Crying Freeman (1995)

It's October at the DTVC, which means Hall of Fame month, and the first of our 2020 inductees is someone whose induction has probably been a long time coming, Mark Dacascos, and what better film to do as his induction post. I had been meaning to make this one happen for a while, and not only did I find it on YouTube, but now Prime has it. Among the many other people who have done this one, we have Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Cool Target, RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema, and Kenner at Movie's in the Attic, so you can see what they all thought as well.

Crying Freeman is based off of a comic of the same name, which has Dacascos as Freeman, a man turned into a killer by a Triad demon, but still maintains some of his humanity, which causes him to cry when he kills. After sparing the life of a woman who witnesses one of his hits (Julie Condra, who became his wife in real life after), Freeman decides to fight the Triad demons that turned him into a killer. The problem is, the Triads don't want to give up such a weapon, so they try to stop him from retiring. Will our hero get out alive?

 

This is the real deal. I think I have Drive as above this on my Dacascos list, but that's a high bar to be under and no knock on how great this is. To me it's a fantastic combination of style and substance that so few action films embrace fully; but this film not only embraces it, it lives in it. The real shame is that it was never released theatrically here in the States, because it holds up with some of the other 90s greats that got those big screen runs. Beyond Dacascos's performance, Christophe Gans as director brings a unique and compelling vision of the action genre which Dacascos appears to be in lockstep with; and then we have fantastic supporting performances by Mako, Byron Mann, Rae Dawn Chong, and Tcheky Karyo, among others. The whole thing just works.

And with this we're inducting Mark Dacascos into the DTVC Hall of Fame here in 2020. The reality is he probably should have been in sooner based on the career he's had and what he's brought to the table, but I went a few years where I didn't induct anyone, and then a few years where I didn't even post reviews, so that meant people like Dacascos who should have been in missed out, and I'm trying to make up for that starting with this year. When you think action lead, Dacascos is on the short list of the best to do it, and this film really drives that home. A well-deserved and long-overdue celebration of one of the best to do it, and if you're looking to get into his films, this is a great place to start.

 

Another great in this who could be someone to consider for a future induction is Mako, whom we last saw in the PM great A Dangerous Place. He doesn't have a big part in this, but he's still a welcomed sight. As I mentioned above, he was one of many great supporting actors in this, and while this is the Dacascos DTVC Hall of Fame celebration post, it is good to give some shine to actors like Mako who often take on supporting roles, but do them so well that it props up the great performances of the leads. Here's to you Mako, you were one of the great ones.

Again, with this being our Dacascos Hall of Fame celebration post, we also still have our continuing mission to get Byron Mann more recognition, so it's good to do that here in this paragraph. His part isn't as big in this, but he's still great. In looking at his IMDb bio, I'm seeing more major TV roles than DTV movies, which in a way is probably better for his career, but wouldn't it be nice to see him in a good DTV actioner? I know I paired him with Michael Jai White in a previous post, but why not Dacascos? Set it in Honolulu, make it a buddy cop thing, and let them get after it. I know a lot of people who would love to see something like that. They had a great fight scene together on the Netflix series Wu Assassins, along with Iko Uwais, which just makes us want more of that. Maybe Seagal on the tin gets views, but Dacascos and Mann get us to watch and spread the word to get more people to watch.

 

Getting back to Dacascos, sometimes we talk about how people end up doing more DTV stuff and less big screen films, and I think if you put this with Double Dragon you can see what happened for him: Double Dragon ended up being a flop, and this great one never made the big screen here in the States. By the same token, just because he didn't get the big screen leads he deserved, doesn't mean he hasn't had a great career, and I hope this post and his induction into the DTVC Hall of Fame will spotlight that. Dacascos really has been one of the best to do it, big screen or not, and he's provided a lot of great moments for us action fans over the years. Truly a well-deserved honor to get Dacascos in, and again, long overdue.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. Right now you can stream this on Prime. I can't think of a better way to watch this. And for more talk on Dacascos, you can go to the podcast, where I had Ty and Brett from Comeuppance on to discuss his films. It was a great conversation, and a great place to start for people who want to get more into Dacascos's movies.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112750

A Dangerous Place (1994)

I was looking up Bulletproof Action's Ultimate PM Entertainment Countdown (which features our friend Will at Exploding Helicopter as one of the panel) to see where they had Skyscraper, and I noticed I had seen all of their top ten except for this one. I mentioned that to Ty from Comeuppance Reviews, and he agreed that I needed to see it, so we're making it happen now. In addition to its inclusion on Bulletproof Action's PM list, it also has been reviewed by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, and Karl at Fist of the B-List, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought. Now, without any further ado...

A Dangerous Place is a take on the Karate Kid paradigm, and the twist is murder--and flipping cop cars, since it is PM after all. Ted Jan Roberts is a high school freshman, and when his older brother turns up dead, hanging from his school basketball hoop, Ted Jan doesn't buy the initial verdict that it's suicide, he thinks the bad karate crew his brother ran with, the Scorpions, had something to do with it. So he goes undercover to try and root out the truth. But will he find out before they discover his true motives?

This is definitely up there with some of the most fun PM. I have it tenth on my PM top ten list. First, Ted Jan Roberts is a great protagonist, he takes Macchio and gives him a SoCal feel that really works. Then you have Marshall Teague as the evil sensei of the Scorpions. No, he doesn't tell anyone that he fucked guys like them in prison, nor does he do a dance with a pool cue in a bar, but it's still Teague baddie all the way (spoiler alert: his throat stays intact in the film). Feldman as the head of the Scorpions is total Feldman crossed with Dylan McKay--his character's even named Dylan! In addition to them we have Mako as Roberts's sensei, Erin Gray as his mother, and Dick Van Patten as his principal (more on that later). It's like a PM ensemble cast! On top of all that, DTVC Hall of Famer Art Camacho's fight choreography and the classic PM car chase action sequences set this apart from your standard run of the mill Karate Kid knock-off. A PM Entertainment take on The Karate Kid could go one of two ways, and this one went the right way.

Ted Jan Roberts is only about five months younger than me, and may have even made the cut-off to be in the same class as me if we went to the same high school. It's a reminder I guess of how young I was when I was consuming films from this era. What I think made Roberts's character work here is that he's not bullied at all, he had been taking lessons for a long time before the film starts, and I think that makes a lot of difference in the paradigm--and Roberts had the skills in this to pull this kind of hero who isn't bullied off. This wasn't about Crane Kicks and "wax on, wax off," Roberts is like "I'm a practitioner, this is what I do," and when you combine that with what Art Camacho can do in choreographing fights, we don't care if Roberts is only 14, we're happy to see him get after it.

We last saw Corey Feldman here a little over 8 years ago, in 2012, when I did South Beach Academy as part of the Lost Video Archive's multi-blog James Hong dedication. As someone who's a self-professed Feldman fan, that feels like way too long. In this you can see he was definitely going more Luke Perry than William Zabka, but I don't think he was quite as old as Perry was when he did 90210. It's not a matter of whether or not I buy Feldman as a karate expert high school senior in 1994, it's a matter of whether or not if I buy him as a baddie, and he pulls that off for sure. No one ever questioned Feldman as an actor, and he reminds us of that here.

In the Comeuppance Reviews post on this, they describe Dick Van Patten's part as a "sit-down" role--and if he didn't stand up from his desk as the gentleman he is when Erin Gray walks in, it literally would have been a sit-down role. His character name is simply "Principal," which was either very precipitous that he would then have that occupation, or very lazy writing. Either way, when Van Patten doesn't know how to respond as Ted Jan Roberts, having just seen his dead brother hanging from the basketball hoop in the school gym, is crying in front of him, so he just makes awkward faces, you have to wonder how the Academy gave Martin Landau the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1994. I guess PM didn't screen this one for the voters.

Speaking of PM, part of what makes this so good is the PM Factor. In the opening sequence, Feldman and his Scorpions steal some dirt bikes out of a Buick dealership, and are chased by the cops. Just as I was thinking the chase was becoming excitement by repetition, the two cop cars are flipped over a water barrier. "You're welcome" PM says as I beg their forgiveness for ever doubting them. It's like the PM alchemy of great stunts, great fight choreography by the man, Art Camacho, and then this ensemble cast that they throw at us in waves so we never get bored; when you mix it all together in post you have more PM gold.

And I can't think of a better note to leave this on. As of my writing this, it's available on Prime and Tubi. If you're like I was and haven't seen this yet, do it. It's the fun PM flick you came for.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107696

Silent Assassins (1988)

In the quest to get more Sam Jones on the site, we're here with Silent Assassins.  The other names I liked in this were Linda Blair, Mako, and Phillip Rhee.  It just looked like a great low-budget 80s actioner.  Also, our buddy Ty at Comeuppance Reviews has done this one, so you can go there to see what he thought (this is definitely a Ty kind of flick).

Silent Assassins has Jones as Sam Kettle, an LA detective who goes to take down this horrible criminal, only to have all his partners killed as the bust goes bad.  He and his wife Linda Blair plan to move away to Colorado to start a new life, when this criminal kidnaps veteran old guy character actor Bill Erwin, who is a bio chemist, in order to get some heavy duty formula he has.  Now Jones is back on the case, along with Jun Chong, whose niece was kidnapped along with Erwin, and Rhee, whose dad, Mako, wants him to help.  Will they be enough to take down this criminal and his gang?



Yeah this is what you want here.  All kinds of good 80s, between the music, the clothes, and the cars; Sam Jones is all kinds of good Sam Jones; and then Rhee and Chong as the fight choreographers took this thing to another level.  It had its slow moments, but I think the 80s awesomeness allows it to transcend that; plus some of the scenes of Erwin and the girl in captivity were a little dark-- though there's the fascination aspect of Erwin, off-screen, having bamboo shoots shoved under his fingernails-- I mean, it's like the violent deconstruction of America's favorite grandpa.  Beyond that, the action is stellar and tons of fun.  Near the end, there's a scene where a baddie with a rocket launcher is on a rooftop, and Jones shoots him down and retrieves it.  Then we're teased for five minutes, and I'm like "come on, shoot it already!", but when he does it's so fantastic, like Tiger Woods fist pump worthy.  This is well worth checking out if you get the chance.

How do you not love Sam Jones?  Flat tops, five o'clock shadow, profile glances over up-turned collars, it's all great.  He was 34 when he did this, which is crazy, because I'm 34, and I still look like I'm 24, where he looked like a total dude.  In fact, I don't know anyone my age that's as much of a dude as he is in this.  I think Maximum Force might be the better movie, but this Jones is as good as it gets, and a definite watch for any fans of his.



Ty mentioned, and I concur, that Linda Blair's representation on the cover is very misleading.  She is not teaming up with Jones and taking out baddies.  She's his wife, and wants him to leave his life as a police officer.  At no point does she don a leather outfit, and only once does she use a gun.  Take that for what you want: a disappointment, a silly thing that happens in these 80s DTV actioners, or a bait-and-switch.  I liked her in this though, and she and Jones had great chemistry, which made them fun to watch.

Bill Erwin as the scientist was a trip.  First, he was in the film for more than I'm used to seeing him in a film; and second, he was tortured.  I don't know how many serious roles I've seen him in, but this was very serious here.  Again, he's America's favorite grandpa!  Looking at his imdb bio, before he died in 2010, he had over 200 film credits, and many of which came when he was much younger, so I wonder what he was as an actor before he was America's favorite grandpa.  Another late great talent in this is Mako, who played a former Yakuza member working as a businessman in LA.  He has a great samurai sword fight near the end that was great to see.  Gotta love Mako, and both he and Erwin have been, and will continue to be, missed.



Finally, Phillip Rhee and Jun Chong did the fight choreography in this, and it added another level to what would still have been a great 80s DTV actioner without their work.  They also did a great job of saving their best stuff for the end, almost like a fireworks display, and the finale was great.  We don't see a lot of Rhee throughout much of the film, but man, what we get near the end is plenty good; and I haven't seen much Chong before, and according to imdb he didn't do much, but like Rhee, he was great here too.  This is definitely a Sam Jones picture, but these guys played key roles, both on screen and behind the scenes.

This is out of print in the States, so used DVD or VHS is the way to go.  I think it's a must for collectors, but also one to keep your eye out for in bargain bins and whatnot.  For fans of late 80s/early 90s action, this is the kind of thing you want.  Great too for people like me that are still getting into Sam Jones led films.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096109/

Balance of Power aka Hidden Tiger (1996)

This one has been on Watch Instantly for a while, and with Billy Blanks, Mako, and James Lew in the cast, it was near the top of my queue. It was just a matter of finding the right spot for it, and this week worked out. Now let's see if it was what I expected. Also, our buddy Ty at Comeuppance Reviews did this one, about a year ago.

Balance of Power has Blanks as a guy in a poor urban neighborhood trying to keep kids off the streets and on the right path with his dojo in town. Problem is, James Lew, who is a fighter for a bad Japanese crime boss that sells the drugs that keeps Blanks's neighborhood in the dumps, expects Blanks to pay protection money to keep the dojo in business, and when Blanks refuses, he shoots and kills one of the neighborhood kids Blanks had been reforming. Enter Mako, Lew's sensei, and now Blanks's sensei, as he trains Blanks to fight in the Japanese crime boss's underground tournament, the idea being he beats Lew in the final fight after the boss bets all his money on Lew, and when he's bankrupt he's out of business. It's a crazy Grinchey idea that might just work.



I think this is the kind of movie people think of when they think of the DTVC. A low-budget 90s actioner, maybe not-so-much a video store find as much as a late night cable find, but tons of fun just the same. It has some solid martial arts, a traditional plot-- though this one has the added layer of Blanks trying to make a difference in the inner city--, and as many funny moments as it does quality ones. I mean, what do you do with James Lew fighting in a diaper? Or James Lew fighting in a diaper and shoving a guy's face in some bubbling Funky Cold Medina, a moat of which is inexplicably surrounding their fighting area? Yet you can't deny the sincerity in Blanks wanting to use the honor, discipline, and humility of martial arts to give kids in the inner city an alternative to the drug gangs as a means to make something of themselves; and you can't deny the sincerity of Blanks's performance and fighting skills. This is a good low-budget actioner for people who love low-budget actioners.

Say what you want about Blanks's acting ability, his genuineness is beyond reproach. I think the biggest impediment in this film to his acting is the fact that he has a lot of social messages he wants to get out there, but he's unable to mitigate fitting into the context of a plot messages that would come off much more naturally if Billy had us one-on-one in conversation. But, do we come to a Billy Blanks action film for acting, or do we come for his relentless approach to fight scenes? The latter of course, and he gives us that. Outside of a couple early on, we get more training montages with Mako than we do fights, but they build up as they go, so that each one in the tournament is better than the next, culminating in a great one with Lew, followed by an even better one with his boss. Also, I couldn't help but notice that Blanks would make a great Sagat in a Street Fighter adaptation, don't you think?



The main baddie's main henchman is played by what looks like a poor man's Nicholas Guest. He even has the English accent. I'd never seen him before, and figured, a poor man's Nicholas Guest, this must be his only credit. Not so fast, the guy's name is Adrian Hough, and he's been in like every syndicated and cable TV show since 1999. Wow, who'd a thunk there was that much call for a poor man's Nicholas Guest-- as I'm sure many of you are saying, "isn't the poor man's Nicholas Guest Nicholas Guest?" Apparently there's more than enough work out there for two of them.

Usually I talk about the film's nostalgia element in the next paragraph, but we saved that for something bigger-- much bigger. Anyway, as I mentioned above, Lew shoves a guy's face in what looks to be Funky Cold Medina. You better believe I looked up that video on YouTube. It may have been close to twenty years since the last time I'd seen it, and maybe ten since I'd last heard it. I was surprised at how well I remembered the lyrics, but I guess a lot of that stuff is like riding a bike, it's always there. Unfortunately, for the guy who had his face shoved in the Funky Cold Medina, he didn't get a lot of chicks, his face was just burned.



And that leaves us with this. It happened. Someone outdid David Bradley and his fanny pack from Cyborg Cop. James Lew, as you can see in that picture above, is wearing a diaper. What is he, one of those guys that fetishizes being a baby? I'd have given you a close up, but I want to keep my all ages status for the blog. I know James Lew didn't get a lot of opportunities for bigger parts like the one he got here, and we at the DTVC love him and love seeing him in stuff, but you needed to put your foot down at the diaper.

Overall, this is plenty of good ol' fashioned 90s bad action fun. If anyone reading this is thinking "you had me at Billy Blanks", then you'll get what you paid for with him, because he delivers. I'd get it while you can on Watch Instantly here in the States, otherwise you're looking for a VHS. Hidden Tiger is the UK DVD title, so anyone in Region 2 should look for it under that, though according to imdb it's Balance of Power in Germany, and might be that in the UK on VHS too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115618/

P.O.W.: The Escape aka Behind Enemy Lines aka Attack Force 'Nam (1986)

It has been a while since I'd made it out to do some thrift shopping, but I went recently and dug through the VHS section to find some gems. It was a different world from the one I'd remembered, with many more mainstream films from local video stores after they'd closed, not the kind of stuff a guy who runs a blog about Direct to Video movies could use. But I did find this bad boy, and for .99, it was a good one. Let's see if it made the trip worth it.

P.O.W.: The Escape is a Golan-Globus production of a Cannon flick starring DTVC Hall of Famer David Carradine as an Army colonel sent to rescue some soldiers from a POW camp in the waning days of the Vietnam War. It's a setup, and Carradine finds himself a prisoner among the troops he intended to save, including DTVC favorite Steve James and Philippine 'Namsploitation mainstay Jim Gaines. The man running the prison camp, Mako, has family in Miami that he'd like to join, so he cuts a deal with Carradine: you get me to Saigon, and then to America, and I'll help you escape. Things go wrong though, and now Carradine and his troops need to navigate the dangerous countryside and make it to the coast to rendezvous with some choppers that will get them the hell out of there.



Definitely worth the dollar, and probably worth a few more, this one delivered. Great Philippine 'Namsploitation from Cannon, plenty of exploding huts and other action, Carradine is great as the main hero, Mako as the baddie, and Steve James in a supporting role. Near the end there's a bit of dead spot on the way there, which could cause your buddies' ADD to act up, but if they can persevere, this is the kind of movie you came for. Just a lot of fun.

David Carradine was about fifty when this was made, and he did joke at one point "I'm getting too old for this shit", to which Steve James gave him a knowing smirk and head nod. He still carries the day with this "I get shit done" demeanor and screen presence, the kind of thing he took with him somewhat to Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, but was able to flourish much more in a role like this. By the end, when he's running around with a machine gun shooting up Filipino stuntmen, then he sees a tattered American flag flying on a pole that he takes down and drapes over his shoulder, we're all in and loving it. A great Carradine vehicle here.



Steve James has a smaller supporting role, but unlike his other supporting roles where it feels like he should be the main star, his character works better here as a guy supporting Caradine. His character gets who Carradine is right away, and Carradine's gets him, and they know that each other will make a great asset in getting the whole crew out alive. I just love Steve James so much, and he's great here. Also love Mako as the baddie. Unfortunately all three of this film's main stars are no longer with us.

Watching this, especially at the end with the American flag stuff, it had me thinking: what do people in other countries that watch these films think of that kind of thing? What about the 'Namsploitation genre in general. It has a certain connotation in the States, but 'Nam was our thing. Is it just that there's a universal language in exploding huts? Not only that, but a lot of them only exist today in the form of Japanese or Dutch VHS, so it's as if they're more popular abroad than they are here. It's fascinating, on top of the fact that movies themselves are often very fun. Any of my readers from outside the States, let me know what you think about this.



Speaking of Philippine 'Namsploitation, check out the dude to the right, Jim Gaines (credited as James Gaines). I'm sure if you've seen any amount of these films that you recognize him. Unfortunately, at least as far as I could tell, there was no Vic Diaz too, so that was a disappointment. Gaines only had a very small role, appearing in a few scenes, never having a close-up, and playing a character listed in the credits as "POW #5", but it's always fun to see guys like this in a movie like this.

This is on DVD under the Attack Force 'Nam title, or it can be found on VHS under P.O.W.: The Escape. I'm not so sure you need to go out of your way unless you're a big time collector and want to add it on VHS, but definitely, if you're making your way through a VHS bargain bin and see it, don't hesitate to pull the trigger. This is a worthy find.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091713/

Blood for Blood aka Midnight Man (1995)

I figured it was probably time to get more Lorenzo Lamas on this blog, so here we are. I'd been waiting on this one because it's on Hulu, and I'm not a big fan of Hulu as far as this kind of thing goes, i.e. watching a movie for a blog. It's hard to capture images, because there's a "Buffering" logo that remains on the screen during a pause, meaning I have to do a moving print screen and hope I caught the look I wanted at the right time. Then all the images are slightly different sizes, and the function to scan through scenes is not as user friendly as Netflix Watch Instantly. Anyway, probably more than you wanted to know about that kind of thing.

Blood for Blood is about a gang war in LA between the Russians and the Cambodians-- though none of the Cambodians are actual Cambodians. Anyway, foremost among these (non)Cambodians is Lorenzo Lamas, a cop who's brought in by a special task force so he can translate on a surveillance mission. And with that, things go bad, and Lamas is pulled in deep, so deep he has James Lew after him and his family. Will he survive? And what does Mako have to do with all of this?



This was a mess. Cambodians? Cambodian secret mystical warriors? And Lorenzo Lamas is one? All of that would be all right if the action were there, but it wasn't. In spots it was good, but overall we had big spots of stuff that I could've cared less about. When I think of a movie that did this well, Samurai Cop-- sans the bacon grease scene-- comes to mind. That's what this should've been, completely let loose and over the top. Do I want Lamas fighting Lew with his daughter crying to her mother in the next room? No, I want Lamas as a playboy that hits on as many women as possible and beats guys up with some mystical Cambodian energy that he's fully aware of and is carried off without any irony. All right, the Speedo scene in Samurai Cop was a bit much too, and we definitely don't need to see Lamas in a Speedo, but otherwise Samurai Cop would've been the way to go here.

Lamas isn't as bad an actor as movies like this make him out to be. When he gets a good script-- or he's allowed to be a baddie-- he's pretty good. But when he gets something rough like this one, where he's supposed to act on substandard, kitschy drama that has no business being in a bad actioner like this, it goes pear-shaped quick. Whose idea was it to saddle Lamas with this whole "I've never been in a shootout, I'm all stressed out about it" thing? And the family man crap was too much too. He needs to be single, flying in there by the seat of his pants, pushing the envelope, going completely against department regulations. And he can still be a secret Cambodian warrior, it'll just be a much more fun one.



James Lew, also not Cambodian, but playing one. He has some weird weapons in this too. One was a rope with a knot on each end, and he'd whirl it around and stuff. It looked pretty silly. Not as silly as the cape with blades on the end. That's a rough way to go, getting caped. Had this movie gone the Samurai Cop route, all of that stuff would've been great, but when you've been pounding me inside all night with crap about Lamas and his family and his bad dreams, I'm not going to take that fat one over the plate and hit it out-- I can only enjoy the fun stuff so much after all that pain.

Movie sucks? Better get Mako. And it almost worked. We needed more Mako though. We needed Lamas in a Mako led training montage. We needed Mako in Hawaiian shirts. Maybe Mako selling Italian ices near the beach, I don't know, we just needed more Mako. There was a lot of crap that this movie that didn't have to have that replacing it with Mako would've made better.



I'm not overly familiar with Cambodian culture, but I'm not so sure the people making this movie were either. There was no explanation why they were Cambodians, especially considering none of the actors playing Cambodians were Cambodians. There are not only so many cool things about Cambodia from a historical/cultural standpoint, but there is also a lot of turmoil due to the Pol Pot regime that could've been explored too. Again, what was the point of using Cambodians, if you're technically not going to use Cambodians?

It seems like Lamas has more stinkers than classics, and this is definitely in that former category. It wasn't just that it had limited action, it was the crap that went on when there wasn't action that hurt so much. Sometimes these actioners try too hard to be something other than an actioner, and as a result, we get something messier than it had to be.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110508/

Sworn to Justice (1996)

If you look up Cynthia Rothrock on Netflix, you'll see a sea of green, as in most of her films have been relegated to the dreaded "Saved" section of the site, meaning they are currently-- and probably will always be-- unavailable. Somehow this one has slipped through the cracks though, and I was able to get it on DVD from them. How long that will last, I don't know.

Sworn to Justice has Rothrock as a psychiatrist working as a consultant for a law firm. She comes home from vacation to find robbers in her house that have already killed her sister and nephew who were staying at her place while she was out of town. She fights them off, jumps out of her apartment, hits her head on a tree, and finds she has ESP. Armed with her psychic powers and too sweet martial arts skills, she's out for revenge, and I'd hate to get in her way.



I was torn on this one. On the one hand, it was a pretty big departure from the action flicks Rothrock usually does, where she's essentially a woman playing a man's part. Here she's a woman, wears a lot of hot outfits, and even has a love scene, which she's never done before. There were also some really nice fight scenes, and some really cool special appearances by Walter Koenig, Brad Dorif, and Mako-- plus Dawson's mom from Dawson's Creek. On the other hand, the plot fell off a bit and became bad Lifetime movie-esque. Brad Dourif's connection to the robbery that killed her family was a stretch, as was her best friend having an obsessive lesbian crush. There was also a sense that the intentions were good, but there was too much going on. They tried to go Jackie Chan martial arts comedy for one scene, but added a bunch of silly sound effects that made it too out of place and honestly kind of dumb-- which is too bad, because it was really choreographed well. Sometimes less is more-- though more fights and less plot would've been a better equation, because with a story like this, the more plot the more bad lifetime you get, and throwing in the martial arts scenes after that makes for a major identity crisis.

When I saw the Rothrock love scene, I was thinking "I don't remember seeing her in one of these before." As luck would have it, this came with a making of featurette, and in it she said she'd never done one before, so I was right. One the one hand I thought it was cool that she had a chance to do that, but on the other, I'm not sure I like the idea of any action star, male or female, doing the love scene. I was always of the opinion that in the male instance, it was one of the perks of the job-- love scene with the hot female lead, maybe two. In Van Damme's case, it was also a great moment to throw in the butt shot. I guess what I'm saying is, I like that she did it, and I like that her character could fall in love with a guy instead of just be one of the guys, but the love scene is a part of the action film that in general has to go.



Also in the featurette, the director made a point that I've always kind of noticed before, that action films are closer to musicals in terms of pacing and the way characters express themselves. When you think of good musicals though-- and I know most of you reading this blog don't!-- we're never allowed to go too far between numbers. And maybe that's why I get on action movies so much for getting lost in the plot, because they think they're making an art house flick, as opposed to something more like a musical where the dance routines are replaced by major ass kicking. As I mentioned above, this film wasn't too bad on the ratio, the problem was just that the plot outside of the action was so borderline Lifetime movie that the difference between the two, the action and the plot, made for a major identity crisis.

Art Camacho was one of three fight choreographers in this. Rothrock asked that Douglas Kung be flown in from Hong Kong, plus Eric Lee did some as well. You'd think there'd be a too many cooks in the kitchen thing with that, but the opposite was true, because a lot of this stuff was really great. One thing I didn't get though, was that Ian Jacklin had a cameo as a chop shop guy, and he gets his ass kicked without fighting by the main baddie. Why would you do that? Why not have him get after it? In that same vein, Vince Murdocco was a member of the baddie's gang, and he did more acting than fighting? Again, why would you do that? Murdocco isn't an actor because he can act, he's an actor because he's a champion martial artist. With the kind of choreography talent they had, we should've had some cool shit with these two, and we got nothing.



I wanted to finish this by discussing Rothrock's final thought in the featurette. She talked about how she wanted to be a role model for women everywhere and inspire them to take their own martial arts classes. It sounded like it was less for self-defense, and more about overall empowerment, but either way I think it's a solid message. Obviously not every woman is the kind of athlete she is, but the fact that she's out there at 5'5" doing all her own stunts is still pretty crazy, and she can sell that image of herself as a genuine one for other women to look at as more than just the girl who gets rescued by the hero-- or has to look like a man to be the hero.

I'm still kind of torn on this one. Definitely a must for Rothrock fans, because it is a very different kind of role for her, despite still being an action lead. The guest stars were great too, as were the fight scenes. It did have its drawbacks though, and I guess for me, I liked it in spite of that, but you may not. If anything, I'd get this through Netflix while you still can or another way that won't involve you making a huge financial investment.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117803/

Red Sun Rising (1994)

This is one that, as far as I can tell, hasn't been released on DVD here in the US (Amazon lists a Region 2 copy). I don't remember when I first saw it, but I believe it was on a cable station in the late 90s. It has a pretty stellar cast, including Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Terry Farrell, Mako, Michael Ironside, and the dubious claim that it was introducing us to James Lew-- more on that later. Oh, and it also has Jacqueline Obradors from Soldier Boyz-- Brophy!

Red Sun Rising has Wilson as a Tokyo detective who watches his partner, Albert Pyun mainstay Yuji Okumoto, get killed by the evil James Lew and his magical martial arts powers. Wilson tracks him and his boss to LA, where he encounters Farrell and Ironside at the local police department, not exactly helping him, but also worried about their own problems with a looming gang war. What does James Lew and his Japanese crime boss have to do with an impending gang war in LA? And can Wilson learn enough from Okumoto's uncle, played by Mako, to defeat Lew?



This was pretty fun. Funny, yes, but fun too. Wilson has some of his better fights, and he and Lew have some good ones at the end. Mako and Ironside were great in supporting roles, though I could've done with more Ironside. The stand out for me was Terry Farrell. She was great. She was hot as always, but also very funny, very good as a tough cop, and carried Wilson in the scenes that required him to do a lot of acting. That was huge, because it allowed Wilson to focus on the fight scenes. Sure, the whole idea of the mystical Japanese martial arts energy which manifested itself in the death poke was very silly, as were James Lew's blue contacts and too sweet mullet. It was good for what it was, a 1990s DTV actioner, and I'm not sure we can ask for anything more than that.

I think we've had a bit of a string of stinkers for Wilson at the DTVC, so it was good to have this one to break that up. It goes without saying that dramatic acting is not Wilson's strength on-screen, that it's his fighting ability that sells his films. What made Red Sun Rising so great, was that it recognized that, allowing him to take a back seat in scenes with Yuji Okumoto, Mako, and especially Farrell, then making sure he had ample opportunity to show us what he could do in the fight scenes. I like that, why make someone like Wilson, who's an athlete first, and actor second, have to do all the heavy lifting, when you have real professionals that can lead, and he can follow their lead, allowing him to react naturally, more than conjure up acting skills that aren't natural.



How do you not love Terry Farrell? Not just Deep Space Nine, but also in Becker, where she was great playing off Ted Danson. According to imdb, she dated Michael Dorn. Can you imagine that? Because they both have great voices, imagine the voice work empire they could've ruled. The funny thing is, I saw her on an episode of Family Ties recently, where she played hottie neighbor Liz Obeck. Great name, huh, Liz Obeck. Anyway, also on imdb, it says she retired from acting around 2002 to focus on her marriage and family.

This film makes a very dubious claim: that it is introducing James Lew. Even if one were to argue that the bulk of his work before that was in bit parts and stunt work, there was still American Ninja V, where he played the main enemy ninja. What, ninja roles don't count? Okay, maybe Red Sun Rising was made prior to AMV, but released after, I'll accept that. But then there's Mission of Justice, or Night of the Warrior, or his TJ Hooker guest spot. Sure, you guys introduced us to James Lew, wink wink, nudge nudge.



Finally, there's a great scene where James Lew blows up a car with a rocket launcher. There's just something about that, a man with a well-feathered mullet, rocking a heavy duster, with the lights of LA against the black of the night in the background, taking a rocket launcher out of a cheap industrial van, and blowing up a car with it-- especially in the early 90s. People often ask me what it is about these "bad movies" that I like so much, and it's that, all of that I just described. People who know, understand what I'm saying.

VHS is your best route for this one, unless you live outside the States, and then you might find it on DVD. I wouldn't go too far out of your way, because it's not that awesome, but if it pops up on cable late at night-- or even during the day-- you could do a lot worse than watching it. Just a solid 1990s DTV actioner.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107937/

RoboCop 3 (1993)

We're ending our celebration of the DTVC's 500th post with Robocop 3, perhaps the most infamous of the three films. Here we had a flying RoboCop, a softer gentler RoboCop petting precocious children sleeping on his lap, and a RoboCop coping with android ninjas. A great time.

RoboCop 3 has Robert Burke taking over for Peter Weller in the title role. OCP is trying to relocate Detroit's poorer citizens so they can create the Utopian Delta City. In their way is a small resistance group, and when OCP has trouble taking them out, they try to use their number one asset to ease the process along: RoboCop. Thing is, his prime directives won't let him do something so sinister, so he's now with the resistance. A Japanese firm buying out OCP doesn't like this, so they send their own secret weapon, android ninjas, to take care of him. It'll take everything RoboCop's got, plus some new toys, if he's going to take down OCP for good.



This was both the most expensive and least successful of the franchise, for a variety of reasons, but perhaps most importantly because it wasn't as good. 1993 was still a time when the Internet wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now, so word of mouth was the best way to sell a film like this, and once the first viewers came back with poor reviews, it was doomed. Not only that, Orion had massive financial troubles, which hampered the film's release and promotion. Can we be surprised this was disastrous? Probably not the way the series should've been wrapped up (before the mini-series, of course), but it's what happened.

I do like the film's overall message, especially with how relevant it is in today's political climate. In the early days of the Clinton Administration, the US was still getting over the 80s, the subsequent recession, and lack of success of trickle down economics versus the vast growth of the corporate world. Not to mention, American consumer products were getting lapped by their Japanese counterparts. There was a sense that the old way didn't work, and we needed to take American back from the old white haired geezers that put us in this mess. The world that RoboCop was born into in 1987 ceased to exist, which made the message of its third film even less tangible. Fast forward to 2010, and we see that the people who made RoboCop didn't plan on the corporation pulling a new weapon out of their arsenal: the AstroTurf Movement. Somehow corporations, disguised as outraged average Joes, have convinced people to protest and rally against their own best interests, supporting the corporate goals instead. What RoboCop 3 shows us, then, is that this whole idea that politicians are always bad, and businessmen are always good, is not exactly the case. Seeing people as numbers and potential profit margins leads to fascism as quickly as an extremely powerful central government. Funny that RoboCop 3 couldn't have predicted the Tea Bagger movement, but it did predict the response.



No Weller this time. He was making The Naked Lunch, and couldn't do both. I would say he made the right choice, considering how amazing The Naked Lunch was, but no Weller just gave the film less credibility, even if the film boasted 4 or 5 Seinfeld guest stars, the heel from Billy Madison Part One: Billy Madison, Rip Torn, and Mako. The most ridiculous scene for me came when the little girl rests her head on RoboCop's knee to fall asleep, and RoboCop affectionately pets her head. I wonder what Weller would've done with that scene. Could he have made it less silly? We'll never know.

This was the only RoboCop film to carry a PG-13 rating. Part of that might be a toned down level of violence, but it also might be a softening of the MPAA's standards too. Either way RoboCop's raison d'etre is extreme, comic book, satirical violence, and at the very least, this film's violence was not at all like that. It was very straight ahead action film in its manner, almost becoming the films RoboCop was parodying. I guess that's when we know the RoboCop films jumped the shark, right? Or maybe it was when RoboCop flew around with a jetpack strapped to his back.



I read on imdb that a new RoboCop is slated for 2011. I'm nervous about the prospect of that. Hollywood does not have a great track record of remaking 80s properties, and RoboCop was much better than its contemporaries to begin with. If Hollywood can't remake Friday the 13th properly, when all they had to do was put a big guy in a hockey mask and have him chase down teens with a machete, what will they do with the genius of nuance, humor, and satire the original RoboCop had? I shudder to think.

If you're watching the first two, why not make part three happen, right? For my money, one is in a completely different class, perhaps top 20 for its decade; two is a marked step down; and three is, as I said, a jumping of the shark. What RoboCop's lasting legacy is is hard to say because I don't know that another film like is has been made since. Maybe that's what makes it so great, that in the grand scheme of things, the film is sui generis. Not everything needs to be inspirational of influential in order to be fantastic. Sometimes being good on it's own is enough.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107978/

Rise aka Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

Some friends got this as a free rental from Hollywood video, and they brought it by. I didn't have anything else going on, so I was up for it. Good thing it was free.

Rise is about vampires. Lucy Liu stumbles across them while doing her journalist stuff, and two of them, one of whom is Carla Cugino, try to kill her. But she doesn't die, and instead becomes a vampire too. Now she's on a quest to kill the people that made her vampires, and luckily it didn't take her long to learn how to fight and use a continuously loading crossbow. Pursuing her is Michael "Dick" Chiklis, a cop after the people who killed his daughter. This also has a bunch of cameos from people like Nick Lachey, Marilyn Manson, Mako, former MTV VJ Simon Rex, the big guy from Mighty Ducks, the chick from Entourage with the short hair that was also in the Hanson video for "Penny and Me", and the dude who played the bounty hunter that fell in love with Pam Grier in Jackie Brown.



This was a boring assed movie. Scenes were just put together with some kind of loose connection that somehow formed a useless plot. What we saw was the unrated version, so I'm assuming that one was longer than the original. Maybe I could've saved myself some suffering. The film makers thought it would be cool to tell half the story in flashback mode. All that did was take a boring plot and make it more tedious. These people aren't Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski.

Vampires seem to be able to do different things in different films, and this one was no exception. Here, the vampires didn't seem to be stronger than other people, just immortal, I guess. They didn't have fangs, but used some kind of little knife instead to cut people's throats so they could suck their blood. Using the Blade standard for judging vampire films (that's my gold standard), this film sucked.



Lucy Liu was hot. She gets naked a couple times, but it's not that big of a deal: first she's in the morgue on a metal slab in a cooler, then she's hanging upside down. What's weirder to me is that she's in this sack of asscrack at all. I thought she had a deal with GM to advertise OnStar. I thought she was a Hollywood A-lister. I can't imagine she's still working with the same agent after this debacle. Come on Lucy Liu, you're better than that.

Mako is one of my favorite actors. Sadly he passed in 2006, and this was his last feature film. Many of you may remember him from Conan: The Destroyer and the third Highlander movie. In this he has a great scene where he and Lucy Liu beat the crap out of each other. He tried to smother her with a shower curtain, which was awesome. Probably the only redeeming part of the film.



This had a who's-who of other actors. You've got Michael "Dick" Chiklis of The Commish and now The Shield. My mom worked with a dude who I guess went to acting school with him. A cool feather in that guy's cap. I dug the Marylin Manson cameo personally. He didn't have much make-up or that weird contact lens he usually has on, which was cool. Nick Lachey was barely in it, much less than in the Hard Easy, like two scenes. Somehow all these people either had a bunch of favors called in by the film makers to get them in this, or they were sold a bill of goods telling them this film would be a hit. Poor them.

I'd only bother with this if you can get it free like my friends did. Any money spent would feel like a waste. Even for free, it's a hard recommendation, because it's so long (over two hours if you get the unrated) and so boring. Why put yourself through that if you don't have to. And if you're one of those cats that rents movies to see if the female leads get naked, again, Lucy Liu does, but it's not that big of a deal. I shouldn't say that, because if you are one of those kind of people, it would be kind of funny if you sat through the whole thing and was disappointed.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389328/