Chinatown Connection (1990)

This is it, Art Camacho becomes our third member of the 50 Club, after Dolph and Gary Daniels. Unlike those two, he's gotten his tags mostly for his work behind the camera, but Ty from Comeuppance made the point that this would be a perfect film for Camacho's 50th on the site, because he has a larger acting role in it. I found it on YouTube, and planned to make it happen sooner, but between other posts coming up, and me not having the time to watch it, I fell behind on it, but now we're here, making it happen. In addition to us, Ty and Brett from Comeuppance, and Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List have covered this too.

Chinatown Connection has Lee Majors II as a cop on the edge who needs a partner, and Bruce Ly as a cop who never uses his piece and is training potential cops on the edge to use martial arts instead of killing people--one of whom is Mr. Camacho. Majors II and Ly are on the case after a series of cocaine poisonings. Who could be doing this? Ly suspects the local heroin kingpin, even after said kingpin professes his innocence. Turns out he might be right, because the kingpin could take advantage of the poisoning to sell his own coke. Corporate takeovers are rough in any situation. Will our heroes be able to stop this?

This is 90 minutes of pure fun. It's like this movie was made with us in mind. First off, it has some great action. Bruce Ly has some great scenes, Lee Majors II is a solid cop on the edge, and then the supporting cast, including  Art Camacho, do great in their smaller roles. But then you have the fun. Like when Majors II visits Bruce Ly, whose character is married to Brinke Stevens, and she asks him if he wants something for dinner. Instead of saying "that would be nice, what are you having?" or "no thank you, I've already eaten," he's like "I'm a meat and potatoes guy," as if whatever Asian inspired meal he thought they were making would be beneath him. She tells him she's making hamburgers, which of course he's into. What does any of that mean? Should we like Ly more because he eats American food? Are we supposed to sympathize with Majors II and be like "yeah man, I'd hate to be in that situation myself, who knows what she'd serve me!"? And then someone from the police lab shows up, accepts Stevens's offer of a beer, then doesn't drink it, nor does Majors II finish his burger, so Stevens is just making food and pouring beers for people who don't end up having them. The thing is, none of it matters, it all just adds to the charm. And that's ultimately what you have here, a lot of charm with some solid DTV action.

The DTVC 50 Club, a club with only two other members, but Camacho is unique because, as I mentioned above, he's here primarily for his work behind the camera. I must confess that I didn't know who he was before I started this site, but as I was watching more and more of these movies for reviews, I noticed his name coming up more and more. As a result of that, I may not have tagged him in all the films we've reviewed that he had a part in. With Dolph at 70, and Gary Daniels knocking on the door to the 60 Club with 58, it feels like Camacho could be a ways off from catching them, but the thing is, between his work with PM and my aim to get as many of those up in the near future, and the current work he's doing with big names like Michael Jai White, his tags could come in bunches. In 1990 he was still coming into his own, and I think as an actor here he does a good enough job and it's cool to see him in something like this, but it's really the stuff  he did in stunt work, stunt choreography, second unit directing, and as primary director that made him someone where you can say, 90s action wouldn't exist as we know it without his contributions. If there's anything you can glean from his performance in this that would give us an idea of what was to come with him, I think it's the sense that he was willing to do anything it took to be a part of this business, and I think that work ethic pushed him to give us the great stuff he's given us. He always says on his Instagram how blessed he is, but we too are blessed to be able to have the hours of enjoyment his contributions have given us.

Our leads were played by Bruce Ly and Lee Majors II. They were supposed to be giving us an East meets West mash-up kind of thing, which I think was where the "I'm a meat and potatoes guy," was supposed to be taking us, but they didn't explore that enough, and I was okay with that. The fact that they only had 90 minutes, and decided to spend more time with Ly infiltrating a cheese warehouse and finding coke in one of the cheese wheels, which meant skipping the perfunctory scene of Ly and Majors II at a Chinese restaurant and Majors II struggling to use chopsticks, was a solid decision in my mind, and helped make this thing a more solid actioner. I hadn't seen much of Ly before this, as I'm not as up on the Bruce Lee clones, but it looks like according to IMDb this was one of two films he made here in the States, the other being 1989's Open Fire with David Carradine. I don't know what happened after this to cause that to stop, but that was it, he went back to Hong Kong to work. Majors II is one we've actually seen on here before, in Ice Cream Man, the Clint Howard cult classic, which was also one of Art Camacho's 50 tags, as he was the stunt coordinator in that. According to IMDb, that was it for him, as he hasn't done anything since.

Look at that beautifulness down below. Bruce Ly, leaning against a wall, with that hairdo, a red Members Only jacket and tie. I was trying to think from a sartorial standpoint where that ranks on the all-time outfit list. Maybe it's something I should put together and start ranking. I mean, it definitely kills Sasha Mitchell's pants in Kickboxer III, and David Bradley's fanny pack doesn't even come close. I'd have to go back through the old posts and see, but this might be the best ever. I mean, I dig the simplicity of a good Richard Norton Canadian tuxedo, but do you really want to take the Pepsi Challenge with that against what Ly is rockin' below? I didn't think so. I was only 11 at that time, so I wasn't anywhere cool enough to wear something so sublime, but I think even being 11 I still count in the rule that says when a look come back around, you shouldn't wear it if you were around when it was first popular. So I was too young in 1990, and now it's lost to me forever, I can never wear something so fantastic, I can only look on in both awe and envy, as Mr. Ly wows us with his sartorial acumen.

Finally (as if there could be a finally after that paragraph), I think it's good to give Art Camacho a second paragraph since this post is in honor of him entering the 50 Club. I was trying to get a sense of how many potential tags he could have left, to see if he could potentially pass Dolph for most all-time. As best as I can tell, it would be close based on what he has out there now, and of that what I'd be able to get my hands on; but the thing is, he's still working, so his total is only going to go up. By the same token, Dolph is still working too, so he could put some space between him and Camacho. One thing I think I'll try to do is focus more on his directorial work and see if we can get that as complete as possible--some of his films aren't available, so we'll probably never be able to make it complete. By my count we have 11 of the films he's directed, which puts him 7th all-time, but Fred Olen Ray's 15 is second all-time, so he's not as far off from moving up that list. His next one, Ruthless with new DTVC favorite Dermot Mulroney, is supposed to be out soon, so I can't wait to check that one out.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As far as I can tell, YouTube here in the States is the best way to go, unless you can find it on VHS. This is the late 80s/early 90s DTV action you came for, so it's a shame it's not available in more places. And a final congratulations to Art Camacho for becoming the third member of the 50 Club. For the kind of hard worker he is, and for the great work he's given us over the years, it's more than deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099261

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

Delta Delta Die! (2003)

In looking to get more Julie Strain on the site, I saw this on Tubi and figured it would do the trick. I also hadn't done horror in a while, and this looked like a fun one, especially considering it was produced by the great Charles Band. With all this going for it, let's see how it did.

Delta Delta Die! is about a sorority that is renown for their fantastic meat pies. Turns out, those meat pies have a secret ingredient: the flesh of meathead jocks. Led by their house mother, Julie Strain, the ladies need to lure as many men as possible to the sorority house so they have enough beefy man flesh to fill their buffet. The problem is, intrepid intern Tobias is onto these ladies, and he has a plan to stop them: call in former sister Brinke Stevens, who has a history with Strain. Stevens is up to the task, so she comes to town to help Tobias take these women down. But will Julie Strain go down that easily? 

This was fun, but kind of unremarkable. Except for Julie Strain. She comes in and really gets after it, killing poor jocks, throwing their parts into a blender, chewing on them and spitting them out, all while wearing a top that shows off her boobs. Then we have Brinke Stevens, another B-movie horror legend, who's on a collision course to wackiness with Strain, and we're treated to a Russ Meyer-style wrestling match between the two of them for an end fight. I think from the unremarkable standpoint though, there wasn't much going on in the scenes the two of them weren't in. Yes, if I take myself back to 2003, as a 24-year-old I would've easily been lured into the sorority house by the ladies, but fortunately in 2003 I was a bit heavy, and at 5' 7", definitely no chiseled jock, so I guess I could take solace in knowing I wouldn't have been a target of them. And to that point, I think turning the usual serial killer targeting women thing on its ear was a nice change of pace, and Strain is the woman you'd want to deliver that kind of evil. I don't know if this is a go out of your way for it movie, but if you want something that brings you back to a different time, this is a fun one.

We're now at 5 films for Julie Strain on the site, so we have a long way to go to get her tag count up to a respectable level. This is also our first film since her Hall of Fame induction back in October of 2021, so we've had ample opportunities since then to review more of her stuff. And watching her here reminds me of why I should be getting more of her stuff up, because she took what was a rather unremarkable low-budget horror film and made it something more. She just has such a fantastic presence, and she absolutely goes for it in every scene. It's a shame we lost her, and a shame I'm only now catching up to getting more of her films on the DTVC, because she's one of the true queens of DTV and low-budget films. I think one fear I sometimes have when I see one of her films listed, is that she might not be in it as much. Another concern is, like Battle Queen 2020, that the Tubi version is edited so we don't get the whole thing--and I'd love to cover that one, because it's her and the great Jeff Wincott! Either way, I need to get over those concerns and just review more of her stuff, and I'll start making that happen.

Remember when sending emails looked like that? I didn't, I was so used to how they looked now, I'd completely forgotten. Even the Arial font doesn't look like that Arial anymore. It's an interesting thing about time and this movie, because it also felt like a 90s movie that was made in the 2000s. Like the clothes and technology--like emails and cellphones--were definitely early 2000s, but the vibe of the movie was like something from 10 years before. So I was watching a film from 20 years ago that felt like it was made ten years too late. It was a difficult thing to wrap my brain around. And then in that mental miasma, Julie Strain showed up in a top where her boobs came through, and killed two jocks and ground their flesh up in a blender while chewing on and spitting out bits of their flesh, and it all made sense again, only to have the scene change and my brain warped again by the mix of something from 20 years ago that felt like it was made 10 years too late. Is there a term for that? "Deja vu all over again"? "I'm older than I'm younger than I was"? Maybe the Germans have something for it, like "Scheissezeitgehirn"?

The other B-movie legend in this is Brinke Stevens, someone who also hasn't been on the site much. In Droid Gunner she played a mutant with feline features; and then in 24 Hours to Midnight, she was the voice of the Rothrock ninja called in by Fong to add in scenes Rothrock wasn't there for after she quit the picture. The thing that makes Brinke Stevens great here, is she's the only person who could take Julie Strain down, anyone else we wouldn't believe it. Unlike Strain, who I know needs to be on here more and it's my bad that she isn't, Brinke Stevens, while someone I've always enjoyed seeing, does much more horror, and over time the DTVC has slanted more action. That wasn't our intention, but the action reviews always garnered more engagement from readers, which led to more requests and recommendations, which then led to more action films getting reviewed on the site at the expense of the other genres. Perhaps if I do get to more horror stuff down the road, we'll see more of her here, because Stevens is truly another one of the greats.

Getting back to the lack of horror on the site, in the 90s and 2000s, my friends and I watched as much, if not more, DTV horror, and something like this would've been a rental we'd have gotten for a get-together. As I've mentioned above though, as I was posting reviews, the action ones were getting more engagement. One area where you see why, is a DTV horror film might have 20 or 30 external reviews, whereas a PM flick might only have 5-7. The action review ecosystem was much smaller then, and people looking for that kind of thing had fewer options. The result is, we're at a place now where the last horror film I reviewed was Ash and Bone in February, which was a screener request, and then the last one I did on my own before this was Black Friday back in November. I don't know if that will ever change though, because we have become so action oriented--compare the now 146 horror tags versus 809 action tags--but I could stand to mix in horror more often I think, if only because it was such a huge part of my DTV origins, and I don't think we'd have a DTVC without it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can get this on Tubi. Outside the US, I'm not sure, and I'm not sure you need to go too far out of your way for it. Strain is fantastic, and Stevens is a great foil to Strain, but beyond that, it doesn't have a lot going on. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349343

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24 Hours to Midnight (1985)

In our continuing mission to get all of Cynthia Rothrock's films on the site, we've been delving more into her earlier work, much of which was in Hong Kong, and much of which is now available to stream on YouTube; and that's how we ended up here with this film, though it actually wasn't made in Hong Kong, but rather made here in the US by Leo Fong. It also has the reputation of being Rothrock's first film role, which makes what it ended up being all that more fascinating. In addition to us, our friends at Cool Target have reviewed this, so you can go there to see what they thought. Now, without any further ado.

24 Hours to Midnight has Rothrock as a woman whose husband is murdered by drug kingpin White Powder Chan, played by Stack Pierce. She then metamorphosizes into a different woman, dons a ninja costume, and starts picking off his crew and everyone involved with him. At the same time, two cops are on the trail, trying to figure out who this mysterious figure who's doing their dirty work for them.Will they be able to stop "Rothrock's" murderous crime spree? Do they even want to?

 

You probably have a sense of where I'm going to go with this one. I'm watching it, and Rothrock is sobbing over the death of her husband, then we're in a hotel room, where this other woman has a ninja mask on, and after a moment I realize she's supposed to be Rothrock! We've heard of Fake Shemps, but this is another level. I tried to get a sense of what happened here, and best I could find out (via Wikipedia and a user review on IMDb by the person who said he cut the films together), Rothrock had a dispute with the producers and pulled out of the production. That footage was then shelved until they added in De'Ann Power, put her in a ninja suit, and had her be Rothrock's character. It's that kind of extreme gonzo approach to film making that we love here at the DTVC, but it was also exceedingly ludicrous that they would go to those lengths to do something with their old Rothrock footage. Where does that leave us then? I think as a quirk in Rothrock's career this is a fun deal. Definitely not something someone should choose if they're just starting with her films, but after you've seen 30 of them or so, this is fun for the novelty factor.

And we have done over 30 Rothrock films. This is number 36 to be exact. While according to IMDb she has some upcoming films in various stages of production, a lot of what we have left is her earlier stuff like this. Most of it was made in Hong Kong, and is really great; this on the other hand is really just here for the novelty of her having old footage paired with another woman in a ninja suit. I went to her YouTube to see if she had any backstory on this, and couldn't find anything--at least not in a title, she may have mentioned it in a video about something else. This certainly wouldn't make any Rothrock best of lists, but as we're trying to get all of her films on the site, something like this definitely has a place as a unique entry, in part because it's her first film, and in part because most of it isn't even her!

 

We've been exposed to the cinematic repurposings of Godfrey Ho, and I think that's where the mind goes first when we see something like this. Richard Harrison thought he was doing two ninja movies, and ended up in 20, right? The difference though is that Harrison was always Harrison, right? He may have been edited into other movies, but I don't think anyone else was pretending to be him in a ninja costume. Here we have this woman who definitely isn't Rothrock standing in as her, and we're supposed to accept that it's her when it so obviously isn't. It's a bait-and-switch the likes of which we've never really seen here before. We've seen where an actor is on the cover and then they're barely in the movie, but we've never seen that actor's character portrayed by someone else. Imagine Bruce Willis or Eric Roberts in a movie for five minutes of screen time, and then the rest of the film their part is played by someone in a costume that really isn't him? In a way, it's actually kind of fantastic to think about. Like we could make a new Batman movie with Bruce Willis as Bruce Wayne for like ten minutes of shooting that gets recycled throughout the film, and then have a stuntman like they did in Batman: Dead End portray the Caped Crusader. The idea is too amazing for words.

I looked, and I believe the only other Leo Fong film we've done was Fight to Win--which also starred Cynthia Rothrock, so it sounds like whatever issues Rothrock had were only with the producers and not Fong himself. I think what happens with him is his films are lower down the quality spectrum, so unless they have a name like Rothrock involved, I end up passing them over for Dolph or Seagal films. That in and of itself explains why they would go through the trouble to dig up old Rothrock footage and repurpose it in a movie she's no longer in so they can splash her picture on the cover and call it a "Rothrock film" (and, according to the reviewer on IMDb who told his story of having to get that footage, he said he hurt his back in the process and is still having issues with it). Without Rothrock, I'm probably not covering this, and other people probably aren't watching it.

 

Finally, we've been using this penultimate paragraph lately to spotlight supporting cast members who make these films what they are, and in that spirit, I felt it was necessary to give some shine to Stack Pierce, who plays White Powder Chan. He's a fantastic character actor who's done everything from B movies to big screen productions to network TV shows. Here he's a great baddie who, under normal circumstances, would be making the film a success, but in this case he's helping to paper over a massive hole in the wall in the form of a ninja woman who obviously isn't Cynthia Rothrock being passed off as her. Even a talent like Pierce can only do so much, and this probably was too much for him to overcome. Here's to you Stack Pierce, you were one of the great ones.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can stream this for free on YouTube, and I feel like that's the best way to go. We've seen a variety of bait-and-switches here at the DTVC, but none so audacious or hilarious. This is why we celebrate DTV films, and why you come here to discuss them, for film making quirks like this that you can't find anywhere else in the industry.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083509

Droid Gunner aka Cyberzone (1995)

We continue our Hall of Fame month at the DTVC with our next inductee, the great DTV director Fred Olen Ray. There were a lot of options for a film of his to cover for this post, but I liked that this one had a lot of names in it, plus it was free to stream--can never go wrong there. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this in his "It came from the video store" series, so you can go there to see what he thought.

Droid Gunner (or Cyberzone as you'll see it on the streaming services), has Beastmaster Marc Singer as "Jack Ford," director of such great films as The Grapes of Wrath and Stagecoach--or rather a guy who hunts down androids for a living in the future. When four pleasure droids turn up missing--stolen by one Matthias Hues--, the corporation missing them turns to Singer to find them. Tagging along is a droid specialist from the company, Rochelle Swanson, someone who can deactivate them without damaging them, which is very important when it comes to pleasure droids. Will our hero be able to make all this happen and save the day?

 

This is pure late-night 90s schlock, and I loved it for that. It had your classic Ray Skin-a-max elements, plenty of T n' A, but also great performances from a whole host of names, including, beyond Singer, Hues, and Swanson, Ross Hagen, Peter Spellos, Brinke Stevens, and Kin Shriner (which for someone whose mom watched General Hospital when I was growing up, he was a fun sight). Sure, this is done on a budget, and it bites on all kinds of popular films, like Star Wars, Blade Runner, and For a Few Dollars More, but for the midnight insomnia theater fare that I'm watching it for, it more than delivers.

Ray marks the third director in the Hall of Fame strictly for being a director, the other two being Albert Pyun and Cirio H. Santiago, which, for the DTV fans that we are, is fantastic company. Like those two, he's had some that I really didn't like, some that I loved, and a lot like this where I just enjoyed the ride. I think what I love most about his films, especially from this 90s period, is that he shoehorns a lot of sex and violence into them, but then there are a lot of these other touches like calling the main hero "Jack Ford" or how the plot becomes a take on For a Few Dollars More, which makes it more than just a late-nite 90s schlock exploitation fest. The funny thing is, recently my wife Jen and I were watching a Hallmark Christmas movie that Ray directed, and she was noticing similar touches, like the boy in the orphanage who looked straight out of 50s TV central casting. Like Dacascos, Ray's induction is probably one that's long overdue, but great to finally make happen.

 

The same way we needed to bring up Byron Mann in Dacascos's induction post, we'd be remiss if we didn't continue our efforts to spotlight Matthias Hues as well. He plays a bit of a roguish baddie in this, but also has a lot of fun with it, which is great to see. His playfulness underpins the tone Ray was going for, despite some of the dark future nature of the movie overall. As I've said in previous posts, we generally think of the stars as the people who carry these low-budget films, but when you look at the number of supporting people in this, many of whom do a lot of Ray films, you can see how important it is to have people like Hues who can show up and do their thing to round out the film and make it fun despite the time and budgetary constraints. Here's to you Matthias Hues, you're one of the great ones.

It's strange that we aren't getting to Marc Singer until the sixth paragraph, but with the DTVC, it's hard when you're in a Fred Olen Ray film that has Matthias Hues in it. Anyway, I really liked Singer here as the hero. He seemed to get what Ray was going for with the gunslinger-Western type, and he leaned into it well. Looking at his bio, it does surprise me that we don't have more of his stuff on here. I think other than this, we just have Savate with Olivier Gruner and Ian Ziering. He didn't even have a tag yet, which is crazy for someone of his stature. Well, we've at least taken care of that now. I'll need to at least cover the Beastmaster films in the future, so I imagine this won't be the last of him we see here.

 

Finally, among the other costars, I wanted to mention Kin Shriner, who is best known (though probably not known at all to most reading this) for his role on General Hospital. I bring this up, because my mother used to watch the ABC Soaps when I was growing up: All My Children, One Life to Live, and of course General Hospital. At that time, all of the three major broadcast channels had at least two, if not three or four daytime Soaps on--many people were up in arms in the late 80s during the Oliver North hearings, which preempted them a lot if I remember correctly. Anyway, my wife and I decided to check the other day, and on ABC, only General Hospital remains, and then Days is still on NBC, and CBS has Young and the Restless and Bold and the Beautiful. That's it of a once proud TV genre. Who knows exactly what did it, maybe fewer housewives staying home--though in college my bodybuilding buddy couldn't go to class before Days was over--; or my hunch, that the proliferation of talk shows and court shows, which don't require paying writers and actors, made Soap Operas less cost effective; and unlike scripted prime time TV, which saw a revival in the 2010s after being decimated by reality shows and true crime shows in the 2000s, it looks like the Soaps didn't have the same recovery. I want to say it's too bad, but obviously I wasn't watching them to know how many of them had been cancelled already, but it is still too bad for the people out there who did watch them for so long. Maybe saving the Soaps that are left is a good cause for me to take up...

But before we do that, it's time to wrap this up. You can stream Droid Gunner aka Cyberzone a lot of places for free, in particular Tubi, which has a good ad rate. I say, the next time you're up in the middle of the night and looking for something to watch, give this a spin. It'll take you back to the 90s in a good way.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112906