. They constantly cut off people's and their own limbs. Fingers, arms, heads. Like in Bridge of Dragons, Tagawa is a sexually frustrated crime boss, and has his hottie Asian woman stolen from him by Dolph. This time the hottie is Tia Carrere. Despite posing nude in Playboy, in this film, her nude scenes were done by a body double. Not a big deal, but just something to keep in mind as you're watching this.

The ending is spectacular. Dolph dons a samurai outfit with a complete straight face. He and Tagawa take swords from a parade, which means the figures in the parade were walking around with real samurai swords. Dolph gets sliced up, yet survives it all, just so he can pin Tagawa to this large wheel with fireworks surrounding it. The wheel spins, and Tagawa explodes.



This is bad action at its best. Tons of killing, tons of martial arts, tons of car chases, a bad guy who kills people who work for him and people he makes criminal deals with, hot chicks, and, of course, Dolph Lundgren. There may be better action movies, but there isn't one that's more fun.

I bought this on DVD recently for $5. There really is no reason why you shouldn't do the same. If you watch it on TV, make sure it's on a channel that isn't censored or edited to fit a time slot. Don't watch this on Spike or USA or what not. You're really better off just buying it anyway, so that way you can see it on Spike or USA, and you'll know what you're missing. Believe me, at $5, it's so worth it, and I'd pay even more if I didn't know I could get it for that cheap.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102915/