Last Kumite (2024)

This is one Ty from Comeuppance and I covered on episode 202 of the DTVC Podcast, and with the names involved, it was only a matter of time before we got a review on the site as well. I addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, and Outlaw Vern have covered this as well.

Last Kumite has Mathis Landwehr (in English "Matty Country Defense") as Michael Rivers, youngest son of famous singer Johnny Rivers, and nicknamed "Bloody Rivers" because he's such a devastating fighter. After winning a tournament, he decides to bring his teenage daughter with him to the after party, which is held at a night club, and then decides to have her drive herself home alone while he hangs out with Matthias Hues. Hues wants Rivers to fight in his Kumite in Europe--and maybe get his dad to perform "Secret Agent Man" there as well--and while Rivers refuses, because he's such a great father, his daughter is easy pickin's for someone like Hues to snatch, and now Rivers is forced to get his Kumite on. Will he defeat Hues? And will his dad show up and perform?

This was a nice slice of all right. No, Michael "Bloody" Rivers wasn't the son of Johnny Rivers, but everything else in that synopsis is correct. Did we need the forced-to-fight angle? Probably not, but this film had a bouillabaisse approach to the material that I had to respect, even if we didn't get that Johnny Rivers performance. I mentioned that this had a lot of names above. We have three Hall of Famers, the aforementioned Hues, plus Cynthia Rothrock and Billy Blanks; plus familiar names Michel Qissi, Kurt McKinney, and Mike Möller (who was also fight choreographer); and if that wasn't enough, we had Bolo Yeung's son David, Stan Bush did some of the songs, and director/cinematographer Ross Clarkson has done a ton of great DTV action stuff, most notably many of Isaac Florentine's films with Scott Adkins. So they lined up a bunch of familiar talent, but not only that, they all got what the point of this was, and they delivered. There were definitely some tongue-in-cheek elements, but any that there were were done out of love, which is all us fans want. The hero, Landwehr, has plenty-good martial arts skills, plus fellow fighter Monia Moula was also really talented. Maybe after this they can give us a German buddy cop/cop on the edge kind of deal, they'd be great together in that. Finally, our big bad fighter that our hero had to defeat, Dracko (Mike Derudder), not only had a great name, but he was essentially a juice-head that someone picked up off of Seaside Heights, NJ. Maybe this had its flaws, and it was working on a tight budget, but overall it delivered for me.

While she had more of a supporting role, we have to start with Cynthia Rothrock, because she's our only 40 Club member in the film, this making her 45th film on the site. Her character was Dracko's original sensei, so she helps Bloody Rivers defeat him, because she doesn't like what he's become since leaving the Jersey Shore, and I don't blame her either--she had to beat the GTL out of him. We've seen some scant roles for her recently, like Darkness of Man, so it was good that here, even in a supporting part, she gets a good amount of screentime. At 45 films with a little less than half the year left, is the 50 Club a possibility by 2026? We'd have to do around one film a month for her, and while I have one in the can, Taken from Rio Bravo, and one I'm looking to watch over the next couple days, Black Creek, I don't know if she has enough left that we can do that I can get on a free streamer or one I already subscribe to. We'll see as the year goes on, but making her the fifth member of the 50 Club, and only the third actor, would be really cool.

Our other two Hall of Famers are Matthias Hues and Billy Blanks. Hues is just a straight up scenery chewing baddie, which is exactly what you want from him; and Blanks is a fantastic fight trainer, bringing us back to Showdown where he was great too. Between the two, Hues has been busier lately, with a bunch of stuff out there, some of which we'll probably cover at some point; but while Blanks doesn't have the quantity, he does have a Circuit sequel, Circuit 4: Faith Fighter, which is $2 to rent on Prime. I looked on IMDb, and it has one critic review. What? What are you doing Jalal Merhi? You should be sending that out to all of us so we can cover it. Of course I say that while I have a backlog of screeners I still need to catch up on. Anyway, great to see these two here, and they both turn in fantastic performances.

We should devote at least one paragraph to the film's star, Mathis Landwehr. This is our second time seeing him on the site, after 2017's Ultimate Justice. There's been a long line of next names since I started this site in 2007, and the only one who's really been able to break through is Scott Adkins. Compare that to all the names we've seen who were one or two and done. Matthew Reese in Riot for example. Tony Schiena has had come up a few times. Matt Mullins is another. Amy Johnston looked primed to be a bigger name, but we haven't seen her as much recently--though she is in the newest R. Ellis Frazier film, so we'll have to check that out. Probably the biggest of the ones who never quite made it is Johnny Messner, who now does more supporting work and producing. The thing is, the old guard is still getting after it, and as a result, there isn't as much room to break through as there was in the 90s. One advantage Landwehr might have is the fact that he lives in Germany, and can make a name for himself there first, especially if he's working with an extreme fight talent like Mike Möller. Germany all around has had a much more robust action ecosystem than we have. According to IMDb, he has a couple films in the hopper that look good, so I'll be excited to check them out. Who knows, we might have our next big name.

Finally, this is the Last Kumite. Whether or not this movie intends to put a bow on all Kumite movies, or if other adventurous filmmakers out there will defy this film's title and make further Kumite films, only time will tell. Maybe the next one will be the "New Kumite"? The thing about "Kumite," is the way it's spelled looks like Riunite. I haven't had that in forever, but I remember the commercials. Every time I hear "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb, I think "Riunite and it feels so good." The other song that gets in my head with this film's title is "Last Worthless Evening" by Don Henley. This is the last, kuuu-mi-teee, that you'll have to spend. A bit of a stretch, but tell my brain that when the earworm sets in. There's not always a rhyme or reason to it, but the earworm isn't any less real. As an aside, we always talk about the late 80s/early 90s as the golden age of DTV action. I think it was at least a silver age of Adult Contempo too, right? The late 70s/early 80s has to be the golden age, but when you hit like "Higher Love" in 1986, there's a good maybe seven or eight years of a new age of easy listening that made trips to the doctor's or the DMV much more pleasant. What a great time, I could watch a PM actioner, then turn on my radio and hear Michael Bolton and Kenny G charting. As Steve Winwood said so eloquently, I can light the night up with my soul on fire...

And while no one is really paying tribute to my self-styled silver age of adult contempo, at least here we get a nice tribute to the tournament actioners of that time. You can get it on Tubi as of my writing this, which is a great way to go. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode Ty and I did as well, number 202 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17351056

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

Terminator Woman (1993)

I first saw this during the movie block after WCW's Monday Night Nitro on TNT. That would've been about 12 years ago, and over time, I remembered the story, but who was in it was all jumbled up in my mind. I believe there was a Rowdy Roddy Piper film on that same night-- probably Immortal Combat-- and I ended up confusing the two, and after I tracked down that latter film, realized it wasn't this. Anyway, fast forward to now, when I find this great action movie site, Fist of the B-List, run by Karl Brezdin, and he's reviewing it. It was so great. I couldn't believe it had Jerry Trimble and Karen Sheperd in it and I'd forgotten that, but it didn't matter, it was mine now.

Terminator Woman has Trimble and Sheperd as two cops escorting a prisoner to Africa for extradition. He knows where $100 million in gold is stashed and his old boss, Michel Qissi (who also co-wrote and directed) wants it. What he does is kidnaps Sheperd, using a woman who does some white slavery work for him, thinking Trimble'll trade Sheperd for the guy. What he doesn't know is Sheperd is no damsel in distress, and his goons get more than they bargained for.



This is pretty sweet. Even the awkward dialog between Trimble and Sheperd about some mixed-gender karate competition kind of worked. Then you had the excellent martial arts scenes, which really delivered on all the talent, some various explosions and jump kicks to guys on dirt bikes, and Qissi as a fun baddie. My one qualm was a very out-of-place scene where Qissi kills the kid who's helping Trimnble's sister-- after he had already taken out her eye some time in the past. Though nothing is shown, it was an element of brutality in an otherwise very fun and offbeat movie. Had the rest of it not been so enjoyable, I would've had more of a problem, but in the end it was only a small issue.

This is pretty sweet Jerry Trimble. I'd go with Live by the Fist over this one, but maybe not anything else after. This just plays to a lot of Trimble's strengths: a frenetic fighting pace with little let up, clean-cut Southern looks, and a slick-talking sense of humor. According to imdb, most of his recent work, including the upcoming Green Hornet, is in bit parts as members of gangs-- essentially James Lew in most 1990s DTV actioners. I wonder if he looks at starring in lower-budget features today and thinks "been there, done that." Too bad, because it might be nice to see him in something new.



Terminator Woman is the second Karen Sheperd film we've done here, the first being Cyborg 2. This was a much bigger role, and a much better role. She doesn't have any where near as extensive the filmography that Cynthia Rothrock does, which is a shame, because she's about as good. What I really liked about this part was how she was using the classic damsel in distress device that pigeonholes women in action films to a limited participation in the film's outcome, and she bursts out of it. She's not playing a man's part though, not by any stretch, she's using this part to redefine what a woman is capable of contributing. She's kidnapped, and her captors think she's their damsel in distress, but she breaks out and lets them know that they picked up the wrong chick. The movie made a point of her getting away on her own, not being rescued by Trimble, which I thought was great. I have no problem with the damsel in distress device, I'm just saying for women like Rothrock and Sheperd, they're above it, they should be doing the rescuing.

Michel Qissi, as a first time director, did a pretty solid job. His fight choreography was on point as well. I didn't know this-- I don't know why I never bothered to look-- but he's not Tong Po in Kickboxer 4, except for in some of his archival footage. What could he have been doing in 1994 to have been too busy to reprise his role as Tong Po? Or did Albert Pyun not want him? Maybe Qissi was like "I want to direct it" and Pyun was like "um, no, that's what I do." Also, Terminator Woman reunites Qissi with his To the Death co-star Ted Le Plat.



By far, one of the best DTV action blocks on television was after WCW Monday Night Nitro on TNT, especially after the Mortal Kombat series with Daniel Bernhardt was canceled. I was in college then, and I remember us getting some beers in us and laughing at Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Diamond Dallas Page, and then that seamless transition into a great early 90s Dudikoff or Piper classic. I'm not surprised that TNT got rid of that kind of programming, because they found more money in "New Classics", but I am surprised that the proliferation of "men's channels" like Spike and G4 hasn't provided a late-night market for movies like this. I mean, I've never seen Attack of the Show, but is a rerun of it at 1AM better than American Ninja 4? (I do like Ninja Warrior though. Go Brian Orosco!)

This is a cheaper find on VHS than it is on DVD, but both are out there. I don't know if it's a must have, but it's a lot of fun, and if it ever were to be shown on TV again, it would be plenty worth your viewing. I'd say keep an eye out for it cheap, and then pull the trigger. Also, if you haven't checked out Fist of the B-List, you definitely should.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108313/