The Bouncer (2024)

This film was another screener request from producer Joe Williamson, who usually gets us something with Mel Novak, or something directed by Harley Wallen, both of which we really enjoy. This time though we got an actioner with names we recognized in supporting roles, and an up-and-comer in the lead. Let's see how it did.

The Bouncer has John Ozuna as a bouncer and martial arts expert whose mother is dying of cancer, and needs money for her operation, and was being accused of killing a patron at the club he was a bouncer for. This means he needs to leave town and head to Bucharest, where he's squatting at someone's apartment and making a living as a bouncer at a fancy club. This seems like it'll work, until he sees crime boss Kane (Costas Manylor), hit his girlfriend Sylvia (Rosemary Yaneva), and decides to step in. It doesn't end well, so he and Sylvia hit the road, and now they're on the run while Mandylor, all his cronies, and all the baddies in the city are after him. Will he and Sylvia make it out alive?

This is pretty paint-by-numbers. Damsel in distress, being held by an evil "king," down on his luck vagrant hero steps in, saves the day, and gets the girl. What works about that for me is it's a quick watch, and simple plot, so it gets you to the church on time. I also liked Ozuna as the hero, but this was his first lead role as far as I could tell, so he's still getting the hang of it. What doesn't work is the extra stuff. The mom kind of disappears, especially at the end. It felt like she was a plot device that felt necessary at the beginning of the script-writing process, that wasn't so much by the end. I think the wrongly accused and being on the run would've been enough, but even that isn't exactly a plot point either. Like what if the police were helping Mandylor find Ozuna? Or instead of the wrongly accused element, what if you went with the mom dying and needing an operation, and that's his dilemma: do I keep this bouncer job that pays really well when I need the money, or do I risk it all to do the right thing? But again, with its flaws, at its heart it's a low-budget actioner that isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, and sometimes that's all you need.

The first name that came to mind when I saw Ozuna was Jalal Mehri, and we know he had a pretty solid career in the 90s, so if that's where Ozuna ends up, that's not too bad. On his IMDb trivia, it says he holds two Guinness World Records in martial arts: most punches in one minute (713); and the fastest martial arts punch (43.3 mph). And the talent is definitely there, but as we know with other great martial artists, the practitioner element is only part of it. The "It" factor is also important, and that's the area where Ozuna will grow as he does more pictures. Going back to the Mehri comp, one thing he did was surround himself with other talent. He worked with Cynthia Rothrock, Bolo Yeung, Billy Blanks, David Bradley, Loren Avedon, Olivier Gruner, etc. While this had some names too, getting some established martial arts talent to work with him, and maybe even someone like an Art Camacho to direct and help out on fight choreography, could be that next step to get him into that next level of stardom. I think Camacho does stuff with R. Ellis Frazier, who makes a lot of films in Mexico with names like Gary Daniels, I'd love to see Ozuna in a project like that. Either way, it'll be fun to see what we get next from him.

Out of everyone in the film, the name with the most tags on our site was Gerald Okamura. He has a very small role as Ozuna's master in a flashback sequence, but any time we get to see him is a great time. Joe mentioned that this was his first film in nine years, that one being Samurai Cop 2, but he liked the script and decided to go for it. I feel bad as well, because his 84th birthday was on November 23rd, and I missed it. I also realized I was missing five films he was in that we'd reviewed but hadn't tagged him for yet, so he's now at 19 films on the site, and when I look at his bio, I see a bunch of films he did that we could do on here, which means the 30 Club is a possibility, and due to the Asylum rule, 30 Club is automatic entry into the Hall of Fame. Gerald Okamura, DTVC Hall of Famer, has a nice ring to it. Here's to you Mr. Okamura, you're one of the greats.

While the plot point about the mother needing money for an operation didn't play a huge part in the rest of the film, it is very relevant considering current events in America, with the killing of the United Healthcare CEO, and the social media jokes that followed, like "Sorry, the bullet was out of network, so the extraction isn't covered." It's a reality that that CEO, and many other health insurance CEOs, are responsible for many more deaths than the guy who will probably get life in prison for killing him, but in America some murders are okay, and some are punished--and some are punished by punishing the wrong person. All that said, it's a great plot device for an action movie, right? And we've seen it for years. Guy's daughter's in the hospital, we need hundreds of thousands of dollars for an operation? Time for that one last heist--which goes horribly wrong. This one mixed it up a bit because it was the mom, but the plot device is the same. What if someone made an action film where the hero went on a revenge spree to take down a health insurance CEO? We need to get to that level where health insurance executives in America are seen on the same level as human traffickers and animal poachers, what I call "baddie in a can." Maybe current events will get us closer to that. The other thing the current events bring up that this film ignored, is the idea of needing money, but is how you make it worth compromising your principles? Because Ozuna needed the money, I wish we had more of that dilemma, where he likes the job, but he risks it to do the right thing. As a health insurance CEO, can you sleep at night if you're making millions of dollars off people's suffering? Or as Ozuna the bouncer, can you sleep at night saving money for your mother's operation knowing you're looking the other way at Mandylor's evil doings? It's a question this movie didn't address enough, but I wish it would have.

Finally, the character of Sylvia was played by Rosemary Yaneva, who looks a lot like Lisa Marie Presley. In the Pulp Fiction binary of "Beatles" or "Elvis," I am an Elvis Man, but I also like a lot of Beatles songs too. I think my favorite from Elvis is "One Night" from The '68 Comeback Special, but with Christmas around the corner, you also have to love "Blue Christmas." He would've been 90 in January, but even crazier for me, as someone who's now 45, Elvis was only 42 when he passed. I was debating on whether or not to bring back the DTVC Extra in 2025, but maybe a look at some Elvis films could be a fun project, especially in honor of what would've been his 90th birthday.

But that's for another time, so let's wrap this one up. Currently you can rent this on Amazon here in the States for $3.99. If you want to support indie creatives near the holiday, that's a great way to do it, but if money's tight and you want to wait for it to come out on a free streamer, I understand. This is a fun low-budget actioner, especially for when you're in the mood for a fun, low-budget actioner.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16758460

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

LETHAL Ladies: Return to Savage Beach (1998)

For our final DTVC Hall of Fame induction for 2024, we have the one, the only, Andy Sidaris, and what better film to review than his final film ever, and the end to his LETHAL Ladies films, one of the greatest DTV franchises ever. We covered this in a recent podcast episode, number 177 in the archives, with Chris the Brain from Bulletproof Action, and in addition to us, Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this as well.

LETHAL Ladies: Return to Savage Beach is the final LETHAL Ladies film, and in this installment, Rodrigo Obregon is back, and he wants some gold hidden on Savage Beach, the same one Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton seemingly blew him up on back in that film. To stop them, director Julie Strain has called in all her operatives in all their busty or muscular glory, but even that won't be enough, so the department has called in an old foe: Marcus "Buff" Bagwell, aka "Warrior," doing a heel-turn that would make Vin Diesel proud. Will they be able to stop Obregon and his baddies? Who knows, but what we do know is in the meantime, we'll be treated to all the dressing, undressing, and skinny dipping we can handle.

This is as fun as any of the films. Yes, we only get Dona Speir in a flashback sequence, and mainstays like Bruce Penhall or an Abilene who can't shoot straight are conspicuously absent; but the spirit of these movies is there in full effect. Like when Shae Marks and Julie K. Smith find where the gold is buried on Savage Beach, instead of digging, they decide to try some snorkeling--with tops on at first, just in case there are any coral reefs around that may scratch them, but then go topless once they find out they're safe from the danger of coral reef scratching--at least that's the best explanation I can think of for why they started with their tops on, then went topless. In the image above, Carrie Westcott is serving pizza along with ginger ale laced with Mickeys, because, as Chris pointed out on the pod, ginger ale is what you drink with pizza? It's moments like that that make the series, along with the explosions, nudity, love scenes, Rodrigo Obregon's baddies, and Ava's KSXY radio broadcasts--which this time are accompanied by Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman as Harry the Cat, who at the time was married to Julie Strain. The one interesting element, which I don't know if I'd say is a full-on drawback, is because this is the only one that fully calls back the others, it needed to set up a lot of backstory, which felt a bit awkward. It was a small quibble on what was an overall great time though.

Like Dona Speir, Andy Sidaris doesn't have the filmography of some of the other DTVC Hall of Fame directors, but outside of the Bloodfist films, I don't there's a more prodigious, impactful, or iconic DTV franchise. Depending on how you count Malibu Express, this is either the 11th or 12th film--and at the very least, Malibu Express is part of the same movie universe, because Cody is mentioned in Hard Ticket to Hawaii as being Rowdy's brother. Either way, this is a series of over 10 films with no duds, you can turn on any of them and have a great time. We reduce them down to boobs, bombs, and bullets, but if it were just that, anyone could make these and have success. Sidaris adds something more, whether it's him directing, or his son while he's producing, there's a tongue-in-cheek vibe while everyone involved is playing it straight, that makes them even more fun. Also, the decision to put Speir as the lead instead of the Abilene who can't shoot straight was something that can't be understated. He had Bruce Penhall from CHiPs that he easily could've slotted into the next Abilene who can't shoot straight role, but he decided to give that part to Michael J. Shane and make it a smaller role, and give the series to Speir to lead. A true cinematic legend, here's to you Mr. Sidaris, you were one of the greatest.

We also had another Hall of Famer in this, Julie Strain, who, after Speir leaves the series with Fit to Kill, takes over as the lead female, first as a baddie, and now with these last two in the series, as the leader of the organization. One thing I discovered with this post, is she and Dona Speir move into a two-way tie for second-most tags by a woman on the site with 9, moving them past Kathleen Kinmont and Shannon Tweed, but still well-behind Cynthia Rothrock's 43. Could she ever get there? Based on her IMDb bio, probably not 43, but she has a lot that we could cover, which should keep her in the second place slot, or possibly jockeying back and forth with Shannon Tweed for that honor. She left us way too soon, but films like this are here to remind us of what a great legacy she leaves behind.

As we mentioned above, we have Buff Bagwell back, as his previous character, who was a baddie in the previous film. He lets Strain--and us--know that the agent he killed in that movie was a serial killer, so he did them a favor by taking him out. Even Vin Diesel thinks that's convenient, but you could see him watching this after Fast and Furious 7--or whatever it was called--thinking there's no way he could bring Jason Statham back as a good guy, then he listens to the dialog between Strain and Bagwell where Bagwell's like "yeah, so I'm a good guy now," and he must've thought, as he snacked on his Tombstone pizza and drank his Corona, "Jesus, that's all I need to do?" Unfortunately a few years after this, when the WWE buys WCW, Buff got the main event on Raw, and then Vince McMahon fired him soon after, causing his career to take a downturn. Why he couldn't get more DTV films though is beyond me, he was a lot of fun here. I do have a theory on why Bagwell was fired though: it wasn't because his mom called him in sick to an event or anything like that, I think McMahon saw how short he was next to Strain in this, and said "nope, that's it, he's gotta go," because McMahon has a thing for tall guys. His loss should've been our gain though, and maybe we can still get him in stuff, especially if he's wearing shirts like that.

Finally, we had two other potential Hall of Famers in this, with Rodrigo Obregon and Gerald Okamura. Obergon was a stalwart in these LETHAL Ladies films, he appears in almost all of them, and as fitting as it was that Sidaris in this final film chose to callback to Savage Beach, the film in the series where Speir took the helm, it was equally fitting that he made sure he brought Obregon back to be his baddie. Unfortunately like Strain and Sidaris, Obregon is no longer with us, but beyond these LETHAL Ladies films, he's done some others that belong on the DTVC, so he may still get there to the Hall of Fame. Okamura is now at 13 films on the site, with a lot of classics under his belt, and has a ton of stuff left that I still need to do, including some PM flicks, and some movies from the earliest days of DTV. He doesn't have as big of a part in this as Obregon, but one of his scenes involves him standing in front of a huge chair, and then helping Strain and Bagwell dispatch some kabuki ninjas. That's the Okamura we're looking for.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this, and all the LETHAL Ladies films on Tubi. If you're looking for something fun to watch, these always do the trick--though Chris made a great point on the podcast episode that they're better watched at night. Speaking of which, you can find that episode in the archives, number 177. As we wrap, congratulations again to Mr. Sidaris, you were truly ones of the greatest.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127759

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/

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.

Day of the Warrior (1996)

It's October, and you know what that means here at the DTVC: Hall of Fame inductions! It seems like we were just doing these, which sounds about right since I fell behind on them last year and they went into early 2021. Anyway, our first inductee is the great Julie Strain, becoming only the second woman in our DTVC Hall of Fame. This is also our 1100th post at the DTVC, so what better way to mark that milestone than by celebrating Julie Strain and her work. For more on her and the Andy Sidaris films, you can go to the DTVC Podcast episode that Mitch from the Video Vacuum and I did last year.

Day of the Warrior is the penultimate film in Andy Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies films. In this one, a former agent (WCW great Buff Bagwell) has broken off to form a crime syndicate, and he knows where all the undercover agents are, so he's looking to take them out, one by one. That means agent Willow Black (Strain) needs to let all of them know before his men can get to them, and then have them join her in taking the Warrior down. Will they be able to stop him before his nefarious evil schemes come to fruition? Only time and gratuitous hot tub and airplane landing scenes will tell.

 

For me, this is one of my favorites of the LETHAL Ladies series. It has all the elements that you want in a Sidaris film--especially in these late entries--plus you have the great Buff Bagwell! Julie Strain is great as well, as she turns from a villain to a hero, and continues to enhance this series after joining in Fit to Kill. The film adds in a bit more overt camp than the previous entries, and I think bigger than going from villain to hero, Strain navigates that pivot even better. Beyond that, we had great supporting performances, including Julie K. Smith, Gerald Okamura (which we'll get into later), Sidaris mainstay Rodrigo Obregon, and the great Ted Prior. This is what 90s DTV should be, just a fun, 90-minute ride.

While we don't have a lot of Strain's movies here on the DTVC (this is only her fourth), I felt like if anyone belonged in the DTVC Hall of Fame, it's her, especially with her great resume, and it's more on us to catch up and review more of her films. I think one of the problems is our site has become more action-oriented, and she didn't do as many action films, especially beyond the Sidaris movies, so the rest of her oeuvre tends to fall off our radar. What makes her so great, especially in these LETHAL Ladies movies, is, while they have a lot of TNA and women in little to no clothing, the women have a lot of agency, and Strain was one of the best at marrying sexy with agency. In the DTV world, where racy covers can be the difference between a rental and someone moving down the aisle, Strain could make impression as well as anyone, but, similar to others in the LETHAL Ladies series like Dona Speir and Julie K. Smith, while the sexy gets us in the door, we then get the strong female leads that mainstream Hollywood has always been reluctant to create. Here's to you Julie Strain, you were one of the greatest.

 

After Strain, the other great name in this is Marcus "Buff" Bagwell. He proves yet again how great professional wrestlers can be in action movies. The presence is there to match Julie Strain's, which is important if they were moving her from villain to hero, they need a baddie to work on her level. I looked on his IMDb, and he did the sequel to this, LETHAL Ladies: Return to Savage Beach, and then has a couple small parts in a film called Terror Tract and an episode of Charmed, and that's it. How did that happen? He was one of my favorites when my buddies and I watched Monday Night Nitro in the late 90s. I see that he floated around after WWE bought WCW, doing some TNA wrestling as well, then dropping down to more indies; but at his age, he could do more DTV stuff. Maybe not as an action lead, but supporting roles? Then eventually move into bigger roles like this one? I need more Buff Bagwell.

We've seen a lot of great Gerald Okamura scenes in our time here at the DTVC, but Elvis Impersonator is by far the best. It just doesn't get much better than that. And then, while he's doing his Elvis impersonation, Julie Strain is there in the lounge in a red gown yucking it up as he's singing, making the whole thing even better. I would say, in terms of Las Vegas casino scenes, it would be behind only Mick Fleetwood taking one between the eyes from Robert Patrick in Zero Tolerance for me. If I knew that every time I went to Vegas I'd see Gerald Okamura as an Elvis Impersonator, I'd probably move out there.

 

Usually I tell you how you can find something in the last paragraph, but I wanted to do it here to continue my rant about how streaming services dump films from their library. Last year I was able to do a marathon of all 11 of the LETHAL Ladies movies on Tubi. When I went to grab images for this review, I discovered that they were gone, and to see them on Prime I had to subscribe to the Full Moon channel. What? Luckily this is on YouTube, but look at the quality of YouTube screens? I'm not saying it's at the level of Metallica and what they did to Napster in the late 90s, but Full Moon pulling these off of Tubi is pretty bad. These should be free and great for everyone. If you don't do it for us, do it for the kids.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This is one of the most fun of the LETHAL Ladies movies for me, though you really can't go wrong with any of them. In particular, newly inducted Hall of Famer Julie Strain does a great job. If you haven't seen this, definitely check it out on YouTube--and hopefully soon Full Moon puts these back on Tubi.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116039

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Dallas Connection (1994)

Recently I had Mitch from the Video Vacuum on the podcast to discuss this film, and all the films of Andy Sidaris; also to discuss the career of Julie Strain, who unfortunately left us recently. I ended up watching not only this one, but all of the LETHAL Ladies films Sidaris did, because they're all on Tubi. I'll be covering them in subsequent reviews, but I figured I'd start with this one since we did the pod on it. Also, you can see what Mitch thought of this in his Sirens of Skinamax post on Julie Strain over on his site.

Dallas Connection has Julie Strain as the head of an assassination ring that's been assassinating scientists in an attempt to get a hold of the sophisticated state-of-the-art military satellite they're in charge of. To handle a gang this bad, the big guns need to be called in, and that's I/WAR, the best of the best, who include Bruce Penhall, Mark Barriere, and Samantha Phillips. Their task is to protect the final scientist in the group, Sidaris mainstay Rodrigo Obregon. Can this team get to the bottom of things, take out Strain's evil team, and save the world? Fortunately you'll find out the answer in only 90 minutes.

 

This was a really fun time. It's low-budget 90s DTV action the way it's meant to be. I think the level of nudity might make it bad for a group bad movie night depending on who joins you; but if you're someone looking for a 90-minute time killer on Tubi, you can do a lot worse than this. There's a great cast that completely buys in on what's happening, which I think always helps. Also, while this was directed by Andy's son Christian, his son maintains the feel of an Andy Sidaris film so much so that you wouldn't know Andy didn't direct it if you didn't look. I can't believe we're almost 1100 movies into our journey here at the DTVC and this is the first Sidaris film I've done, but better late than never, and now we have some catching up to do.

Right now Cynthia Rothrock is the only woman in the DTVC Hall of Fame, and I was trying to think of who else might belong, but no one was really coming to mind. Pam Grier sounded good, but she hasn't really done any DTV work; Mimi Lessos was another name that came to mind, and she's already in Comeuppance Reviews' Hall of Heroes (the only other woman in their Hall after Rothrock), but I wasn't sure if she had a CV big enough; the same might be said of Karen Shepherd, again, really great, but is the CV there? The whole time, the answer was staring me in the face: Julie Strain. I don't know if another star embodies the DTV ethos as much as she does, and the fact that I've barely touched her filmography on here is more a reflection on me than it is on her. I think for people getting into her work, this is a good place to start, as she plays the femme fatale role here in a way that only she can: equal parts sinister and sexy, but with both equal parts turned up to 11. Here's to you Julie Strain, you were one of the all-time greats, and we'll really miss you.

 

Anyone who's been rockin' with the DTVC for a long time may remember me using the term "Bruce Penhall Julie Strain level" to describe how low-budget a movie is. I think I got that idea from the fact that these films were often on at 3am on TBS, and there was something about them in comparison to the slightly higher-budget films that were on before them that made these feel much lower in quality. Since that time in the early-to-mid-2000s, something major has changed for me: I created the DTVC and I've seen many films since that many levels below this. The same way I wish I could go back and change the review of a Frank Zagarino film where I called him "a lesbian fitness instructor," or my initial Mean Guns review where I said a "person who does car commercials could have done a better job than this," using "Bruce Penhall Julie Strain level" to describe how low-budget a movie is showing how little I knew at the time about what I was doing. These movies really aren't any more low-budget than the PM stuff we love, or the Philippine 'Namsploitation we cover a lot of. We learn and we grow I guess.

The thing about Bruce Penhall that's most interesting as I look back on these movies, is his was often the name on the tin that got me to watch. I remembered him on the later seasons of CHiPs, so if I saw him listed on the cast or in the description, I'd give it a look out of curiousity. If a name like Bruce Penhall's, just because he worked on CHiPs, is enough to get me to watch something, imagine what having Bruce Willis on the cover of a Fake Shemp-fest does to get people to stream or rent it? The thing is though, this is no Penhall bait-and-switch, he's in it a lot, and he's going for it as an actor. One scene in particular, where he's hooking up with Julie K. Smith, he may have gone for it too much, because word on the street is his wife wasn't too fond of it.

 

Finally, I don't know why it took so long, but we're finally tagging Gerald Okamura. He's in this one as a member of Julie Strain's gang of baddies, and he does exactly what we expect Gerald Okamura to do: just be Gerald Okamura. He's like the reliever on a baseball team who comes into the game and throws fastballs and gets outs. I think we sometimes forget, or take it for granted, that low-budget DTV films have guys like him in them who can come in with little fanfare and do their part, but they're often part of the difference between whether a film works, like this one, or it doesn't. If you're curious, Okamura clocks in with 9 tags to start with. Somehow I thought he'd have more, but 9 is still a good number.

And with that, let's wrap things up. This, like all the rest of Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies movies are available on Tubi. You can do like I did, and just watch them all, but it's not necessary to have seen the ones before this one to get what's happening here. This is a just fun, 90s, low-budget DTV movie, and sometimes that's all you need. Also, the podcast I did with Mitch is still up in our archives, and is worth checking out. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112782/

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (2015)

During my time on hiatus, one of the greatest cult classics ever released a crowdfunded sequel, and when I came off of hiatus, I saw it as a priority to get it up as soon as possible. But then other things got in the way, as there were tons of other films that I needed to make happen in the meantime, so this ended up languishing in the hopper. Well, we're finally making it happen, so let's see if it was worth the wait. Also, our friends Mitch at the Video Vacuum and robotGEEK's Cult Cinema have looked at this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

Samurai Cop 2 takes place about 25 years after the first one. Matt Karedas (Hannon) is called back into action after a Yakuza gang war ignites, and his old partner tracks a series of medallions at the crime scenes to Karedas's forgery (is that the right name for a place that makes things out of metal? Blacksmithery? Mintery?) All the while, there's a mysterious woman who's hooking up with Matt, Bai Ling is acting off the chain, Tommy Wiseau is there, and Joe Estevez and Mel Novak, oh my!

I don't know where to go with this. It's not like the last one where my hang-up over the Bacon Grease Fu made me question what was an otherwise great time. In fact, I had to watch this one twice, because I couldn't believe I didn't love it right away. How could I not like something where Joe is ordering kombucha on a plane? Or a film that has Mel Novak seemingly just to have him? Mel Novak is there for my benefit as a fan of these kinds of movies, and to not like this film felt a little ungrateful. But the issue is something Ty and Brett from Comeuppance Reviews said on a podcast where I brought up this same issue: you can't manufacture a cult classic, and I feel like therein lies the rub. Take the Joe ordering kombucha on a plane scene. At the same time, we have the restaurant concierge from the first one wheeling out a drink cart, and then Bai Ling comes with the dial cranked up to 13, screaming and sending this floating ball into a mass of CGIs, causing a fight scene with more CGIs all over the place, and we're left with a sense that it's all too much. You had me at kombucha, you didn't need the rest.

By the same token, when I get to the credits and I see all of the people who donated getting a thank you from the filmmakers with all of their names listed, there's another part of me that appreciates everything they were trying for here. The best analogy I can come up with is the cheesesteak here in Philadelphia. I like mine with cheese wiz on it, but not all places that make them get how it should be done. Some just slather it on the bun like they're painting a barn, and I don't know that they're doing it that way to be dismissive--some are for sure--, I think they're doing it to be like "you like wiz? I got you man!" The really good ones treat the wiz like they would provolone or American, they put it on the shaved rib-eye while it's on the grill with the onions, so all three meld into something both unctuous, and disastrous for my arteries at the same time. I think this movie slathered on the wiz, instead of doing like they would one with provolone, and the result, despite the best of intentions, was too much. I think if they had played it straight a little more, and let the onions, wiz, and shaved rib-eye come together, that mess of grease, cheese wiz, meat, and carmelized onions on a roll still would have had the punch they wanted, it just wouldn't have felt like too much, so we would've gotten it down better.

Bai Ling is exactly what I'm talking about here. Bai Ling unleashed on 13 with the knob ripped off is too obvious and too much; but Bai Ling on 6, like she was in The Breed or Circle of Pain, and she elevates the material she's working with beyond its limitations, like the budget, but it's still something that we as an audience can still have a lot of fun with. The movie overall felt too much like an everything but the kitchen sink kind of deal, and maybe in some instances you need that, but for a Samurai Cop sequel, we don't need it. Hell, I think you rearrange the plot and make Bai Ling your queen baddie, again, let her play it straight, but still have fun with it. Bai Ling is someone who can pull that off.

I'm all for the classic, buy up everything at the local fetish store, cast some adult actresses, and load up on all the low-budget mainstays you can find--Julie Strain made a great career in films like that, but again, I come back to the fact that, as fun and low-budget as a lot of her movies were, they played it straight. Shane Ryan, Tommy Wiseau, and Lexi Belle can all work, but I think it becomes too much if it's let's be as goofy as possible and not care what happens. Part of what made The Room a cult classic on its own was the fact that Tommy Wiseau was playing it straight. I'm not saying not have fun with it, and I had fun with elements of this, it's just at a certain point this turns from being the funny kid in school to being the kid who jumps on his desk and you're just hoping the teacher will send him to the principal's office; and the thing is, I was pulling for this movie, and it pains me a bit to say it ventured into the latter territory for me.

That begs the question then, what would your Samurai Cop 2 have been? There's a part of me that thinks it should have been a scene by scene remake of part 1 with Bai Ling in Robert Z'Dar's part. Or at least a similar idea to part 1. Use Wiseau and Ryan if you need to, but make them bit parts, like guys Joe has to question for information--or maybe since Ryan does all those exploitation films, he could be the guy Ling has to sneak into the hospital to behead. Get a lot of that green screen and mysticism out of there, go bare bones like the first one, or like a classic AIP actioner. You can still be in on the joke and play it straight. And then maybe incorporate some of the goofiness of this. Maybe Wiseau is a goofball when they need to interrogate him. Maybe Bai Ling has one flip-out scene on her henchwomen--who can still be Gentlemen's Cinema actresses in outfits from the local fetish shop--in fact I think it's even better if they're there and you're playing it straight.

This is a tough no for me, which is different from a hard no, even though tough and hard can mean the same thing, in this case they don't. I wanted to like this, and at moments I did, but overall I think it was played too goofy, and playing it that way didn't work they way it should have. Right now you can stream it on Tubi, and I think that's the best way, that way you'll know if you like it enough to plunk down the cash for the DVD.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398252

SWAT: Warhead One (2005)

Though this has an imdb date of 2005, the fact that it has almost the exact same cast as 2002's Power Elite means this was probably shot at the same time as that one. I know what you're thinking: "hey Matt, isn't it just as likely that both movies were shot in 2005, and it's Power Elite that was released three years before it was made, as opposed to SWAT: Warhead One being released 3 years after?" Excellent point. As with its companion film, I got a Dutch DVD rip of this one from a buddy because, like it's companion, it wasn't released here in the States. And like it's companion, I have a feeling this one wasn't released over here for a reason too...

SWAT: Warhead One is about a prototypical nuclear warhead that's stolen by the Russian mob, but because it's so unstable, no one on the black market wants to touch it. Olivier Gruner, who was on the Navy SEAL team that failed in protecting the warhead, gets a job with LA SWAT, and 8 years later, some shady happenings pop up that may or may not include said nuclear device. Turns out the Chinese mob is looking to scam the Russians by buying the warhead with counterfeit money. Now it's up to Gruner and Mel Novak as an intrepid reporter to crack this case and save the day.



Or something like that. The first fifteen minutes of the film are broken up with constant title screens, like we're watching a silent film, only it's not a silent film, it's a talkie, and people can talk and tell us the plot, they just don't. After the first 15 minutes though, we lose those titles, and without them, this thing is so all over the place that I'm not even sure the people writing it know who's who-- nor care. I'd be all right with that if something were happening, but until the last 30 minutes or so when we're treated to Die Hard in a hospital, we pretty much got nothing beyond the occasional silly passage of dialog, or random James Lew black and white fight scene. This is just bad, and it's no wonder Gruner looked like he was on the verge of tears in a few scenes.

Poor Gruner. I don't even know what's going on here, and I'm not so sure he does either. The worst thing you can do with a guy who doesn't speak English well is saddle him with bad dialog, and this is some of the worst. Then all of his fight scenes are butchered by bad slow-motion. The key to the fight scene is the slight of hand that comes with us thinking someone is getting hit when we know they aren't, and a big part of that is lost when we can see, frame-by-frame, the punch or kick missing a dude's face. I was thinking back on Gruner's filmography, and he started out with some really fantastic stuff: Angel Town, Savate, Automatic, Nemesis. Like someone like Gary Daniels, we can't blame him for some duds like this, it's just unfortunate that he's had a big string of them.



I want to get back to that dialog, because there were some hilarious moments, making me wonder if this was written by someone that's a native English speaker. First, at the very beginning of the film, Gruner preps his SEAL team about the warhead theft, and informs them that it has been "kidnapped". Nope, it hasn't, only people can be kidnapped. Inanimate objects are stolen. It's beside the point that the warhead hadn't actually been stolen yet when Gruner says this, that it was in the process of being stolen, and Gruner and his team get from NYC to the Bearing Strait in two hours, only to see it taken and a few helicopters explode, the main issue is the misunderstanding of what the word "kidnapped" means. The other one came later, when Gruner finds some evidence, and Novak tells him what he thinks it could mean. Gruner's response is "and why should I believe you?", as if Novak would be purposefully trying to deceive him. It would be like someone saying "the Chiefs haven't won a Super Bowl before, have they?", and someone else saying "oh yeah, they won Super Bowl IV", and then that person with the initial query, instead of saying "are you sure?" or "how do you know?", says "and why should I believe you?" Why would he lie about that Gruner?

Cine Excel mainstay Gerald Okamura plays the main villain in this, and, for my money, gets too little screen time. He's hilarious, the only one able to crack jokes and have them sound authentic, plus he had that sinister thing down to a T. This movie should have scrapped the whole investigation aspect, and gotten right to Okamura and co. taking the hospital hostage, and from there it should've just been Die Hard with Okamura lighting it up in the Hans Gruber role. Thirty more minutes of him, and this would've been a completely different review.



I'm kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for a seventh paragraph here, so I thought I'd draw your attention to the Cine Excel website (actually "Ciné"), in particular this page of covers from their film library. We've done some of these, but not even close to half. There are some I definitely want to get my teeth into, some I'd afraid of, and some that look intriguing but I just know will bite me in the ass if I fall for their sweet covers. I guess what I'm saying is, this won't be the last time we see Cine Excel here at the DTVC.

And I can't believe I'm saying that after this Gruner double-feature painfest I just endured at their hands. Same as Power Elite, Dutch DVD, totally in English, anyone in Region 2 should be able to get their hands on it, or if you can play any region here in the States. I'm saying unequivocally though that this not only isn't worth the effort, but that you should expend that effort staying away.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340326/

American Streetfighter (1992)

I got this one from Netflix almost immediately after Full Impact, but I wanted to space out my Gary Daniels posts. I then wanted to save it for the 4th of July, make it a kind of ironic celebration of America post, considering the title of the film is meant to be ironic with Daniels as the "American Streetfighter" when we know he's a Limey-- sorry. is that insulting to my English readers? Also, two other bloggers have done this one that I know of off the top of my head, Comeuppance Reviews and Explosive Action. If anyone else did it too, by all means, throw your link in the comments section.

American Streetfighter has Daniels as a dude who gets into trouble and needs to ditch town, so he flees to Hong Kong, where in ten years he becomes a millionaire (how is irrelevant apparently, and I'm not mad at them for that at all). Problem is, he needs to head home, because little brother Ian Jacklin is in some underground fights, and anyone who's seen Jacklin knows he's not good enough to carry a picture, so Daniels reluctantly agrees to come back and take over the film from him, at which time he's dubbed ironically "The American Streetfighter".



The first pic after the coverscreen is almost always of the main star, but I went with this one to make a point. I don't know my cars that well, but that looks like a two-door Ford LTD, circa 1984, originally all black, now with the doors painted white to make it look like what, a police car? Yes, that is supposed to pass as a police car. How amazing is that? And that comes after one of the craziest action sequences ever, with a dirt bike crashing through a dojo, a guy getting lit on fire with the gas from the gas tank of said dirt bike-- or maybe it's another-- a fat guy running away from Daniels and tripping and stumbling like he's in a slasherflick victim, Kent Ducanon getting dragged by another dirt bike, and Daniels giving chase and getting shot at by a dude in a biplane, North by Northwest style. It has a very strong so bad it's good element, plus a lot of the surreal strangeness that I loved in Capital Punishment. On that score, a lot of this worked.

But here's where I'm torn, because there's a lot of it that isn't the fun bad action romp that Full Impact or Capital Punishment were. Weird scenes with a kid training Daniels to fight. A plot twist where Jacklin, the whole reason Daniels is back in the States and fighting, is killed right in front of Daniels, and it happens near the end. What the hell is the point then? But I'm reminded of a line at the end of the Explosive Action review: "if you weren't into [this] kind of movie, why would you be at a blog called Explosive Action?" And I think therein lies the rub, if you can't appreciate an '84 two-door LTD that's supposed to pass as a police car, after one of the most absurd action sequences you've ever seen, then yes, Matt, why would you be writing a blog called The Direct to Video Connoisseur, and again, why any of you be reading it?



I will say the plot was much less becoming on Daniels here than the other Cine Excel Daniels vehicles, and in that sense, that makes this harder to take. He does less fighting, plus there's the whole Yojimbo fallen warrior heals himself scenario, which involved a kid training him, which I'll get into in a second. Daniels also doesn't get as many good fight scenes in, especially early, which is a strike against this, but on the other hand, the ones he does get are either great, or so silly you have to love them. And to finish with a samurai sword fight in a funeral parlor. That's beautiful.

We know, it's maybe Rule Number Three to making good bad action movies, don't cast the annoying kid, and this one took the gamble, and like the rest, lost. Still, though, the absurdity of having the kid train Daniels was so bad it was hard not to laugh at it, especially the scene after the kid trains him, when he tells Daniels "you still need my help", to which Daniels replies "no I don't", "yes you do", "no I don't, I don't need anyone's help, will you just leave me alone!" It was like Joe Don Baker as Mitchell arguing with the Adam Rich lookalike while staking out Martin Balsam.



I'm kicking myself right now, because I totally forgot to cap an image of Daniels in his short-sleeved button up shirt that he wore with a tie under his sport coat. He looked like a traveling preacher or a reverend or something. See, I need to start taking notes when I watch these, but at the time I'm thinking "I won't forget something like Gary Daniels looking like a reverend with a ponytail", and then I'm here, typing the post, the DVD long since sent back to Netflix and the review for the DVD that replaced it written yesterday (Hatchet II) and that DVD already sent back, wishing I could get a pic of that so you can see it. Take my word for it, it was hilarious.

As was so much of this movie. But there's a lot of roughage that isn't that funny and is just plain bad. I think it's more a case of how much do you have in you? How creative are you? How funny are you? And how much do you enjoy the so bad it's good? Obviously, to turn a phrase from Explosive Action, you must enjoy it quite a bit to be here, so load up both holsters full of your best riff material, and fire up this bad boy and see what you and your buddies have got. If it's all that you thought it would be, or better, then you really are a bad movie master-- and I daresay you get what this is all about, perhaps even a little better than I do, though after American Streetfighter, I'm learning to work on it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103674/

Full Impact (1993)

This one took some time to get from Netflix. It was one of those ones they had to send from White River Junction, Vermont. Based on how they can't dump his filmography quick enough-- probably due to them going of print, but still-- I'm surprised I even got this at all. Even if it's not worth the wait, it's another Gary Daniels flick in the bag.

Full Impact has Daniels as a former cop now PI/bodyguard who tries to get back in with the police force so he can investigate the return of a serial killer he lost his job investigating. At the same time, he has a relationship with his estranged wife to patch up. As he delves deeper, signs point to a possible corrupt police involvement, meaning it'll be that much tougher for him to do his job.



This one seemed to hit all the right spots of great 80s/90s bad action. Great bad hair, fight scenes that were either solid or hilarious in their poorness-- one was so bad a stuntman apologizes for kicking Daniels too hard--, and atrocious dialog and acting that never carried on so long that it detracted from the fun factor. No, it's no Commando, but it works for a late night turn your brain off flick, or if you're looking to do a bad movie night centered around Gary Daniels. If you can't have fun with this one, maybe you need to take yourself less seriously.

This marks 30 tags for Gary Daniels, putting him with Dolph and Dudikoff as the only actors to hold that honor. This is definitely of lower quality than anything those two ever did, but therein lies its charm. Also, he has much longer hair than either of those two ever had. It's like bad hair band roadie length. I have a feeling, with all of the higher quality flicks that Daniels has taken smaller roles in lately, he probably wishes Netflix would get rid of all of these earlier ones. No such luck baby.



This film is indicative of Daniels' Cine Excel period, recycling a lot of the sets, actors, even scenes of films like American Streetfighter and Capital Punishment. I went back to my Capital Punishment post, and I had even more fun with that one, and it was even worse. They have a distinct amateurish quality, and you either dig that or you don't; but I think in terms of what people come to the DTVC for, or what they think of when they see the title Direct to Video Connoisseur, it's stuff like this more than anything that they're thinking of, and I'm good with that. Hey, if you can't find the fun in stuff like this, there's always the "Next Blog" button, because this is what we do here at the DTVC.

Daniels's old buddy is played by this older bald dude with a slow, deep voice. He gets into a fight with Daniels that's not quite as a nice as the one in They Live, but it's not bad either. He has four credits on imdb, and they're all Daniels flicks: this one, Capital Punishment, American Streetfighter, and Pocket Ninjas; but I don't remember him at all.



Speaking of that guy, you may have noticed that there aren't any pics of anybody but Daniels, and that includes the image page. I don't know, I figured what the hell, lets just load up on Daniels. The opening credits has a montage of clips of Daniels training and pointing a gun at imaginary objects, which was pretty sweet. I don't know why more Daniels films don't start like that-- and with footage from this film specifically, of course.

Now I'm rambling, so I should wrap this up. If you like fun, bad action from the late 80s/early 90s, this is for you, and if you can get it on DVD from Netflix, more power to you. I'm sure you can also find it cheap from Amazon or another used movie seller. Sometimes so bad it's good really doesn't work, but it does here.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101928/

Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel (1993)

When last we left off on the Ring of Fire series, part 1 ended with our hero, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, getting the girl, Maria Ford, and defeating her brother in a fight. I wasn't sure what to expect from a sequel, and to be honest, I didn't understand why there even was a sequel. I mean, part one wasn't screaming out for a follow up, was it? Was anyone saying "man, what happened to Vince Murdocco's character after the story ended?" or "does Ron Yuan continue to wear V-necks that go down to his bellybutton?" All these questions and more are answered here, in Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel.

Ring of Fire II takes place sometime after part 1 ended. We join our lovely couple in a jewelry store, picking out Maria Ford's engagement ring. But this is Wilson we're talking about, and "trouble seems to find him", and before you know it, a group of armed robbers bust in and shoot one of the clerks. They make a mistake in confronting Wilson, and he kicks a dude's ass. I'm not sure if it's that dude (who is also shot to death by the cops... I think), or the one who's blown up in a chase after, but one of them is Ian Jacklin's brother, and he ends up in the hospital, as does Ford when she's hit by a stray bullet in the robbery. Anyway, in an attempt to get their gang member back, they run into Wilson again, the brother dies in his hospital bed, and to get revenge, the kidnap Ford. Now Wilson has to brave the dangerous netherworldly Underground to find Jacklin, Evan Lurie, and the rest of the gang, so he can get Ford back.



I'm going to switch things up a bit here. Usually I start with what I liked, and then do what I didn't like. I think if I reverse it here, I can leave you with the impression that overall I had fun with this one. Anyway, here's what I didn't like. First and foremost, Maria Ford was totally wasted. In the opening scene she looks hot in her new red hair, and that's the last you see of her that hot. Whoever came up with the idea that "hey, let's get a hottie like Maria Ford, shoot her in the arm, have her look like crap after that, then have her kidnapped in that condition. Let's get tons of white make-up and have her look as pale as possible, and then barely put her on-screen."? Really dumb idea. Second, who decided it would be better to have Ian Jacklin as the number one baddie ahead of Evan Lurie? Seriously, you had both guys screen test, and that's the way you went? Another dumb idea. Finally, somehow in between parts 1 and 2, Ford's brother, who killed Wilson's brother in cold blood, is now friends with Wilson and his gang? And Murdocco too? We're supposed to buy total racist meatheads (and in the brother's case, a murderer) as good guys now? Wow, great idea.

Okay, so now that that's out of the way, let me get into the good. This was a lot of fun. It had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it, combined with a video game-style story, as Wilson moved from level to level, fighting tougher and tougher baddies. The music was great, the fights were solid, plus you had some amazing explosions. It is prevented from being perfect by the three main complaints I had above, but all in all it worked in that PM Entertainment kind of way. It had all the 1990 Bronx Warriors moments, from the guys on rollerblades, to the guys in silly outfits, all roaming underground for Wilson to contend with in some nice looking fights. The one-on-one showdown between Lurie and Wilson delivered, and the Jacklin one wasn't bad either, but not on that Lurie/Wilson level. Overall, this is good, just not as good as it could have been.



This was perfect Wilson though. Great fights, really nice guy forced to get tough with the bad guys who took his woman, and most importantly, hilariously acted dramatic scenes. This made up for the lack of Wilson fighting in part 1, and made up for it in a big way, giving us perhaps one of his best ever martial arts performances-- probably right behind Operation Cobra and Bloodfist IV. We're only ten films away now from getting all of Don's films up here at the DTVC, plus, this post marks his 20th tag, meaning when we're finally done reviewing his DTV movies, he'll have 30 total. Not a bad deal.

See how hot Maria Ford looks there? That's it for her after that. She still looks cute in the hospital bed, but when she's kidnapped, first she's shown with pale white skin, and then we barely see her for most of the rest of the film, until she's rescued by Wilson. Come on man, this is Maria Ford here. Why even cast her if this is what you're going to do? Here's what I would have done: first, she doesn't get shot at the jewelry store; when she's kidnapped, she's kidnapped at home; second, the baddies make her dress in the leather outfits the other women are wearing, maybe even really make-up her face too; finally, when she's forced to watch the fighting and is being menaced by the baddies, show it close up, don't give us these wide shots obscured by poor lighting and smoke. This is a DTV PM Entertainment movie starring Maria Ford, and as consumers, we expect her to be Maria Ford, and we expect to see Maria Ford. Otherwise, you're wasting our time.



DTVC favorite Evan Lurie plays the baddie's number two guy. I didn't realize this until midway through the movie, when Ian Jacklin is sitting on a throne, giving Lurie orders. I just naturally assumed Lurie would be the leader, right? Especially over Jacklin. Lurie is much better spoken, comes off as much more intelligent, and has more leadership potential, right? It takes a really sophisticated baddie, like John Sears from 90210 (see Martial Law II), to supplant Lurie as a head baddie. It looks like we have four DTV movies and a TV movie, and then that's it for Lurie, we'll have done all of his films. I don't know, it's a bittersweet thought. Of all the people we cover in all these posts, I think Lurie is the one I'd like to meet the most, the one I'd be the most starstruck in front of, the one I'd be most likely to buy a beer for. He's just that great.

Okay, so maybe that last paragraph let you in on why I was so upset that Jacklin was given head baddie status over Lurie, but the Ford complaint is a legitimate one, so if you're looking for her in this go somewhere else. As far as Wilson goes, this is some of his best. It's kind of Alice in Wonderland meets bad action, and on that score, it can be a lot of fun. Netflix doesn't have it, but you can get it used on DVD or VHS. How much you're willing to pay is up to you, but I'd say not too much.

PS
Ron Yuan does rock the V-neck that goes down to his bellybutton again.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107962/

Capital Punishment (1991)

I got this on accident, not that I wasn't going to review it eventually, I just wasn't expecting to have it as soon as I did. It was near the top of my Netflix queue, but not in first place, and the films above it weren't available like they were listed as being, and the next thing I knew I had an e-mail in my inbox telling me to expect Capital Punishment on Monday. Well, here it is.

Capital Punishment has DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels as an underground kickboxer who draws the attention of the DEA when his old sensei starts dealing Kick, some Taiwanese designer drug that is very addictive, and causes birth defects. The DEA is being controlled by another HOFer, agent David Carradine, who is in cahoots with the sensei to distribute the drugs in the country. As things unravel, Daniels finds himself increasingly tangled in a web of intrigue and deceit. Can he roundhouse his way out of it?



I have a feeling I'm going to take a hit on this one, but I liked Capital Punishment. I don't know, it just had this surreal quality, like one of those dreams that seems real, until elements occur here or there that don't fit. The scenes were put together in this way that made them almost like non sequiturs. There were no bumpers, no transitions, things just seemed to happen. One moment Daniels is being interrogated, the next he's in a hallway fighting thugs, then he's shot with a tranquilizer dart, and wakes up in his bed. People use words like "immune" as verbs, middle-aged businessmen know martial arts, Daniels kills some people and leaves some alive with no rhyme or reason, and some of the stuntmen wear clothes or recite lines that make absolutely no sense whatsoever-- like this one dude in a bright purple polo and red pajama pants among a gang of thugs that are all wearing black. The best way to describe it is, if Andy Kaufman made a 1990s bad action film, this is what it would look like. And I don't know, I loved it. It was tons of fun. Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age.

I don't know though, because if you go to my last however many Daniels posts, I haven't been too nice to them. At the very least here, they used him for his martial arts prowess, and didn't inundate us with bad dramatic sequences where Daniels' fighting was foregone for the sake of some misguided plot exposition. This was great because, even though the scenes seemed like maybe they didn't go together or came out of nowhere, he was getting into fights quite regularly, and his fights were tons of fun. In one he empties out a pay phone, puts the quarters in a sock, beats a dude with it, then spills the quarters out of the sock onto the dude, telling him "keep the change". Later, that guy comes back and throws some quarters at him, saying "I think you dropped these". Daniels thanks him by shoving a pool cue through his throat. This might not be Rage or Bloodmoon, but for my money it's pretty close, and for fans of old Daniels, you can't do much worse.



As for our other Hall of Famer in the film, David Carradine looks like he was in another movie, because he has two scenes with one of the other actors, Daniels' helper Linda Lightfoot, and the rest are of him by himself either on the phone, or behind the wheel of a truck. If you go back to the Martial Law II post, in the comments section Mr. Kenner from Movies in the Attic and I had a conversation about Billy Drago being grafted in like John Saxon in a bad Italian movie. I disagreed with him on that case, but in the case of Capital Punishment, I think we have a better example. If not for those two scenes with Linda Lightfoot, you'd say it was like Bela Lugosi in Plan Nine from Outer Space. I have to admit again, I actually liked that though. It just added to that fascinating surreal quality for me.

Daniels' sensei was played by Tadashi Yamashita. He's not quite the ninja star Sho Kosugi is, but he does all right. You may have remembered him as the Black Star Ninja in American Ninja. In Capital Punishment he was great. His scenes made almost no sense, not because his English was bad-- his English was the most coherent element!-- but because of what happened in them. He'd be in a business meeting with two prospective drug dealer/investors, and the thing would devolve into a fight with guys coming at him with martial arts moves, and him taking them down and breaking their necks. Part of me wonders what he thought of shooting on this movie. I mean, it must've helped that he didn't speak English that well, so as not to be too confused by what he was supposed to be doing.



I was trying to think of what to do for the seventh paragraph, and I decided on a second one devoted to Gary Daniels. This will be his 21st tag, which puts him in fourth all-time among actors, behind Dolph Lundgren, Lorenzo Lamas, and Michael Dudikoff. That number isn't as important as the number 50+ (okay, not really number, but you get the idea), because that's what Daniels could ultimately end up with when all is said and done. We like to call Dolph the Babe Ruth of DTV, well, that would make Daniels the Hank Aaron or Ken Griffey Jr. Right now he has six films in production, plus some others that will be out soon, like Tekken and Game of Death (which stars Wesley Snipes), so it's not like he's going to stop anytime soon either. The one argument one could make against him is that a lot of his tags come from really small roles, as opposed to Dolph, who is almost always the star of his films; but a tag is a tag, and Daniels is on pace to have the most.

I'm not sure if I can recommend this one. I loved it, yes, but in some sense it was from a weird fascination. I don't know, it felt like a Crispin Glover movie, the way things went together. But it was an action film, and a lot of fun. I guess you gotta ask yourself, what kind of action movie do I like? If you like them so bad they're good-- so weird they're fun-- this is your kind of movie.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101541/

Shootfighter: Fight to the Death (1992)

There was a post a while back where someone hit me with a comment saying something to the effect of "dude, you gotta get Shootfighter up here. Bolo Yeung, William Zabka, it's all good." I can't remember when, or what post, or even the actual comment, I just know it was a long time ago. Anyway, I finally tracked it down after a long time of searching, so here it is.

Shootfighter has Bolo Yeung as a former underground shootfighting great, who retires as a champ after seeing his buddy's throat ripped out in another fight by Martin Kove. In LA, he trains William Zabka in the world of legitimate fighting, while Zabka runs a dojo teaching kids martial arts to make ends meet. He gets into some trouble with a loan shark, and at the same time, his best friend and girlfriend's brother comes back into town. The best friend is more of a streetfighter, and he reminds Zabka that Zabka only knows how to fight for sport. These money issues and pride issues come to a head when Kove's men come calling, roping Zabka into fighting in their dangerous shootfighting circuit in Tijuana. Can Bolo Yeung get down there in time to save the day?



Hell, if he can swim to Hong Kong to escape communist China, he can get down to TJ, and when he does, it's pure awesome. Everything here is pure awesome. It is a little brutal, in a zombie movie kind of sense, with people having hearts ripped out, throats ripped out, and the skin on forearms bitten off. But it's done in that B-zombie movie kind of way that's more funny than sick-- it's just important to note that it's also R rated. Beyond that, the film really sets itself up as the film The Karate Kid should have been, i.e. totally awesome. Sure, Pat Morita is great, but he's no Bolo Yeung. Kove is still stellar as the head baddie, but then they cut out the Macchio role, allowing us to root for Zabka, which just works out so much better. Then you have all the great martial arts, the blood and gore, and a cameo from John Barrett. This is one of the best of the decade, and that's saying a lot considering it's a 90s movie.

And a huge part of that is Bolo Yeung. Whether he's putting mustard on French fries in Tiger Claws II, dressing like a woman in Breathing Fire, or throwing a crushed Alka Seltzer tablet in Jean-Claude Van Damme's face in Bloodsport, he's always great to watch. It's funny, because of his size and fierce scowl, he's usually cast as the baddie, when he actually makes a great good guy, as evidenced by his role here in Shootfighter.



Anyone who grew up in the 80s has to love William Zabka, right? On some levels, though he is on the side of the good guys here, he does channel that heel element that marked the early part of his career. This will be his third tag, the first two being Gale Force and Interceptor Force, but it won't be his last, because he does have some other DTV films to his credit, including the sequel to Shootfighter. As an aside, he has a cameo in Hot Tub Time Machine, a surprisingly great movie.

John Barrett is in this with a short cameo. I've never gotten why they don't use him in films like this for more than the cameo. I think he's great, a great actor, a great fighter. His one scene is kind of brutal, and it doesn't end well, but I loved the pants he had on. This was one of those early 90s "did he have to wear those pants?" kind of films, but Barrett's worked. I might be out on a limb on that one though.



I had two places I wanted to go with this paragraph. First, I wanted to lament the fact that I'd been to San Diego before, and didn't make it down to Tijuana, and this film reminded me of that regret. The other was a personal story based on Zabka's character's name, Ruben. I knew a kid named Ruben back in college. He was an interesting cat, he could tightrope walk, hitchhiked home from school-- which was over an hour away-- all sorts of crazy shit. Anyway, he told us this story about how he met this girl at a party, went back to her place, and hoped to hook up, but she wasn't ready to move that fast, so he slept on her couch. He's kind of disappointed, but thinking he has an in with this chick, only to be woken up by her gay male roommate trying to do him! He freaked and split from there in only his boxers. About three days after he tells us the story, a girl remarks to his roommate that she saw flowers in his room, and asked who his secret admirer was. "How do you know they weren't Ruben's?" he says, to which she replies "I don't think Ruben would get anything like that..." and one of my buddies jumps in and says "Oh, you'd be surprised what Ruben gets!" I told that story to some friends when I got home for the summer, and that became our catch all phrase, "you'd be surprised what Ruben gets!"

This can be tough to get at, but it's so worth it. In my mind, one of the best of the 1990s, and it's to bad it's taken me this long to get at it, but here we are now, better late than never. Also, have you noticed I write less on the ones that are really awesome than I do on the ones that I didn't like? Maybe I need to fix that in future posts.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105395/