The Driver (2019)

In our goal of getting Mark Dacascos into the 30 Club by the end of the year, and in my attempt to take advantage of the cheap Starz subscription I've got right now, and considering I'd been meaning to do this one for a while anyway, I figured it was time to finally make it happen. Also, the screenplay was written by a fellow Pear Tree, so I have to support that. 

The Driver has DTVC Hall of Famer Mark Dacascos as "The Driver," also known as "Dad," a guy with a certain set of skills who works as the driver and head of security for a small community of people who have barricaded themselves against the zombie apocalypse. When things go sideways, The Driver has to escape with his daughter Bree (Noelani Dacascos). His plan is to take her to a place called "Haven," a possible myth, but also a possible safe zone where more humans are living away from the zombies. The thing working against him: he's been bitten, and only has so much time before he turns. This means he needs to take as much advantage of the time he has left to show his daughter how to take care of herself after he's no longer there.

This is Wych Kaos at his most Kaos-ian, which I think contributes to the low IMDb user rating despite me enjoying it. It's got action elements, it's got zombie elements, but then it has this human drama element that Kaosayananda really wants the movie to be about, and I don't even know that he wants to package the human element inside a zombie actioner, I think this is how he wants the movie to be. And the thing is, it all worked for me, but I think that's because I'd been seeing more of his work, not only as a director but a cinematographer, where I think he really earns his money, and I think because of that I have a better sense of how he wants to make a movie. The thing is though, how do you package that? You have Mark Dacascos in a great performance, but he's known for his next-level martial arts ability, not for acting opposite his real life daughter and playing a father who knows he's going to die soon and is teaching her how to shoot a gun. I think if people know going in that there's some of the Mark Dacascos action star, but overall it's more a dramatic role, at the very least fans of his would watch this and appreciate what he, Kaos, and everyone else were trying to do, and even if that's a slim audience, sometimes it's about making the movie you want to make and letting the audience come to it instead of thinking about the audience ahead of time. (Easy for me to say though, I'm not dealing with the savage reviews on IMDb after putting myself out there.)

We're now at 27 films for Mr. Dacascos, and out of those, this doesn't reach the highs of a Drive or Crying Freeman, and I'd probably put something like Sabotage above it too--though we get a callback to that movie when Dacascos is showing his daughter how to shoot with a scope, and he tells her to keep it away from her to avoid the "idiot cut"--but I thought his performance was a better realization of what he and Kaos were going for in One Night in Bangkok. Kaos really leans on Dacascos to make this movie work, and the sense I got in watching him was that Dacascos relished the opportunity to be leaned on like that. The other thing I thought he did a good job of was divorcing himself from his character, even though he was acting opposite his real life wife and daughter. There were moments where he had to pull from that reservoir to get the emotion he needed out, but this character is not exactly a good guy, and as the movie unfolds his humanity is revealed, which wins us over, but it's a strange alchemy that we don't generally get in a movie like this, and Dacascos had to work to walk that tightrope to make it a success. As I said above, if you're a fan of Dacascos you need to see this, and while it may not be a favorite, you'll at least appreciate the performance.

This is the fourth film Wych Kaosayananda's directed that we've reviewed on the site, with another three films of his that he was cinematographer as well, and I think it's that acumen as a cinematographer that makes his films so interesting. There are moments where he's literally telling the story through his cinematography, which is something I picked up on more here than in the other films of his I've watched, and like One Night in Bangkok, Dacascos is good at performing in these scenes where there isn't any dialog, and Kaos is using his cinematography to advance the plot. I went back to my reviews of the other three directed films of his we've covered, which in addition to One Night in Bangkok are Tekken 2 and Zero Tolerance, and I found that I wasn't as hard on them, especially the latter two, as I'd thought, so maybe by this fourth one I was primed to watch his movies and understand better his unique perspective to filmmaking. 

Another interesting element to this film is it was supposed to be the third film of a planned trilogy, of which the first film, Paradise Z, came out a year later, and the second film, The Rider, hasn't been shot yet, and isn't even listed as an in development credit for him on IMDb. What that means is, at the end when he's tying the three films together, because we're watching this out of order, it creates a deus ex machina moment as the characters from the other movies step in to help out the current characters when all hope appears to be lost, because we've never seen them before. I almost think it's more Kaos that they're out of order than if they'd been filmed and released in the order they were supposed to be. Eventually I'll see Paradise Z, and hopefully someday The Rider will be produced as well, because this first one was compelling, and I'd like to see how the rest of it plays out.

Finally, I mentioned in the first paragraph that a fellow Pear Tree wrote the screenplay for this, that's because my last name, Poirier, is French for Pear Tree, and the screenwriter for this was Steven Poirier. According to IMDb the only two films he's written are this and Paradise Z. In his IMDb bio, he said he's descended from Acadian French who came to Nova Scotia from France in the 17th century, and I had recently done some research on my lineage and discovered I too was descended from Acadian French who came here in the 17th century, only my line moved to Quebec in the 18th century. Wonders never cease, but it's great to see a Poirier making it happen.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This is currently in Starz Purgatory, but hopefully it'll be back on Tubi soon. I think if you're a Dacascos fan, this is worth checking out, you'll appreciate it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9272568

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985)

Last month Chris from Bulletproof Action asked if I'd like to be a part of the Sho Kosugi collaboration post he was putting together for Mr. Kosugi's birthday, and of course I was in; but I realized in looking at the films he wanted us to rank, I hadn't seen this one yet. A major oversight on my part, but now that I have I figured I'd review it myself. In addition to us and Chris at Bulletproof, this has also been covered by the guys at Comeuppance, Kenner at Movies in the Attic, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and Karl at Fist of the B-List. You can see how late to the party I am.

Nine Deaths of the Ninja has our hero Mr. Kosugi, as Spike Shinobi who, along with Brent Huff and Emilia Crow, are part of an elite anti-terrorist team. When a be-wheel-chaired former Nazi (Blackie Dammett) enlists a gang of women commandos led by a woman named Honey Hump (Regina Richardson) to hijack a tour group in the Philippines, former tennis pro Vijay Amritraj calls our team in as quickly as possible to take them down. But it's a race against time, as the baddie has a lot of hostages--including Kosugi's real-life kids, Shane and Kane--and he isn't afraid to kill them.

This is the fun ninja action that I'm looking for from something like this. Sure, we could've used more actual "ninja action," but between how much bonkers stuff is going on, and the solid 80s action quotient, it does what I need. Where do I start? Maybe the opening credits where Kosugi is demonstrating his martial arts techniques while scantily clad women are doing an interpretive dance routine around him. Or when the baddies first hijack the tour bus, and later that evening one of the grunts attempts to rape the tour guide, so a young Kane Kosugi runs up behind him and sets his blue undies ablaze, sending the guy running down the aisle while sparks appear to be shooting out of his buttocks through the underwear. Also, that tour guide's character name is listed as "tour guide." You've got Huff and Kosugi doing some kind of undercover work that doesn't always make sense, but somehow it gets them to where the baddies are. And then the head baddie himself, Blackie Dammett's Nazi in a wheelchair with a monkey in a diaper as a companion, only to be outdone by Regina Richardson as Honey Hump. So we have this fun ridiculousness, but at the same time, we have some great action sequences, like Kosugi undercover as an elderly gentleman doing some Old Man Fu while Huff is trying to hook up with a young lady that works for Amritraj; or the end scenes, which were fantastic. This is just a fun time all around.

We're at 8 Kosugi films on the site, but looking at his bio, there isn't much else after this. He did an 80s set in the 50s teen sex romp called Aloha Summer that's on YouTube that we could do, but that's about it. And I don't know that it matters. Sure, we'd love to have more Kosugi, but these 80s ninja actioners are so great in themselves that they have an outsized influence on the entire DTV action world beyond what another DTV star with only that many credits would've had. And while this may not quite touch the heights of his best ones, it delivers what you want, and in some ways because it's so much fun compared to some of his darker ones--I'm looking at you Pray for Death--it has a bit of an edge on those for me. His last film was 2009's Ninja Assassin, so if this is it for him, we really only have those 80s ninja films as his legacy, but what a legacy it is. Whenever I see one of those engagement-farm-y "name an actor who had a better run than..." posts on Twitter, I think for me I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with Kosugi's 80s ninja stuff against anyone else.

One interesting twist in this was Emilia Crow's character (credited as Emilia Lesniak). While Kosugi and Huff were more out in the field, she was the computer whiz, communications expert, and the person with all the intel that helps us with background on characters through plot exposition. Usually that part is reserved for a geekier looking guy, but I thought she did really well with it. There was also a sense that she had some sexual tension with both Huff and Kosugi, like we couldn't tell if she was jealous Huff was going on a date with the other woman, or if she didn't care because she wanted to hook up with Kosugi, or if she didn't care because she didn't want to hook up with either of them. Had this been an 80s TV show, they could've played on those interactions much more. What a cool idea for an 80s TV show, these three traveling the globe, taking out terrorists and other assorted baddies, with some Diane-and-Sam-style will-they-or-won't-they screwball comedy notes. It's kind of a reverse Three Kinds of Heat, but also a major missed opportunity.

Among the other names, this is Kane Kosugi's 8th film on the site, same as his father. When we think of someone paying their dues to get into the biz, Kosugi has to be up there, because he was playing hostages and kidnap victims quite a bit when he was younger. His collaborations with Kaos will probably get his tag count above his father's, especially with Kaos having something in post-production that also has DTVC Hall of Famer Peter Weller in it. This is also 8 films for Brent Huff--I found out as I was posting this that I forgot to tag him for 1997's The Bad Pack--which I also don't even remember reviewing! This was only a few years before Strike Commando 2, and while he spent much of the 80s and 90s in the DTV world, he's carved out a nice career for himself in modern TV, which is good to see. Then we had former tennis pro Vijay Amritraj, who from 1983 to 1986 did Octopussy, this, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Talk about your three-picture run, it doesn't get much better than that. Finally Blackie Dammett, who plays the main baddie, has been on here one other time, in the Wings Hauser-Sybil Danning thriller LA Bounty, which is easily one of the greatest films we've reviewed on site.

Finally, with only the one paragraph left, I wanted to mention Lisa Friedman as Tour Guide. According to IMDb, she only did two other films, the 1980 Woody Allen film Stardust Memories, where she played "Fan in the Lobby;" and the 1981 car race thriller King of the Mountain, where she played "Spandex Girl." "Tour Guide" is definitely a step up from those two, but considering what the role entailed, I feel like she deserved better--like maybe a name? She starts out just being a tour guide, as her name suggests, but when the bus is taken hostage, later in the evening there's the assault, where this gross guy puts tape over her mouth while she's sleeping, then drags her to the back of the bus to have his way with her, only to fortunately have Kane Kosugi save the day. Later that same baddie decides he's going to have his way with her again, so he takes her behind some rocks, where fortunately our heroes step in this time to save her. It's definitely great that she was saved both times--we've seen darker versions of movies like these think it's necessary to go all the way--but just the fact that she was put through the ringer like that tells me she deserves better than just "Tour Guide" for her character name. Here's to you Lisa Friedman, you were a trooper.

And with that let's wrap this up. You can get this on YouTube or Plex here in the States. YouTube might actually be better because the version isn't bad, and Plex is horrible with commercials. This is a fun, lighter Kosugi film, which I appreciated. It's also a bit on the bonkers side, which may work in its favor. Also don't forget to check out the Ranked Kosugi list on Bulletproof Action! It was a lot of fun, and I was glad I was able to contribute.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089689

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

Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge (2014)

I first saw this back in early 2015 when I did a solo podcast episode on it, and at that time I planned to give it a proper review as well. Unfortunately I went on an unplanned hiatus, and when I came back almost five years later, this wasn't on any of the streaming services. So I waited. And I waited. Until finally, in the summer of 2022, Tubi got it here in the US. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this as well.

Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge is supposed to be a prequel to the first movie? It has Kane Kosugi as Kazuya, who wakes up in a hotel room and has no idea who he is. A military SWAT team raids the hotel, and as he's escaping, he's captured by a commune led by Rade Serbedzija (and that will be the last time I type his full name in this review). Because Kazuya is blessed with a certain set of skills, Rade makes him work as a hit man for him, but when one of those hits is Bryan Fury (played again by DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels), Kazuya realizes there is a way out. At the same time, who is this mysterious Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa playing Heihachi Mishima that's lurking around spying on things? That can't be good, right?

The enigmatic Wych Kaosayananda, aka Kaos, strikes again. What he was going for here, it's hard to say, and I tried in the IMDb trivia to see if I could find out, but nothing was said about it. We have some good fights and kills by Kane Kosugi, but the same way Patty Smyth and Don Henley said "sometimes love just ain't enough," sometimes some good fights and kills by Kosugi just ain't enough. This did have two writers, so I don't know if that explains the story we got here, and perhaps Kaos's attempt to save it and make it coherent. To be fair, beyond the nicely shot action sequences, Kaos as cinematographer also had some well-framed moments like this, that almost made it stylistically something that worked in spite of itself, but not quite. The whole being caught by Rade and his bad commune and being forced to work for them thing is a tough sell in a movie; not to mention the whole main character has amnesia but we all know who he is is hard to pull off. When we were kids and we played basketball, sometimes if we missed we'd ask for a "do over," and I kinda think a Kaos-Kosugi-Daniels-Tagawa do over could yield some nice results here, and maybe divorced from the Tekken franchise it wouldn't have any expectations to live up to, so it could exist better as its own thing.

With this film Kane Kosugi finally gets his tag here at the DTVC, clocking in at 7 movies, which isn't bad. We first saw him on the site with his dad Sho in Black Eagle, the Van Damme film from the 80s, so he's come a long way since then. He doesn't do a ton of stuff, but his skills are legit, and seeing him in this, he could definitely be an action lead in more movies if he were cast in them. He did Ninja II and (technically did) Zero Tolerance with Scott Adkins, but I'd love to see the two of them team up in a high-octane actioner, maybe directed by any one of Isaac Florentine, Jesse V. Johnston, or Kaos. Like just watching the two of them tear through Bangkok would be fantastic. Kosugi brings a lot to the table in this role, and I think if it didn't have the expectations of the Tekken franchise, it might have worked even better for him--but the fact that it didn't work as well as it could have wasn't Kosugi's fault either.

Gary Daniels is now at 55 films here at the DTVC, which is second all-time behind Dolph. While we have Art Camacho, Albert Pyun, and Cannon Films in the 40 Club, the next closest actor is Cynthia Rothrock with 39 movies, so he's comfortably in second place. He isn't in this one much, but the one fight scene he has with Kosugi is 100% official, and I think that's all we can ask for from him. I was looking at what we have left, and I have two that are watched that I plan to mix in soon, and after that, it's waiting for his newer films to be available free to stream, his Christian movies to be available to stream, and a movie called A Stranger in Paradise with Catalina Sandino Moreno and Byron Mann to be available to stream, and we'll have them all. He's definitely bound for the 60 Club with Dolph, it's just a matter of when.

This is the third film directed by Kaos that we've done on the site, the other two being One Night in Bangkok and Zero Tolerance; but, he was also cinematographer on the one Daniels Christian film we've done so far, The Mark, and did additional camera work on the Seagal flick The Asian Connection. He has a very unique style in his storytelling, but then also really likes to have his camerawork and editing showcased as well. In this film there were moments when it worked--Kane Kosugi doesn't look bad walking in slowmotion like a hero in an old Western; but there can be moments when it's obtrusive too. I thought that was more evident in One Night in Bangkok, where letting the scenes breathe more would've helped; but in this movie where it looks like more than one story idea was being put together, maybe he needed to dress it up as much as he could. Either way, he's growing on me, and I'm looking forward to what he has next.

 

Finally, we have to get to my ultimate beef with this: it didn't correct the wrong committed in the first film, which was leaving the Kings out. If anyone could successfully mix in a Mexican wrestler with a jaguar mask, I'd think it'd be Kaos. He needed to come in and giantly swing Rade off the commune; or catch Kosugi in a frankensteiner. When I played Tekken Tag, I almost exclusively used King and Armor King, and won the majority of my matches; then in taking a look through a guide book on that game at a local bookstore, we discovered that they were unbalanced, and I wasn't as good as I thought, I was just using characters who were better. Is that why neither film has featured at least King? How would Kosugi beat him? I remember when people used Kazuya against me, with King I could grab his leg out of midair when he tried to spin kick me. I get it, what do you do with that? Even Kosugi would have trouble.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can stream Tekken 2 on Tubi here in the States. If you're looking for some sweet Kane Kosugi action, are a Daniels completist (me), or you're curious what Kaos has cooking here, this is worth it. Beyond that, it's a bit sauteed in wrong sauce, especially if you're looking for a Tekken tournament movie.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3462696

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

One Night in Bangkok (2020)

I saw this was available on HBO Max, and with us needing to get more from newly inducted Hall of Famer Mark Dacascos on the site, it seemed like a perfect match. By the same token, every time I see the title, I get the Murray Head song of the same name stuck in my dome. I haven't had it this bad since Mike Nelson sang the chorus while he and the 'bots were riffing on Alien from LA. Anyway, in addition to us, our friend Cam Sully reviewed this at Action Elite, Matt Spector covered it on Bulletproof Action, and it was done on Roger Ebert's site, so you can go to those places to see what they thought.

One Night in Bangkok is a remake of Collateral, with Dacascos as Kai, a Hawaiian hit man out for revenge. He gets picked up by a ride share driver, and tells her he'll give her six grand if she drives him around for the evening. With a sick brother, this sounds like a great deal for her, until each stop leaves Dacascos more bruised and bloody, making her wonder what he's up to and if this is a good idea. The thing is though, once you let Dacascos in, it's hard to quit him--we've all learned that over time.

 

Where do I go with this one? It's more of a slow burner, which isn't always a bad thing. Also, I was a fan of Dacascos taking on a role that was more than just mean-mugging and beating people up--though I love seeing him do that too. He takes the scene I took a screen of above, where he's just sitting outside the airport waiting for his ride, and makes it something I want to watch, which is not always easy to do. On the other hand, the runtime was a bit long; the director, Kaos, used a split screen effect at times that I felt was distracting and gimmicky; and the dialog left a little to be desired, which, when you're working on a slow-burner, it needs to be better since it's propping up the film more. In fact, there was a lot of non-speaking chemistry between Dacascos and the driver, played by Vanida Golten, and I felt like some of the scenes of them in the car together could have been better without dialog, especially with the great shots of Bangkok at night mixed in. Overall though, I liked this different take on Collateral, and the attempt to go outside the usual tone and style of an action movie, especially with how Dacascos took this part and really went for it.

This is not the first time Dacascos has played a more emotionally complex hit man, and one fun similarity that this film has to Crying Freeman, is Dacascos's wife, Julie Condra, whom he met on the set of that earlier movie, is in this as well--I won't give it away, but just mention she's in this and leave it at that. Again, I can't give away too much of what the movie's about in order to keep it fresh for you if you do decide to see it, which hampers my ability to go too far into why I liked Dacascos's performance, but the coolest part for me is that he's playing someone ten years older than him. We're so used to these aging action stars playing someone younger--Van Damme's character wasn't born in 1960, he was born in 1970; or Seagal playing a 60-year-old active duty soldier--for Dacascos to say "no, make me ten years older; make me a grandfather; don't give me the love scenes with the younger actress," to me is not only refreshing, but shows who he is as a professional. And the dialog issues I mentioned aside, I think he hits this out of the park, which makes it all the better.

 

This is the second Kaos-directed film we've done here at the DTVC, the other being Zero Tolerance with Adkins and Daniels. This one works better, but it has a similar narrative to the other film, so perhaps Kaos has a thing for fathers going on killing sprees for their daughters kinds of story lines. For me, what made this more, was how he made Bangkok a character in the way a Scorsese makes New York City a character. We're so used to Western directors making films in Asia and projecting this "mystery of the Orient" tone that's steeped in Western Imperialism--and to some extent, this is done in a lot of DTV films because the movies are made on the cheap and the studios want every cliche checked off to keep us Western audiences happy. In a way, even the title is a play on that tradition, because nothing typifies that more than the song that the film shares its name with. This is not to say we need to "cancel" all the DTV flicks shot in Asia that traffic in these stereotypes, rather, it's just another thing for us to recognize along with the boom mics and other gaffs we catch as we're watching them.

Kane Kosugi has a really small part in this, despite his name being on the cover. The thing is though, he was a really cool character, so it's kind of too bad he wasn't in it more. I think the issue is, as I watched the movie, I don't know how would Kaos have fit him in. One thing I noticed, is in the IMDb synopsis, and the Roger Ebert site review, Kosugi is incorrectly listed as the cop chasing Dacascos down--and the Ebert reviewer actually calls him "Shane Kosugi," so I wanted to clear that up for anyone who gets confused when they watch this. Another performance I liked in this was Prinya Intachai, who is actually the one who plays the cop chasing Dacascos. He brought a New York sensibility to the proceedings that I thought added a lot of flavor in away that hearkened back to an old hard-boiled NYC detective tradition.

 

Finally, one thing I liked about Dacascos's character was, not only was he Hawaiian, but it was brought up in the film specifically that he was Hawaiian. It's one thing for a movie or TV show that takes place in Hawaii to have Dacascos playing a Hawaiian, but here he was representing Hawaii in Thailand, which I know as a proud Hawaiian he must've appreciated. I also think it helped Kaos in his attempt to divorce this film from the constraints of Western Imperialism, as we're used to seeing the American or European go into Asia and beat up and/or kill a bunch of local baddies and save the girl. By having Dacascos say he's "Hawaiian", he's no longer the ugly American or representing the idea of American exceptionalism against Asia that he would've been if he'd said he was "American." 

All right, it's time to wrap this up. This is still available on HBO Max, and if you have it, I think it's worth checking out. It is a little long, the dialog is a little off, and I could have done without the split screen effect; but overall I liked what Kaos was going for here, and I liked how Dacascos took a part that stretched him as an actor and hit it out of the park.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12192190

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

Zero Tolerance aka 2 Guns: Zero Tolerance (2015)

I came across this looking up movies on my Roku player, and liked that it had Scott Adkins, DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, and Dustin Nguyen, who I'd seen in a lot of TV roles, but not as many DTV movies. This one was also covered by our friend Mitch at The Video Vacuum, so you can head over there to see what he thought of the film. Also, this is not to be confused with the PM Entertainment flick of the same name that had Robert Patrick in it.

Zero Tolerance was originally a movie called Angel that was recut with additional scenes. It stars Nguyen as a former CIA operative whose former CIA operative buddy, Sahajak Boonthanakit, let's him know when his daughter, Angel, is found dead. Nguyen, in looking for his daughter's killer, discovers she worked as a call girl, so he delves into Thailand's seedy underbelly, killing anyone who gets in his way on his search for the truth. Adkins and Gary Daniels have smaller supporting parts.

I don't know where to go with this one. I'm not saying it was horrible, but I don't know how well it worked either. It's kind of a search for vengeance with a twist, and there are elements of that that really work, especially when he's taking out a bunch of baddies. When he's just shooting guys who are doing nothing beyond sitting at a table in a gentleman's club, it's not so much. That's one issue with the recut nature of the film, while it's done really well so cinematically we don't know it happened, the film feels as if it's of split minds, not sure if it wants to be a tense revenge thriller, or a high octane actioner. Combine that with the idea that it's packaged like the latter only with tons of Scott Adkins, and I think people will come expecting at least Triple Threat, and will be left wanting.

In watching this, I feel like Dustin Nguyen could carry a DTV actioner. The one thing I didn't realize is he's going to be 58 this year. I have this image of him as a pure Gen Xer in 21 Jumpstreet, but he was a bit older than that then, and the fact that he's older may explain why the movie is more Gun Fu than hand to hand martial arts. The thing is, this movie wasn't really a straight ahead actioner, so it's hard to judge Nguyen based off of that. It would be good to see him as a cop on the edge in a Seattle shot in Vancouver, maybe with a partner like Ian Ziering who isn't as crazy but has his back, and a police chief like Pam Grier who tries to rein him in but knows his being on the edge also gets results. I like Dustin Nguyen in that role and think it could work.

Gary Daniels is the film's one Hall of Famer, and this marks his 48th film, putting him that much closer to the vaunted 50 Club; but this is another one out of his 40-plus films that doesn't feature him much. I think we'd hold this kind of thing against him more if he didn't have so many classics, but he does, so seeing him for a small role is more of a novelty when it happens. Just the same, this is another on his tally as he's making his way to being only the second ever person at the DTVC with 50 movies reviewed. He may pass Dolph for most all time, and these kinds of parts will definitely help him get there.

It's a rarity that it takes us this long to get to Scott Adkins in a movie, but like Daniels, he isn't in this much--more than Daniels, but still not the star or co-star the picture on the tin would have you believe. I think with so much great new Adkins out there, no one really has time for an Adkins bait-and-switch, even if this was after the fact in an attempt to save the movie after it didn't do so well. If you're going to have Adkins save your movie, it needs to be 100% Adkins. He needs to be Nguyen's new partner and needs three or four good fight scenes. That didn't really happen here unfortunately, and though what we had of him of his was good, it wasn't satisfying when you're coming into this expecting him to have a bigger role.

For this last paragraph, I wanted to spotlight Sahajak Boonthanakit, who plays Nguyen's partner in this--I know, I just said when Scott Adkins was grafted in to save the film he should have been Nguyen's partner, and now I want to spotlight Boonthanakit--though to be fair, does that cover at the top look like they wanted Boonthanakit as Nguyen's partner either? Anyway, the point is, Boonthanakit is someone we've seen on the DTVC before, in particular as Seagal's bad henchmen in Asian Connection, and I thought he was good here. The problem is, in the attempt to save the film, Adkins and Daniels were grafted in, and then we're like "who is this other guy they're spending so much time on?" Maybe we need to give Boonthanakit his own cop on the edge movie and see how he does with it?

Before I start handing out cop on the edge movies to everyone, it's time I wrapped this up. Don't fall for the old bait and switch like I did. Yes, Adkins is on the cover, yes it lists Gary Daniels in the cast, but ultimately this is a Dustin Nguyen/Sahajak Boonthanakit action thriller that was refurbished from a previous Dustin Nguyen/Sahajak Boonthanakit suspense thriller, and with all the great new Adkins out there, this should be further down your list.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3727690

Ninja II aka Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (2013)

This is a movie that I'd been looking to get to for some time, so when I started doing the DTVC podcast with Jamie, I saw this as a great opportunity to make it happen. On this episode we also had long time friend of the site Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List, who has a great site and was a great contributor to the pod. Speaking of friends of the site, our friend Mitch at The Video Vacuum also covered this, so you can go there to see what he thought of this flick.

Ninja II is a sequel to the first Ninja, where Isaac Florentine and Scott Adkins team up again to give us 90 minutes of pure awesome. Adkins's wife, Mika Hijii, is killed by a bad person, and Adkins naturally wants revenge. His revenge leads him to Thailand and the ninja dojo of friend Kane Kosugi. Turns out these killers are linked to a drug ring operating out of Myanmar run by Shun Sugata, which is where our ninja is headed to take care of business so bad that Myanmar is knocked back to being called Burma.

As I said, this is 90 minutes of pure awesome. Jamie loved it so much she watched it twice and put that pic of Adkins from the film beheading the baddie as her Facebook banner. All the complaints I made about the first one were erased. We had no Adkins running away, we had all Adkins as a bad ass performing in great fight scene after great fight scene. There is no shaky cam here, no special effects cheating, just good ol' fashioned well choreographed and well performed martial arts battles. For my money, this is one of the few modern flicks that can take the Pepsi Challenge with any of the greats from the 80s and 90s.

Let's start with Mr. Adkins, because he was perfect in the lead, and perfect as all of our new celebrity crushes. Jamie loved him, and you can see why. He's someone who grew up in the 80s like the rest of us, loving the films we love, and as such he brings that kind of commitment to the role, which comes out in the final project. When talking about who might be the head of the next wave to take over after the old guard retires (or we get sick of them!), Scott Adkins needs to be at the top of the list with Michael Jai White. The one thing I think we do need more of though: Adkins with his natural English accent.

Isaac Florentine has been directing great martial arts actions films for some time now, and seeing this I was reminded of just how important he is in keeping DTV action films the way we want them: good fights, well-choreographed and well-shot, and not a pile of shaky cam where we can't see and which is covering up for substandard fight scenes. Isaac Florentine, like Adkins, is a fan of martial arts films, in particular Hong Kong films from the 70s, and that shows in the way his films are done. We need to show these studios that we need more legit directors like Isaac Florentine, Albert Pyun, and John Hyams making these films; that it's not good enough to just throw a stuntman or set designer in for his or her first ever directorial debut, nor good enough to go in after the director is finished and edit the hell out of it. We need to speak with our wallets and support more Ninja IIs.

I want to go back to the discussion on Adkins being the next guard, and really overall the future of the action genre, not only in the DTV world, but also on the big screen. Since the Bourne Identity, where deft split-second edits were used to turn Matt Damon into an action lead, action films have been following suit, making action stars out of non-action folk, most notably now Liam Neeson; but also has allowed older action stars like Steven Seagal and Sylvester Stallone a longer action film shelf life.  How does a Scott Adkins break into the mainstream in this environment? He gets a part as the baddie's number 1 henchman in Expendables 2, and that's about the extent of it. Is DTV and Isaac Florentine flicks the best we can do? And on some levels, is that maybe better? I don't know, I think we need to get to a point where we're not just rumoring about Scott Adkins as Batman, but it's a reality.

Among the other stars in the film, as I mentioned above Mika Hijii returns to reprise her role from part 1. It's a very small part, and she gets most of her screen time in flashbacks. I have a hunch that if there's a third one, she'll be back, having used some kind of ninja magic to fake her death. You can't keep Mika Hijii away that long. As we mentioned above, Kane Kosugi plays Adkins's buddy. He's fantastic as well, and like many actions fans, we've been rockin' with him for a long time, since he (and we) were very young in the early 80s and he was in his father, Sho Kosugi's, films. When talking about Adkins potentially heading the next class of action stars to take over from the old guard, you need to put Kane Kosugi in there as well. His final scene with Adkins was spectacular. Finally, the great Shun Sugata plays the main baddie, and he's fantastic as well. Among the 100-plus films to his credit, the only other one we've done here is Bunraku, but I'm sure readers will know him for a variety of other things, from The Last Samurai to Kill Bill and Ichi the Killer.

Is there any question about where I'm going on this one? It's a must, especially now while it's on Instant. This is one of the best action films, DTV or otherwise, in the past ten years or so. Go check it out, or if you're like Jamie, you can go see it again, it's that good. I want to thank Karl again for coming on the podcast. Remember, you can check him out at Fist of the B-List. And as far as our podcast goes, subscribe on your favorite podcatcher, of follow the links in the sidebar.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2458106/

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/

Pray for Death (1985)

When this thing turned up on Hulu as I was looking up Shô Kosugi during my Ninja Assassin review, I figured it was a good idea to make it happen. Of course, it had been maybe 20 years since I'd seen it last, and I had this odd sense that it wasn't good, or that I didn't quite like it, but I couldn't remember why.

Pray for Death has Shô Kosugi as a Japanese businessman trying to leave behind his ninja past. He has an American wife and two kids, and when the wife suggests moving back to the States, he's all over the idea. When he gets here, though, he finds out the property they bought is in a bad part of town, and even worse, some local baddies hid an expensive necklace in a boarded up section of their new place, and when it goes missing, they take it out on Kosugi and his family. Kosugi wants to do things by the book, but the cops are little help, so he has to take matters into his own hands to protect his family.



Now I remember why I didn't like this. It was ten kinds of awesome in terms of great ninja action, and Kosugi brings it. What killed it for me was the film makers killing off Kosugi's wife. It's like, first the baddies kidnap his son, so he rescues him. Then they run over his wife and son, so he goes and threatens them to leave his family alone. Finally, after all that, they then kill off his wife. Jesus, why not burn down his house and send the IRS after him too while you're at it. And that made for an awesome last scene too, with Kosugi and his two sons at their mother's grave. That's what I want out of an action flick, a somber ending. Maybe they could mix in Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" while they're at it. Good work, guys.

We always talk about not wanting the plot to get in the way of the action in the sense of lowering the overall action quotient, but here what happened was the bad plot killed any fun the movie should've had. They wrote themselves into a corner to start with, when Kosugi invades the baddie's party boat, but then he leaves the head baddie alive, warning him not to mess with his family, because they really had nowhere to go from there. They also needed to kill off the wife to give us the baddie's ultimate death of getting sawed in half, which I guess we wouldn't buy if the head baddie just kidnapped the wife I guess. The thing is, we didn't buy it anyway because they didn't show it. What we needed was for the wife to be kidnapped from the hospital, Kosugi saves her, and the end scene is the family at their restaurant. Keep everything else, and this would be one of the best films of all time.



And a big reason for that was how awesome Shô Kosugi was, yet again. The martial arts were spot on, and his ninja costume was sweet as all get out. I think the biggest impediment to his overall success here in the States is his poor command of the English language. It's not an indictment on him, just a point of fact. Now he's 62, which puts him in that wise sensei category, which worked fine in Ninja Assassin, so maybe we'll get more of that from him. In this film, it was some of his best stuff, which makes it all the more annoying that his character couldn't get a break. I'm surprised after killing off his wife they also didn't have his fledgling restaurant destroyed by an earthquake or something.

I should probably get together a list of my rules for action films, because I got another one right here: kids look silly doing martial arts. Pray for Death features Kosugi's kids yet again, and when they're fighting bad guys, it looks too ridiculous for words-- not to mention, it takes away from time we could have of Kosugi's great martial arts skills. I mean, when we sign on for a Shô Kosugi film, we're signing on to watch him fight, not his kids. If I wanted that kind of thing, I'd rent 3 Ninjas.



One of the best parts of the film comes when Kosugi jumps over a truck. Real or not, it was great in an 80s 90s DTV action sort of way. The truth is, the film was more parts like that, and collected together make for an awesome film. Unfortunately, by killing off Kosugi's wife and his kids' mother, all that fun goes out the window. Sometimes these film makers just take themselves too seriously. Had this been made by Golan-Globus, you know it would've been much more fun.

And there you have it. This is great in terms of Shô Kosugi and his action; but the whole thing took a weird turn for me because the film makers just had to keep sending Kosugi's character through the ringer, ultimately killing his wife. I'm surprised they didn't also have him buy a winning lottery ticket, only to have it fly out of his hands when he finds out it's the jackpot.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089835/

Revenge of the Ninja (1983)

For our last post in our Golan-Globus week, it was decided that we needed to have a ninja movie. I had pretty much covered the American Ninja series, so those were out. Then there was Enter the Ninja, the first in the three part Ninja series, but that doesn't have a lot of actual ninja fighting, and Shô Kosugi was a bad guy and in it only at the beginning and the end. So it was settled, Revenge of the Ninja would be our ninja movie to end the week.

Revenge of the Ninja doesn't exactly take place after the first one, because Kosugi's beheaded at the end of that, and here he's a good guy. Anyway, his clan is slaughtered except for his mom and infant son, so a buddy from the States offers to put him up in Hollywood so the two can open an art exhibit. Turns out the friend is also a ninja, and he's using the store as a front to sell drugs. Shock, horror, gasp! Even worse, he's pissed off the mob, and they're kind of taking it out on Kosugi.



This is amazing. Very close to the first two American Ninjas in quality. Kosugi shines, and it was a much better move to focus the film around him instead of The 'Stash like they did in part one. Sure, it's extremely silly, but the question is, how exactly would you like your ninja film? I personally prefer them catching arrows with their teeth, having the capacity to store a Walmart sized inventory of weapons on their person, and the ability to dispatch anyone not trained in ninjitsu with relative ease. This also came correct with a great ending battle, where the bad guy somehow stored a few dummies of himself in the area, knowing he and Kosugi would be fighting there. From front to back, side to side, an amazing piece of cinema.

One advantage to having Kosugi not only in the protagonist role, but also fighting a guy without a moustache at the end, was that we were able to root for him. No one expected him to defeat The Stash in the first movie. Really, it was the only way we could accept him losing, I mean, it's understandable to take one on the chin to a guy with that kind of facial hair. But in Revenge of the Ninja, he was the real deal, and we were all better for it. This was also a much better use of his great skills than Black Eagle was. I'm curious to see what he does in the new Ninja Assassin, because imdb says he's in it. It better be good, that's all I have to say. They have a lot of great Golan-Globus ninja films to live up to.



A lot of people would write a film like this off as "cheesy". "Oh, look at that, you can see when he jumps off the building that he's bracing himself so he lands on the safety mat, then they cut away to him landing on his feet. That so cheesy!" Is it? Is it really? "That sword blade barely touched that guy, and now he's dead. That's so cheesy!" Is it? Is it really? I say it's awesome, that's what I say. I'd rather see a guy jump from a building then cut to his landing, than see him jump in front of a green screen. Maybe if Golan-Globus were still around today they'd be wearing the green screen out too, and I'd call them to the carpet for it just like I do the rest of today's film makers. Which was the better movie, the first Star Wars in 1977, or the one Lucas made in 1999 with all the computer shit? Call Revenge of the Ninja silly, call it ridiculous, call it fun, but don't ever call it cheesy.

I could've sworn John Miller from Undefeatable was in this as the police officer in charge or martial arts training who helps Kosugi out, but from imdb I can't tell. None of these bastards ever have pictures, and I never pay attention enough to the film to find out the characters names, so when I look them up, I'm like, "was that what that character's name was?" He looked a little rounder, but he delivered his lines in exactly the same way-- this kind of slow, halting style. I mean, I didn't see a John Miller in the Revenge credits, but who knows. Maybe I'm just losing it in my old age.



Before I wrap things up, I needed to mention a scene where Kosugi and the John Miller look alike take down the Village People. I'm not sure exactly what they were going for with that, but it was amazing. Cowboy in a blue outfit, sure, why not? "Look at the guy dressed like a cowboy. That's cheesy!" Is it?... okay, I'll stop.

Perhaps no film better embodies the Golan-Globus bouillabaisse sense of film making than this one. You had Native Americans, six-year-olds, and grandmothers all fighting at some point. People were stabbed, slashed, gouged, etc. in myriad ways. Plenty of car chases, fight scenes, and explosions too. It was a virtual cornucopia of amazing action without a hint of pretense. How else would you take your action?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086192/

Black Eagle (1988)

One of my favorite readers, Jill, is also a huge Van Damme fan, and she warned me that this is a dull film. "I know," I said, "but I still need to do them all for my blog." So I watched the trailer while Ian (another one of my favorite readers) was checking his mail, and I must confess, based on the trailer, it looked pretty hot.

Black Eagle is a Cold War spy vs. spy yawn fest starring Van Damme as a bad guy hatchet man for the Soviets who are in Malta trying to get some kind of weapon. Shô Kosugi is called in by the CIA despite his vacation to make sure this weapon or whatever is kept in safe hands. Stuff happens, Kosugi and Van Damme have a disappointing fight, and that's it.



Okay, so she was right, and it was dull. Very dull. But, at the DTVC, our job is to review everything, good and bad... and this was bad. First off, Kosugi was wasted. He had some good fight scenes, but his hair looked ridiculous and his clothes were worse. In one scene he was supposed to be this cool spy playing roulette with the hot chick spy working with him, in one of those tense Bond-esque scenes where the Soviets are at the same table, making small talk. The problem is, Kosugi looked like Ernie from My Three Sons. "Hey Uncle Charley, can we take out some Commies today?" And that fight at the end with Van Damme, what the hell was that? Two great martial artists, and you give us a boring stalemate? It looked like a couple karate guys on the local news advertising their dojo, only they weren't wearing their Gi with the company logo on the back. Lame, lame, lame.

You could see, though, in this effort in total lame-itude that Van Damme had talent. He was going to be somebody. I was looking for images of this on YouTube, and someone put a video of his first kill, which is in this movie. Why is that a big deal? I'm serious, who gives a shit who the first guy he faked killed in a movie is? Anyway, Bloodsport came out the same year as this, and Cyborg came out a year later, so he didn't have long to wait for his eventual fame. My friend at Movies in the Attic mentioned that Van Damme really came from the DTV world and made it big, as opposed to Dolph and Seagal, who started in the mainstream. It's something I never considered before, but it explains why he's been so reluctant to come to terms with his fall from the Big Time. He doesn't want to make another Black Eagle, and he feels like he's one Cyborg or Bloodsport away from making it back. He needs to be more pragmatic. If Val Kilmer and Cuba Gooding jr., are joining him in the ranks of the DTV, it means that's probably where he's fated to remain as well.



Shô Kosugi is someone I need to have more of up here, and I've known that for some time. Next week, when I do my Golan-Globus tribute, he'll be there with Enter the Ninja, so that should be good. If you're someone that's a fan, or looking to get into Kosugi, this isn't a great place to start. I am curious to see how he does in the new film Ninja Assassin. I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long to bring back Ninjas, since everything else from the 80s has been.

This film took place in Malta. I guess it's like a poor man's Sicily. That was the impression the film gave anyway. Good thing the Iron Curtain fell and Eastern Europe is becoming a part of Europe now, because I'd much rather have my low-budget actioners in Sofia or Bucharest. Malta, at least in this film, seems like the tired old country store of Europe, where people stop, look around, and then sigh and say "Geez, we better get back on the road.", and walk quickly to their cars and drive off, probably a little faster than necessary.



I don't really have a seventh paragraph for this movie, but I thought since I was bashing a Van Damme film, I might bring up some good news regarding him. In two weeks, when I hit my 400^th post, I'll be celebrating by outlining a Jean-Claude Van Damme film fest. I'll go over 8 of my favorites from him, most of them not DTV. It should be a fun time, much more fun than this snoozefest.

I'd almost go as far as to say even if you're a Van Damme completist, stay away. I probably should've skipped it for the review, despite the fact I want all of his DTV films up here. We still have No Retreat, No Surrender to do, and it looks like after we do that that will be it for a while, because The Eagle Path looks like it's coming out next never.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094750/