Phoenix (2023)

This is one Ty and I covered back in October on episode 136 of the podcast. We weren't sure what the film would be, but it wasn't anything that we ended up getting. I'll dive in on the review.

Phoenix is a Tubi Original directed by Daniel Zirilli that has Natalie Eva Marie (not "Saint") as Fiona, a soldier serving in Afghanistan who finds out from the general she's serving under (Neil McDonough) that her father (Randy Couture) has been murdered by a drug kingpin in Miami named Maxim (Oleg Prudius, not the magazine). She's granted leave and heads home to see if she can find out what happened. She dyes her hair pink so it matches her real hair color, and goes to work, leaving a path of destruction behind her, as she unlocks the mysteries of her father's death, and comes to terms with her complicated relationship with him. At the same time, Maxim won't go down without a fight, so he has a guy on his security team hire some former cops and other mercenaries to take her down. Will they succeed?

Ty and Brett always say cult classics can't be manufactured, they just happen. Samurai Cop, Miami Connection, The Room. And while I think we can say this wasn't meant to be on that level either, it also just happened, the thing is though, we have a catalog of competently created films by Daniel Zirilli that would make you think he'd be the last person to produce something that could belong in that pantheon. It was definitely produced on the quick, and that explains a lot of the line deliveries that seem off. One take and done, no matter how wooden or unnatural it sounds--though then you juxtapose it with someone like McDonough who can pull it off in one take, so his scenes with Natalie Eva Marie make her delivery seem even worse. On the other hand, as bonkers as this is, the underlying concept is a good one, a female-led John Wick, and in a production that had more time to shoot multiple takes on a bigger budget, Natalie Eva Marie would be great in that role. And in a weird way, that's what makes the whole thing work on a certain level, we have this bonkers dialog combined with a plot that's a bit all over the place, while we also have a lead that works and a basic premise that we'd want to see. Plus it's free to stream on Tubi, which always helps.

Daniel Zirilli is the only director who I've currently seen each of his last six films--when I finally see Dolph's Wanted Man he'll pass Zirilli on that, as I'll have seen his last 8--and none of the other five, plus two others of his I've seen from before then, Locked Down and Circle of Pain, are at this lower level of quality, so I have to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one that he had to rush it. It follows a common pattern that he's used in four of the five before this too: a lesser-experienced actor as the lead with a variety of other big names around them that he can put on the tin, and often he's taking a premise that was used in another film and putting a spin on it (Renegades is the one exception, but as a collaboration with Shogun Films it's unique in his filmography). I think with those other four, he had more time to shoot the scenes to get the dialog right, or make a call on removing dialog or a scene that didn't work; plus he had more people in those other films that could nail it on one take. But there were also story elements that were kind of wacky that didn't need to be there, like Maxim setting the mayor of Miami on fire. I guess the thing is, if you're going to have a rough outing, at least have it be interesting and a fun watch, and this one is definitely that.

Ty and I joked about Natalie Eva Marie's dialog delivery, but to be fair, she did well enough considering the circumstances. There's a scene that's a classic in the "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!" mold when Marie just starts screaming and breaking vases, and then the guy she's working with comes in and is like "is everything okay?" and she says "it's self-inflicted." If Zirilli wanted to make a movie with me in the lead I probably would've done that scene even worse, and I think if he'd had it to do over again he wouldn't have put her in that spot to do that scene, or didn't bother including it. On the other hand, she has this scene where she infiltrates Maxim's club in a long red dress, and starts taking out all of his men. It was the kind of thing that, in a better-produced project, would've been iconic, and at the very least tells us she can do this, and do it at a high level. Don "The Dragon" Wilson also had to work on the dramatic part of things when he was starting out, the key is I think as she's figuring it out, she needs parts where the film doesn't need her dramatic element as much. A great comparison we've seen recently is Most Dangerous Game, where CT from The Challenge had a similar level of experience to Marie. In that film, he was always paired with one of the experienced actors in the cast--Judd Nelson, Casper Van Dien, or Tom Berenger--plus Van Dien was such a fantastic scenery chewing baddie. One thing I didn't realize as well, is this isn't the first time we've seen her, she was also in Hard Kill, which I covered on my own "Mini Willis Fest" episode back in October of 2022, number 110 in the archives.

As we often see in a Zirilli film, there were a whole host of other names in this. Going off the Most Dangerous Game comp, Bai Ling was great as Scavenger, part of Maxim's inner circle, but she would've been better as the head baddie, and similar to how Van Dien offset CT's inexperience, if Ling was just told to crank the volume up to 11 and rip off the knob, it would've been a better counter to Marie's inexperience in delivering her lines. Ling's second in command was Phillip Tan, and he and Marie had a good fight that ends suddenly when she grabs a hammer and bashes his head in. We also had Randy Couture, who gets killed off at the beginning, and then we only see him in flashback sequences with another actress playing a younger version of Marie, so he and Marie never have any scenes together. His partner, who has even fewer scenes, is Chuck Zito, someone we see from time to time here at the DTVC. Finally, there's Neil McDonough, who we've only seen one other time on the site, in the Brian Bosworth flick One Tough Bastard aka One Man's Justice, which we covered all the way back on September 3, 2008. He seems to be in all kinds of DTV stuff now, so I imagine we'll see him again. Even in his scenes with Marie, I don't know how many they actually shot together, he just comes in, wears army fatigues, smokes a cigar, and talks about having intel on Maxim and his gang. Another thing we've seen in Zirilli films is teasing a sequel at the end, and in this case it gives us a sense that Marie becomes a part of McDonough's special forces team fighting human trafficking. What I'd like to see is this get combined with Invincible, and have Marie team up with Johnny Strong in a sequel to both films.

Finally, I've never been to Miami before--the closest I've gotten was Sunrise, which is north of it and technically part of the greater Miami metro area--but I used to listen to a sports radio show broadcast from there that's hosted by sportswriter Dan Le Batard, and on Fridays he does a segment titled "#BecauseMiami" with reporter Billy Corben that goes into all of the corruption and shady dealings that go on both behind the scenes and out in the open in Miami politics. With that in mind, the idea that this baddie Maxim needed to keep a customs inspector bound and gagged in his underwear in a shipping container to get him to play ball with all of Maxim's illicit shipments entering the Miami port, or even that he would need to burn the mayor alive to keep the mayor from taking him down, seemed unnecessary. I think both scenes could've been removed, and we would've just taken for granted "#BecauseMiami" instead of wondering how Maxim got away with everything. Miami is a fascinating city here in the States. It's a top 10 metro area, and with the climate it has and the amount of rich people living there, it should have the kind of status that a New York, Chicago, LA, or Bay Area has, but between the local corruption, and the fact that at the state level there's a fear of a metropolis like that controlling everything with its population and voting power, it has this artificial ceiling that it can't break through--and that state-level fear we see having a negative effect in other major cities' growth, like Dallas, Houston, here in Philly, and now with an emerging Atlanta. There are elements of that that could've played well in this. Instead of just burning the mayor alive, what if the mayor's looking to make Miami into something bigger, and he and Marie are uneasy allies with a common enemy in Maxim? And maybe there's a state-level actor like a gubernatorial candidate who's in cahoots with Maxim, because Maxim's criminal enterprise plays well with rural voters who fear crime in cities? In fact, outside of Marie's mention of stone crabs, there's nothing really uniquely Miami about this, which is something that I think could've been leaned into to prop the film up more.

And with that, I'll wrap this up. This is a Tubi Original, so Tubi is the way to go in the States. Unfortunately yes, it's something to include in a double-feature with a Samurai Cop or Miami Connection--the latter of which would be pretty apt since they both take place in Miami--but there were some positives to take from it as well beyond any so-bad-it's-good enjoyment.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28362655

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Extreme Honor (2001)

I saw this on Netflix, saw Olivier Gruner and Michael Ironside on the cover, checked it out on imdb and saw it had a bunch of other people too, and knew I had to get it. The Netflix synopsis gave me some pause, when it mentioned that Gruner was essentially the bad guy, but I figured there was enough star power to make up for that, right?

Extreme Honor is about a 300-pound pork roast of a man who is dumped from the Navy SEALs in a rather dubious decision requiring a massive leap of faith on our part. His son has cancer, and he needs to raise $5 million for some experimental treatment (I know, another leap of faith). So he breaks into evil billionaire Michael Ironside's and grabs the cash. Now Ironside wants revenge.



This film angered me, deeply. First and foremost, let's hit the bait-and-switch. It's not only an Olivier Gruner bait-and-switch-- he's barely in it for two scenes-- it's also a Michael Ironside bait-and-switch and a Michael Madsen bait-and-switch. All three mentioned on the cover, all three barely in the film for a quarter to half of it. The bait-and-switch was so obvious, in the DVD menu, in the biographies section, they don't even list the 300-pound pork roast who was supposed to be the star. Second, after the bait-and-switch, there was a serious lack of action. I mean, we're talking half-hour stretches of gratingly bad dramatic scenes about the most inane crap by people thinking they're pulling this crap off. Seriously, no one cares how the 300-pound pork roast is doing in his new job post Navy SEALs, if he's in a bar with his buddies, spend that 10 minutes with a bar fight. It is an action film, right? Third, kids, cancer, and action flicks do not mix. Totally sauteed in wrong sauce. And finally, speaking of sauteed in wrong sauce, who centers an action film around a 300-pound pork roast, and tries to sell him to us as a smooth Navy SEAL? What's next, Donald Gibb from Bloodsport will be the next James Bond? Bad, bad, anger-inducing bad.

That's right, egregious Olivier Gruner bait-and-switch. I mean, it wasn't even funny how bad it was. He's pretty much here for a little in the beginning, and then comes back in the end so he can be thrown around a hospital kitchen by a 300-pound pork roast. God damn it! I put this frickn' DVD in my queue for that shit? What about the poor saps who bought it. I almost feel like reporting the distributors and packagers of this sack of asscrack to the Better Business Bureau, because this is so dirty. Just look at that cover and tell me what you think the film is about. You'd think it's an Olivier Gruner asskicking fest, right? Highway robbery.



You might think by my constant use of the term "300-pound pork roast" that I'm picking on the lead too much. That would be the case, if the actual people selling this film had thought he was important enough to promote, or even put on the damn cover, since he's the lead. Hey, if it's not a big deal to them, then it's not a big deal to me, hence 300-pound pork roast. The other reason why I keep driving this home, is to elucidate how much his being cast for this part was so wrong. We've seen big guys in action leads really kill it-- One Man Force is an obvious example, but in that one, the lead, John Matsuzak, wasn't given to us as a smooth talking Navy SEAL, he was a big, boisterous, ass kicking cop, charging at guys with refrigerators and trashing his superior's desk yelling "fuck you!" Also, I don't know if you noticed this, but Matsuzak's face is all over the cover. Exactly.

This had some mega star power in cameo and supporting roles. We already mentioned Ironside and Madsen. Then there was Martin Kove, Charles Napier, Antonio Fargas, Philip Tan, Arnold Chon, Grand L. Bush, Sven Ole-Thorsen, and Edward Albert. All of these guys have been in a film reviewed at the DTVC at least once, and some of them multiple times. Michael Ironside was the closest to having more than a cameo, but, as much as he was great as the baddie, it was so poorly written that it did him as an actor a disservice. Our hero never at any time faced an obstacles in defeating him. Dude, you got Michael Ironside here, show some respect, write him a better part. I think with Michael Madsen, because he's an old buddy of the 300-pound pork roast, was there to make him seem cooler and less like a 300-pound pork roast. That move never works, as much as us guys like to think it would. If Michael Madsen was ever nice enough to hang out with me one night, I too wouldn't be any cooler, any more appealing to the ladies, just because he's so cool.



I wanted to wrap this up with a little what would you do paragraph. In this movie, all the guys in on the Ironside heist with the 300-pound pork roast got $1 million for their troubles, and they were told "no shopping sprees for 6 months", as in, chill out and don't call attention to yourselves. I don't think that would be such a problem. I'd probably catch a bus out of town somewhere, go to a city, spend a little here and there on food and what not, but nothing big. The biggest problem would be the hotel, because you'd need a credit card for that, and that leaves a paper trail. Depending on the time of year, one could hit a sporting goods store and grab a one-man tent and sleeping bag-- but you'd need a car to take advantage of campgrounds, and cars are always easy to track. Youth hostels? I'm too old for those. Nope, I'd be a sitting duck, waiting for Ironside's men to pick me off...

Stay away from this sack of asscrack. The lowness of the bait-and-switch alone makes this beneath your time and money, but beyond that, the movie is boring and poorly made. The sheer star power give this a siren song effect. Don't fall for it, they're barely in the flick, and all you're getting for your trouble is a 300-pound pork roast.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264606/

Mission of Justice aka Martial Law III (1992)

I knew I wanted to look at some more Jeff Wincott movies, and I was trying to think of something to do after Martial Law II, and I saw Mission of Justice over at Straight-to-DVD-Heaven, a great site run by Lee Nicholson from Middlesbrough in the UK (if you remember, that's where The Tournament, starring Ving Rhames, took place). As an aside, a few years back, when I was living in Portland, ME, our cable man was from Middlesbrough. He saw me in my Arsenal jersey and was like "whoa, you watch the EPL? I'm from Middlesbrough" and I'm thinking "my cable man is from Middlesbrough?"

Mission of Justice was originally conceived as a sequel to Martial Law II, until Cynthia Rothrock pulled out and they went with Karen Sheperd instead. She and Wincott play beat cops, when a guy who they arrested for beating his girlfriend is released by their shit-heel sergeant because the guy was a good snitch, and the snitch proceeds to go home and beat said girlfriend to death. Wincott quits the force, and joins up with shady politician Brigitte Nielsen's Mission of Justice cult/vigilante group. He does this because he suspects they had something to do with his ex-boxing champ buddy's murder. Now he's killing two birds with one stone, by bringing down his friend's killer, and sticking it to his asshole former superior.



Wincott does it again. Great, great stuff here. In one scene, he's being initiated into Nielsen's Mission of Justice, and he has to survive this gauntlet of 20 guys wielding batons. He takes the batons they give him, and throws them into the middle, turning away like he wants nothing to do with it. Matthias Hues and James Lew, Nielsen's main henchmen, look on in disdain, thinking, "we knew this dude was a total tool." Then he charges back to the gauntlet, does a few flips into the middle, picks up his sticks, and delivers a major hurting on everyone. I don't know who came up with that, but that person is near the top of my all time awesome book. And the film just gets better from there, culminating in a too sweet knock down, drag 'em out final brawl between Wincott and Hues. Not as good as it's intended predecessor, Martial II, but still pretty great.

Wincott is often lost in the shuffle here at the DTVC, in part because he's not in the Hall of Fame, and so his films drop some in priority. I know that shouldn't be the case, because I can't remember the last Wincott film that wasn't awesome, can you? The next question is, if he has so many wins like this, why is he not in the Hall of Fame? Well, we just have to get more of his films up, and it will happen in time. His DTV filmography is somewhat diluted by a lot of TV roles and bit parts in feature films, so he might not have enough movies to get in too. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, enjoy how sweet he is in this one.



I was surprised to find out this will only be the seventh Matthias Hues we've done on here. Maybe it's because he's so large that I thought we'd done more. He's excellent in this as Nielsen's brother/hatchetman, especially in that end fight with Wincott. It's one of those ones too where it's being sold to us from the beginning, from the first time we learn that Hues is in the movie, we know what we're getting at the end, and Mission of Justice doesn't fail to deliver. I wonder, though, with Hues playing a baddie all the time, does he ever wonder how many of these dudes he can actually take in a fight? A guy with his size and speed probably has no question-- maybe only Dolph Lundgren would have that same unique combination, and in I Come in Peace, Hues was playing a super-strong alien, so they never had a man-to-man style fight.

Karen Sheperd is solid in her part as Wincott's partner, but it's not a huge role, so in that sense it's something of a disappointment. I wonder if the role was always supposed to be small, and that's why Rothrock turned it down. She gets a few good fights against some dudes, but it's in the final one with Nielsen's number one female fighter that she really gets after it. Great stuff, just too bad there wasn't more of it.



Finally, Brigitte Nielsen played the head baddie, the classic corrupt politician, only this time it wasn't a white male in the part. In the Circle of Death post, I mentioned how Bai Ling said her part, also as the main baddie, would have been an old white man character, and how forward thinking it was that she was cast in that role instead. Same thing here with Nielsen, only she's been a baddie before, in some much bigger films, like Rocky IV and Beverly Hills Cop II. One thing I noticed in this, that I'd never noticed before with her, is how skinny her legs are-- at least in 1992. Wow, they'd rival Bai Ling's.

All right, before I get way off track, let's wrap this up. Not the level of Martial II, but definitely up there. Wincott brings it, Sheperd is good when she's there, and Hues and Nielsen as baddies were great. As far as I can tell, here in the States, the movie is only available on VHS, but if you're in the Region 2 zone, you can get it on DVD. If you come across it, I'd go for it. Also, if you haven't already, go check out Straight-to-DVD-Heaven.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104888/

Martial Law (1991)

This is not a film based on the hit Samo Hung/Arsenio Hall crime dramedy from the late 90s (which also starred the always hot Kelly Hu), in fact, none of those three are in this film. What it does have is DTVC Hall of Famer Cynthia Rothrock, 2010 class inductee David Carradine, and the ever charming Philip Tan, for once sporting his natural British accent. Oh yeah, and Chad McQueen, listed on the cover as Richard Brandes. Okay, that makes--huh? This was also covered by Comeuppance, Bulletproof, The Video Vacuum, and Fist of the B List.

Martial Law stars McQueen as a cop, known as Martial Law, because he kicks mad ass. He has a younger brother, a total delinquent, who falls in in a bad way with Carradine's gang. Rothrock is McQueen's girlfriend/vice cop, and when she finds a couple bodies killed through an ancient Chinese martial arts strike to the chest, McQueen, upon being assigned the case, insists on Rothrock being assigned as his partner. Partners in kicking ass is more like it.

This is very solid late 80s/early 90s DTV action cheese. First you have the amazing music. In one scene, after Rothrock chases after a baddie, the cop with her exclaims "is she crazy?" With that blazing electric guitar screaming in the background, how can she not be? Then there was the upbeat smooth jazz throughout the film that sounded like something you'd hear in one of those baseball highlight videos, you know the kind, with the distorted colors, multiple replays, and then the image turning into a flying square, a la the Superman II parallelogram imprisoning Terrance Stamp, with the next highlight flying in to take its place. It was simply fantastic. Second, there were great fight scenes with McQueen, Rothrock, Carradine, and even Tan. Maybe there could've been more or more explosions and car chases, but considering how silly the overall product was, this fighting was plenty good enough. Finally, you have that silliness factor. McQueen's outfits alone were worth the price of admission. Sweet mullets and porno 'stashes on the stunt men, dialog that makes your average Lifetime Movie of the Week sound like a Pinter play, and last but not least, at the very end of the credits, the film's date is given as "MXCXXXX" (you can check that out at the image page). Exhibit A as to why you should always watch the credits.

Rothrock isn't the lead in this, but unlike Firepower, which billed Gary Daniels as the lead there, only to have it be Chad McQueen, because this one didn't sell that, I was okay with McQueen getting more of the action. Obviously though, if I had a choice, I'd take Rothrock over McQueen any day. While she's on-screen, though, she's excellent, which is all you can ask for. One great scene had her and McQueen fighting baddies in a night club, and this big dude comes at McQueen and he's like "uh oh...", then we see Rothrock and it's like "dude, everyone she fights is bigger than her!" While I was on hiatus, Salt came out in the theaters, and ESPN's First Take, during their roundtable debate segment, "1st and Ten", discussed who the best action movie chick of all time was, and Skip Bayless, who is a self-styled action movie fan, didn't once mention Rothrock. Sorry, but no one can call him or herself an action movie fan, and not mention Cynthia Rothrock, not only as the number one female action star ever, but one of the best action stars ever period. Sorry Angelina Jolie and Mila Jovovich, you have a ways to go.

In 2010 we are adding two new members to the DTVC Hall of Fame, late director Cirio H. Santiago, and late actor David Carradine. Both guys should've been in a long time ago. Let's focus on Carradine here for right now though. Considering he was a hero in his TV life, he was always a great baddie, and this film is no exception. With over 200 acting credits to his name, and the variety of roles he took, he embodies that DTV spirit of just doing any role as long as the money was right that we love here at the DTVC, especially since he always took every role seriously, even if it was a comedic one, like in Crank 2: High Voltage.

I believe this will be Phillip Tan's seventh film here, and we will finally be tagging him. Often, he plays a henchman or sleazy con man type, and just as often, he speaks with an Asian accent. Though he was Carradine's right hand man here as well, he spoke in his natural British accent, and he also showed off his martial arts skills. Both great, and both things we'll hopefully see when we do more movies that have him in them in the future-- though I doubt it. His smaller size seems to play better for the sleazy con man than the Brit who can fight, and I imagine the main reason they used his skills here was so he could fight Rothrock at the end. As an aside, Tan starred in both this, and the TV show Martial Law.

You may have noticed if you've been checking the image pages for some of my posts recently, that I've been capturing production and distribution company logos as well (you can get to a review's image page by clicking on any of the pics in that post. Not every review has one, but for the ones that do, there's usually four or five more pics that don't make the actual review). These old (are they that old, 20 years?) screens just add to that old (is it that old either, ten years ago?) video store ambiance. Even as recently as 2001-2002, one of our local video stores had tons of VHS greats we could choose from, not just these DTV cheesefests, but also classics, and not-old-enough to be classics from the 80s. We just took for granted that that world would always exist, that there'd always be a place to get Dolph Lundgren's Pentathlon, or Mr. T's Be Someone of Be Somebody's Fool, and though I love Netflix, the fact that they and DVDs and iTunes and ONDemand have obliterated that world, and did it in a relatively short period of time, is disheartening. Part of what we like to do here is spotlight new DTV releases, because the rise of quality (and not-s0-quality) new movies going direct to video in recent years has been great; but also, we like to look back and remember what got a lot of us into this kind of thing, those trips to the video store combined with loads of pizza, junk food, and Mountain Dew (or later on, beer), a night where we could all yell at the screen and not take ourselves as seriously. When I pop a tape into my VCR, and that logo draws itself, and that cute little music or sound effect accompanies it, I'm back in that time, and have that feeling I used to get when I was home from college and wasn't eating dining commons food for a night.

Word on the street is, Martial Law 2 is even better, but I'll wait until I do that review to let you know what I think. As far as Martial Law, it's a great time, and I'm sure you'll have fun with it. If you need a late 80s/early 90s DTV action cheesefest, this will fill your craving more than adequately.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104822/

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/

Deadly Target (1994)

I first saw this about five or six years ago when it aired on either EncoreAction or ShowtimeXtreme. I actually wanted to review it when I first started the DTVC back in 2007, but I didn't remember enough about it (in fact, I didn't even remember the name!), so I just forgot about it and it was lost in the shuffle. A few weeks ago, though, when I was looking for some films to review because Netflix didn't have available the ones I wanted, one of our readers, Michael, suggested I give this one a try. Of course, as luck would have it, it too ended up not being available, then the storm hit, and everything just got all backed up. Finally, here it is, Deadly Target, in all its glory.

Deadly Target has DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels as a Hong Kong cop in LA after Byron Mann, who's a big time drug dealer. The problem is, Mann's escaped, and Daniels has pissed of the LAPD to the point they don't want him involved. Lucky for him, a hot Asian chick has taken him in, and one dude on the force has taken a shine to him. Now it's only a matter of time before Daniels gets his man.



This is bad 90s action at it's pretty-good-est. I mean, it had some great fights, some great car chases, and some great explosions. Daniels did his thing, and believe me, we've seen much worse from him. Overall, I could dig it. One problem I had was with it though is his female friend who takes him in. She handles herself in a fight and with a weapon as if she's had quite a bit of training, when her character is depicted as a glorified Valley Girl grown up. That's kind of that point where silly becomes too silly for me, and not silly in a way that's awesome, like a car exploding from a minor collision as if it were filled with TNT.

I'm fighting an uphill battle to get all of Daniels' films up here at the DTVC. It seems like for every one film I get my hands on, Netflix makes two unavailable. The most recent victim is Fatal Blade. It could be worse. It looks like Netflix is systematically eliminating all of Jeff Speakman's library. I'm wondering if this isn't Netflix's fault, or rather the individual distributors don't want Netflix to have them. For instance, Albert Pyun's new film, Bulletface, is only available through the website, and not on either Amazon or Netflix (you can download a torrent of it, but I would never do that for a Pyun film, based on the support he's shown us here at the DTVC). Anyway, so maybe I shouldn't be giving Netflix all the blame.



One of my issues with this movie was the lack of a really great fight scene after the initial action. I mean, don't get me wrong, Daniels and his partner, Ken McLeod, were great, but with the studs they had, like Ron Yuan, Byron Mann, and James Lew, we should've been getting some of the best stuff we've ever seen. This shows yet again that you can line up all the talent you want, but if you don't use it, what good is it?

Daniels' love interest is played by Susan Byun, who was in one of my all time faves, Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD. I've never really done any Troma films here because I've always looked at them as a different category to what I'm doing. I know this might sound silly, but I've always seen them as an independent film company. With the DTVC Wild Card look at comic book movies winding down next week, I'm considering options for a new series of films to examine, and Troma seems like a logical next choice (another I was considering was vampire movies). I think we'll take a break for a little while though before I start something new.



I don't remember which MST3K episode it was, but in one of them, a dude gets punched in the face, and the fake blood that comes out of his mouth causes one of the 'bots to say "Cherry Starburst." Ever since that time, every time I see a similar effect, I'm forced to say the same thing. I remember at one kitchen job I had, we served this Starburst Cake, and I always called it "Cherry Starburst Cake", and my boss would always be like "why do you keep saying that?" I think he felt like there was some inside joke or pop culture reference I wasn't letting him in on. Anyway, James Lew has an amazing Cherry Starburst moment, and I had to capture it for the blog. It was a thing of beauty.

I'm not really sure you need to throw this on your Netflix queue over anything else you've been considering watching, but if you have a hankering for some Gary Daniels and you've seen everything else, why not give this a shot. At the very least, if it airs on EncoreAction or ShowtimeXtreme, you could do a lot worse than watch it. It's not horrible, it's just, for a mid-90s DTV actioner, it's nothing special, just a solid bad action film.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109573/

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)

A buddy of mine recently had me and a few friends watch The Dark Crystal with him. He said it was an important film in his life because it's what started his interest in fantasy films. I'm not sure what vulture puppets called Skankies have to do with that, but I took his word for it. Then I thought about what films were seminal in my love of movies. I guess Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon would be the ones that got me interested in Bogey films; or La Strada and Yojimbo got me interested in Fellini and Kurosawa films respectively. But that's not what the Direct to Video Connoisseur is about, it's about bad movies, and when I think of the film that got me interested in baddies, especially bad action, I think of Showdown in Little Tokyo.

I had a friend growing up whose parents stole cable, and we saw this on Pay-Per-View; for free obviously. I was twelve at the time, and though I'd seen many other bad action films before this, Showdown was the one that made me love them, and I haven't looked back since. Now I'm not saying that without Showdown I wouldn't have eventually found something else to pique my interest in this kind of schlock fare, I'm just saying that this one was lucky enough to be the one.



Showdown in Little Tokyo is a buddy action film with DTVC Hall of Famer Dolph Lundgren as a police detective of Caucasian-American decent that's also a samurai. He's a loner, and can't keep partners. Enter Brandon Lee (before he died), an Amerasian who could care less about his Japanese half. Dolph teaches him to be more Japanese, Brandon admires his penis, and the two protect Tia Carrere while beating down Cary Tagawa and his Yakuza bad dudes. Way better than the Lethal Weapons or Rush Hours.

I don't know where to begin. One of the best scenes is in the beginning, where a bad guy is in police custody, and instead of talking to the police, he breaks his own neck. In school, my friends and I used to mimic this when a teacher was especially boring. I know necks break very easily in action movies, but this one takes it a step further.



In another scene, Dolph does Carrere in his rice paper hut, and Tagawa's men surprise them. A scantily clad Dolph tries to fight them off, and Brandon Lee remarks, after looking at his crotch: "[y]ou have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a man". This is the kind of line in a Van Damme film that a woman would say, and Van Damme would seem proud of himself. With Dolph, though, we know it's supposed to add to the tongue-in-cheekness, which makes it even better.

That's not Brando's only great scene. At the end, he throws a guy in a vat of something, and holding a lit Zippo, says "you have the right to be dead" then tosses the Zippo in, making a huge explosion. This is, to my mind, Brandon Lee's finest performance, and it's too bad this film doesn't get more run.



Tagawa and the Yakuza are great too. They constantly cut off people's and their own limbs. Fingers, arms, heads. Like in Bridge of Dragons, Tagawa is a sexually frustrated crime boss, and has his hottie Asian woman stolen from him by Dolph. This time the hottie is Tia Carrere. Despite posing nude in Playboy, in this film, her nude scenes were done by a body double. Not a big deal, but just something to keep in mind as you're watching this.

The ending is spectacular. Dolph dons a samurai outfit with a complete straight face. He and Tagawa take swords from a parade, which means the figures in the parade were walking around with real samurai swords. Dolph gets sliced up, yet survives it all, just so he can pin Tagawa to this large wheel with fireworks surrounding it. The wheel spins, and Tagawa explodes.



This is bad action at its best. Tons of killing, tons of martial arts, tons of car chases, a bad guy who kills people who work for him and people he makes criminal deals with, hot chicks, and, of course, Dolph Lundgren. There may be better action movies, but there isn't one that's more fun.

I bought this on DVD recently for $5. There really is no reason why you shouldn't do the same. If you watch it on TV, make sure it's on a channel that isn't censored or edited to fit a time slot. Don't watch this on Spike or USA or what not. You're really better off just buying it anyway, so that way you can see it on Spike or USA, and you'll know what you're missing. Believe me, at $5, it's so worth it, and I'd pay even more if I didn't know I could get it for that cheap.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102915/

Wake of Death (2004)

I've seen a lot of Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies in my time. What's interesting about both actors is their calling cards in their films. In every Dolph film, he's shot in the left arm. It doesn't fail. In every Van Damme movie, he shows off his buttcheeks. Again, it doesn't fail. I think it's very telling.

Wake of Death has DTVC Hall of Famer Jean-Claude Van Damme as a bouncer whose wife and in-laws are murdered by the Triad crime boss whose daughter Van Damme's wife took in after she showed up on a ship of illegal immigrants. In the Wake of that Death, he kills a bunch of other people to get his revenge. Not a bad deal.



This film gave me headache, and I have one man to blame for this: the director. He was so hung up on these MTV music video/car commercial style edits and jump cuts that they made me sick to my stomach. He ruined any of the good bad action in this film. He was like the grandmother who just can't let her daughter take care of her new baby. Someone should've gotten a hold of him and told him to stop, but like the overbearing grandmother, everyone was afraid of the backlash if they said anything.

The director also pulled a bad action no-no: he gave us some sweet action at the very beginning, then shut it down for a half hour of other crap. Considering the movie's 90 minutes long, that's too much inactivity. I think the director was suffering from an over-inflated ego, and he forgot he was doing a paint-by-numbers Van Damme action vehicle.

The action was solid-- what I could see of it. Had this been done by a better director: one who understands his or her audience, this could have rivaled some of Van Damme's early 90s stuff. All right, maybe not that good, but enough to be entertaining. He kicked a lot of ass, shot a lot of people, and blew up his share of cars. It was a solid effort.



This movie also had Tony Schiena, who was in The Merchant of Venice as Leonardo. He's a solid martial artist, but he's underused in this. He gets his ass kicked by Philip Tan at the end, and Tan slices the hell out of him. Luckily Schiena stabs him in the crotch, and that kills Tan. I'm not sure how it works either, but it's the kind of thing that would be hilarious if the director didn't throw all these jump cuts in it.

This film is just not quite worth it. It's not as bad as In Hell, by any stretch, but it's not as good as Desert Heat or Derailed. I'd rent it before you buy it to see if you like it. I thought it was a tad too gruesome to make fun of (between Van Damme's family's slaughter and the dude who gets tortured with a power drill), and it wouldn't be my first choice if I wanted a bad action night with a Van Damme film.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367478/

Timecop: The Berlin Decision (2003)

I think I caught this film on the Sci-Fi channel. I don't really remember. I only watched it because the original Timecop, which had DTVC Hall of Famer Jean-Claude Van Damme, was pretty hilarious, and I was hoping this would be equally as funny.

Timecop: The Berlin Decision stars Jason Scott Lee as a timecop working 20 years after the Van Damme movie. There's a baddie who's escaped prison and is going back in time to eliminate all the current timecops' ancestors, which would in turn kill them. The bad guy was in jail to begin with, because he went back in time to kill Hitler, and the whole thing was a disaster. So Scott Lee has to visit all his ancestors and stop the baddie from offing them, and eventually he makes it to the late 90s, where his dad is teaching a younger version of the baddie in a college course on time travel. After an awkward fight scene where Scott Lee pummels the younger baddie, who doesn't know how to fight yet, everything ends all right.

As a huge Highlander: The Series fan, I'm used to good period sets and clothing and what not. Timecop: TBD falls somewhat short of the Highlander standard. They look all right, but they also look like they were done on a weak budget. I'd say worse than the sets and the outfits, was how bad Scott Lee seemed to stand out in each scene. The timecop agency doesn't do a good job of making their agents blend in, and I'm surprised any mission ever succeeds.

With Jason Scott Lee in a movie, I'm expecting some nice martial arts action. I didn't get it here. Now I'm suck with a substandard bad action film, with nothing to root for. If I'm a film maker, and I've just got word that we've signed Scott Lee to the picture, I'm rewriting the thing to include some major fight scenes. It just makes sense. As Wilford Brimley would say, "It's the right thing to do."



The Timecop franchise has not only spawned the films, but also a TV show. If you ask me, the whole thing's kind of a wasted property. As in this film, they really don't do anything cute with the idea of time travel. Everyone's done the "let's kill Hitler" thing. Why don't they go back and find out if Shakespeare was really gay? Or if Abe Lincoln was gay? Or the Knights Templar? What if they offered time travel vacation packages where Cubs fans can go back and watch their team win a World Series? I'd love to see one where a guy plans to go back and fill Al Capone's vault right before Geraldo opens it, and Jason Scott Lee has to stop him, because the respectability Geraldo would gain from that would cause an apocalyptic catastrophe ten years later. I can't imagine I'm the only one who'd want to see that.

I'm not sure what to tell you about this film. Absolutely don't buy it or rent it. Maybe watch it when it's on TV, but only if you've got nothing better going on. It's not that bad, but it's just not that good either. It's just a whole lot of blah.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318763/

Bloodsport 2: The Next Kumite (1996)

I found out as I was doing research for this film that it is in fact not direct to video. It grossed over $600,000. I wrestled with the dilemma of reviewing it anyway for over five minutes, before I just decided, what the hell.

Bloodsport 2: The Next Kumite is about Daniel Bernhardt as Alex Cardo (the same character as in Bloodsport 3, but not 4, even though all three are played by Bernhardt), a master thief sold down the river by his partner after stealing the late Pat Morita's katana. In prison, Bernhardt meets James Hong, who teaches him the Iron Hand after he sees him get his ass kicked by vicious prison guard Demon, played by Ong Soo Han. The point of Hong teaching Bernhardt is so he can fight in the kumite and win it for him. Some strings are pulled by Morita to get Bernhardt out so he can retrieve the sword: it's the grand prize in the kumite. The delightful "Tiny" Don Gibb, who got his ass kicked by Bolo Yeung in the first Bloodsport, returns to reprise the role no one really gave a shit about.

Bernhardt has to balance dealing for the sword from his old partner and winning the contest, and the whole thing almost blows up on him when he gets the sword, but is slashed in the ab by it too. Oh yeah, and his final opponent in the kumite is Demon, just 'cause.

This film is ten shades of hilarious. Dialogue is strung together in this unnatural manner that gives one the impression of 8th grade theater. There's a great scene where Bernhardt starts a conversation with some guy who's a "Street Fighter," and the useless Tiny lectures him on not talking to the fellow fighters. Why, I have no idea, because they all end up being friends two scenes later. There's also a guy who fights Bernhardt, loses to him, then helps him win by being his corner man or something. Bernhardt's getting his ass kicked, and the guy yells "Do you want to beat him? Then attack him on his left side!" and Bernhardt's response is to slam his hands on the mat like he's just been told to go clean his room, even though he gets up and wins the fight.

James Hong makes it to the final battle, and he reminds Bernhardt when fighting Demon to use the Iron Hand. Also, a shaking water pail reminds him too. I'm just not sure you could make a spoof of fight films better than Bloodsport 2. I really didn't get why Bernhardt needed to have his ab slashed for the fight. I think beating Demon would've been enough for the audience. Making him win with a deep, potentially fatal, open wound is just pushing the audiences credulity--even for bad action.

But I think all that makes this ridiculous is what makes it endearing. As a viewer, it's great to see every cliche utilized to its utmost. When playing the bad action movie drinking game, a film like this really gets everyone wasted pretty quick. It's filled with great material to mock. If I were to make an action film, I'd borrow a lot from how this was made.

If you've seen either Bloodsport or the MST3K episode of Future War, this is well worth your time. You should be able to buy it for like $5. I've seen it listed on TV too, but not recently. This is also the perfect rental for a bad movie night. You really can't go wrong with it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112536/

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