The Power Within (1995)

For our SePMtember PM post, I wanted to do one Art Camacho directed for his entry into the 60 Club, but have since realized that Cole S. McKay did stunts on this too, making it his entry into the 70 Club, so we'll have to find one he directed for his official 70 Club post. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof and Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

The Power Within has Ted Jan Roberts as Stan, a high school junior not living up to his potential. He could be so much better at school, martial arts, and getting a date to the prom if he only tried harder. At the same time, William Zabka has stolen a ring that makes him very powerful, and Gerald Okamura, holder of the other ring, doesn't want Zabka to get both. Unfortunately, Zabka kills him, but before he dies, he gives his ring to Stan, and tells him that as powerful as this ring is, his true power lies within. Now shit is really happening for Stan, his grades are up, Sandy's (Tracy Melchior) going to the prom with him, and he beat up a blackbelt in karate class. The problem is he still needs to deal with Zabka.

What a great time this one was. A big part of it was the cast, where they just loaded this thing up with a ton of fun performances. In addition to the names I mentioned above, we had John O'Hurley as a police detective, Karen Valentine as Roberts's mother, PJ Soles as Melchior's mother, and a Don "The Dragon" Wilson cameo playing himself. Then we have some fantastic fights, choreographed by Camacho and Roberts, that all looked great as well. From a PM movie standpoint, I would say there were only a couple moments that were pure PM. First is when Zabka is in a high-speed chase with the henchmen of a crime boss that want the ring back from him and some police officers, one of the cop cars goes flying over the top of a city bus, with explosions and everything; and second, when Roberts is being held in O'Hurley's office after a big fight, he needs to escape to rescue Melchior, who's being held by Zabka, and instead of going through the door, he crashes through a window. That's gotta be a PM motto: "Why use a door when there's a perfectly good window you can crash through." If you can find this, I think it's a fun one and worth checking out.

60 films for Art Camacho, of which 13 are director credits, including this one. It's a huge milestone, after Dolph, Cole S. McKay, and Gary Daniels, he's only the fourth person to the 60 Club, and I think it just speaks to his work ethic. The interview he did on the PM Entertainment Podcast episode for A Dangerous Place (which yours truly was also a guest on) really gets into that, where he talks about all the ways he seized various opportunities PM gave him to work in their movies, including directing films like this. The result is that we as fans of the genre ultimately are the winners, because we have a lot of fun movies like this to watch due to his talent and work ethic. When I look at his bio, beyond the fact that we have five more movies that he's directed to review on here, he still has a ton of stuff that he worked on in various capacities to cover, so the 60 Club is just the start, but it's well-deserved too. Here's to you Mr. Camacho, you're one of the great ones.

On a more somber note, since our last Ted Jan Roberts post, Magic Kid, we've learned that he passed away in 2022. Really sad for anyone to pass away that young, but with Roberts, seeing him in something like this, there's a sense of what could've been. He and I were born in the same year, so it maybe gives me a different perspective, but one thing I do notice in watching action movies is they tend to like older men in the leads. Take Scott Adkins, who turned 50 this year, he really didn't start getting the big leading roles until he was in his 30s. Even something like Special Forces had Marshall Teague in the lead. And maybe that was the issue in the 2000s, he was too old for kids and teen roles like this, but too young to take the next step in his action film career, leaving this gap that he may have been able to pick back up on in the late 2000s/early 2010s, but by then it was too late it seems. And maybe even more tragic, we're seeing an influx of films featuring 90s action leads again, so depending on how his martial arts skills were, he could've probably found roles in this new ecosystem. Again, it was really sad news, he'll truly be missed.

We'll use this paragraph to round up the rest of the names in this. First off, it's our 62nd PM Entertainment flick on the site, so we're really starting to make our way through their catalog. My PM Entertainment Letterboxd list is live again, so you can check that out and see where I put this. As I said above, this is 70 films for Cole S. McKay, so we'll be doing a special 70 Club post for him in the near future. I know we'll be doing at least one movie he did stunts on between now and then, but who knows, he may have even more before we get to that post, because he's in so many films doing stunt work. Speaking of clubs, 40 Club member Don "The Dragon" Wilson has 45 films now with this one-scene cameo as himself. That puts him two behind Cynthia Rothrock for third-most all time as an actor, but she has a movie in the can that I'll be reviewing this week, so that gap will widen again. We also have Gerald Okamura in back-to-back weeks, now putting him at 21 films on the site. He's another one that appears in a ton of stuff, so who knows how many more films of his we'll do, but he was great here as Roberts's ancient sensei and previous ring holder. I can't believe I'm almost to the end of the paragraph and haven't yet mentioned how great William Zabka was as the main baddie. Chewing scenery all over the place, just having a great time, he played a big part in why this film worked. Finally, John O'Hurley of Seinfeld fame was in this as the detective, our second time seeing him on the site after Mirror Images. No love scenes for him here, though there was a burgeoning romance between him and Karen Valentine as Roberts's mother.

Finally, we had a few scenes with a chimp in this one. At the end of the credits there was the mention that no animals were harmed in making this film, but I beg to differ, because the only humane way to have a chimp in your film is to not have one, or now with the technology we have, make them with CGIs. You've heard me on this crusade before, but chimps are particularly egregious in my mind, because they share 97% of our DNA. Forget putting them in movies, they shouldn't be in zoos or be had as pets either. To give you a sense of how close to humans they are, there's currently a chimpanzee war in Uganda between two factions that split apart, lopsided in favor of one faction over the other, leading to a lot of deaths. There's actually a Netflix documentary on this that's narrated by Mahershala Ali if you want to know more. So let's leave chimps alone to be chimps, our movies and zoos will be fine without them; and considering it's illegal to keep humans as pets, it should be illegal to have chimps as pets too.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I found this on YouTube, and while it's not the best quality, it'll get you to the church on time. Hopefully as more of these PM flicks are finding their ways to streamers, this one will as well, because I had a lot of fun with it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114171/

For Life or Death (1996)

This past week we lost an absolute legend, one of the best to do it in the DTV action world, James Lew. As such, we needed to do a post in his honor, and I figured because this one had a lot of Lew in it, it would do the trick. As Nicolette Larson said, "it's gonna take a lotta Lew..." In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

For Life of Death has Lew as Kaan Woo, formerly part of a mystical cult of martial arts warriors with magical powers, he left them, but, as cults are wont to do, they come and try to take him back by force. The leader of the cult, Ling Li (Nancy Kwan), was hoping to marry Kaan Woo, so when he left her and found a younger woman in Caren (Grace Una), Li sent her best monks after him, including Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, and Richard "no nickname needed" Norton. Recognizing he's outnumbered, Kaan Woo transfers his soul into the body of Earl (Mark Pellegrino), a man dealing with alcohol addiction and housing insecurity. Now Li wants Earl, but if Earl discovers whose soul is sharing his body in time, perhaps he and Woo together can take Li down.

Maybe I shouldn't have followed Nicolette Larson's advice and gone for the movie that had a lotta Lew, because I don't know if this is the best movie overall. Lew was fight choreographer, and between him and the fantastic names involved, which, in addition to the names I mentioned above, also included Karen Sheperd and Gerald Okamura, the talent was there, and it came through at times. Most of the time though those great fights were obscured by editing choices. Sped-up film, awkward cuts, attempts at Hong Kong cinema that looked more like someone parodying it than paying homage to it. The story had issues as well, probably foremost among them, it felt like we were just spinning our wheels until Lew came back, which meant from the time he leaves us early on, until he comes back near the end, it all feels like padding in a way. Why not just have it be Lew the whole time? Is there a law that says you can only have Lew for limited screen time? Still, in celebrating the life of someone as great as Lew, someone who did a lot more supporting work or even cameos, to have something like this where he has a more robust part, and that movie being available on Tubi, makes it a good choice if you're looking for something to celebrate him, and maybe that's what counts most.

One of the things I discovered when I was looking for a film to review for this post, is I hadn't tagged all of Lew's stunt work yet, and when I did that, he ended up with 31 tags overall. That means automatic Hall of Fame entry, but I think that was a given this fall anyway, and it was something that was long overdue. For anyone who watched action films from the late 80s to the mid-90s and onward, Lew was a mainstay, probably more of a That Guy, but for us who watched a lot of these movies, we knew who he was and appreciated what he brought to the table. We weren't the only ones though, he won a Primetime Emmy for his work as stunt coordinator on the Luke Cage TV show, one of my favorite things the MCU has produced, so it was great to see he was given the honor for that; and later this year, Avengers: Endgame will be back in theaters, which he won an Actors Award for along with the rest of the stunt crew. So here's to you Mr. Lew, you were one of the greatest to ever do it, and will truly be missed.

Also missed is Richard Norton, who with this film enters the 30 Club, but we'll do another post later on down the road to fully celebrate that milestone. There were a few scenes where he and Lew fought, and it was hard to watch knowing they're both no longer with us. It's the reality though, that even something like this is thirty years old now, and if these guys were in their 40s then, they'd be in the 70s now, some even older than that, but at least we know that they created a lasting legacy that for the most part we can enjoy on some form of physical media, and in many cases on a free streamer like Tubi. So they may be gone, but not forgotten, and their work endures for us to enjoy, and hopefully for new generations to discover and enjoy too. And maybe this movie isn't the best of his, but he turns in a fun performance that at least enhances the proceedings, which is always good to see.

Kato Kaelin is back, and it's crazy seeing him 30 years later, because when this was made he was only a couple years removed from the OJ trial. As a result, having Kato Kaelin in your movie at that time could provide a boost, though looking at his career prior to the OJ trial, this was the kind of role he had been getting, so maybe he would've been in this film regardless, or may have even committed to it before the trial began. We also had Karen Sheperd, who had a smaller part but a couple nice fight scenes, so that was nice to see. I think there are six or seven DTV movies of hers out there that we haven't covered yet, so hopefully we'll get to those eventually. For a little IMDb-style trivia, both she and Kaelin have been in Cyborg sequels, Sheperd in part 2, Kaelin in part 3. (As an aside, why do people put trivia like that on IMDb trivia pages? I want nuggets about the film that I wouldn't know otherwise, not connections I could make on my own by cherry picking actors' filmographies!) Finally, we had Gerald Okamura in his 20th film on that site. I had no idea he had that many! I'm not sure if 30 Club is possible for him though, because I don't know if he has 10 more films for us to review. He's great here as the ancient master that helps Pellegrino learn his true potential.

Finally, I want to go back to Lew again, because beyond his martial arts and fight choreography work, one of his best contributions to the films we watched was as a henchman to a main baddie. It's a thankless role, you don't get to chew scenery like the main baddie, instead you may have very few lines, and have to generally play a jerk, and then take a beating from the hero in an applause moment. I think that was the most fitting reason to choose this movie, even if it wasn't as good as some of his others, because he was the one beating up henchmen here; and while I say it's a thankless position, for us that have seen a lot of these, when someone like a Lew appears over and over, we do start to appreciate what he's bringing to the table, and that's why we in the action fandom, especially the DTV action fandom, we were so sad to hear the news of Lew's passing. Maybe he didn't have what the kids call "main character energy," but he carved out a great career doing what he loved to do, and I don't know that it gets more main character in life than that.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this free on Tubi and Prime here in the States. Again, it's not exactly the best movie, but you get Lew in a leading role, which makes it a good option if you're watching something in his honor. One of the greatest to do it, he will be missed.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144930

To Be the Best (1993)

In 2026 I've decided to start something that I started last month without realizing I was starting it, and that's reviewing one PM for the first post of every month. That means we'll have at least 12 PM flicks reviewed this year. Not a bad deal, and I figured for our first one I'd do one I'd been meaning to do forever, which also has an exploding helicopter, so I can tick that off the list too. In addition to us, the PM Podcast covered this, plus Toyman at Bulletproof, and Karl Brezdin at First of the B-List.

To Be the Best is about a kickboxing/martial arts tournament, where the US team is one of many entrants, and their biggest competitor is the Thai team, composed of residents from the Bangkok Chinatown. The coach of the US team is former disgraced fighter Rick Kulhane (Martin Kove) and his two sons Sam (Phillip Troy Linger--and no, he didn't have to let it) and Eric (Michael Worth), who is the team's best fighter. The problem is the evil Alex Cord is hanging around, and he has $500,000 on the Thai team's best fighter Hong Do (Steven Vincent Leigh), and to make sure his bet comes in, he's threatening Eric's girlfriend (Brittney Powell). Will Eric throw the big fight?

This does exactly what you want PM to do, except the middle is a bit draggy, which we'll get to in a second. It starts with some underground fighting, where a man who's a cross between a poor man's Nick Vallelonga and a poor man's Johnny Roast Beef tries to get Worth to throw the fight, and when he doesn't, to show Worth he means business, he has his helicopter pilot take Worth for a ride, hanging him from a cord while he flies him around Vegas. The pilot gets a little too into it though, and crashes into one of the hotels, causing Worth to go flying into one of the suites. It's as amazing as it gets, only to be followed up in the next scene by another underground fight in LA that gets broken up by the police, leading to a two-pronged chase with one set of cops chasing some guys in a white car, and another chasing Linger (which he didn't have to let it) on a dirt bike. The problem was, the movie couldn't keep that kind of energy up, and things bog down a bit with some sparring montages, broken up by a nice bowling alley fight, and then it's just a tournament film, until the end, which is another fantastic group of great action set pieces to finish things off. I think where that leaves us, is this is a great time, and while it's maybe only a top 30 PM flick for me, that's still going to be a fun way to spend your 90 minutes.

We're now at 54 PM films, and this is one of those ones where you'd think it would've been done sooner, but for some reason it kept getting pushed back, and I think the only reason I bumped it up to now is the fact that it has an exploding helicopter, so I can chip away at my paltry number on Exploding Helicopter's Letterboxd list. And what a thing of beauty that helicopter explosion is, and while the movie isn't able to maintain that energy throughout, the fact that had it at all is why we come to PM films. This is also number 58 for Art Camacho, who's not only fight coordinator, but he plays one of the US team as a character named "Runt"--which at no point is that expounded upon, that's just the name they gave him. Definitely in 2026 he'll be our fourth member of the 60 Club. We're also seeing Martin Kove again for the first time since VFW in 2024. He's at 19 now, so we'll see if we get him past 20 this year. And then for our stunt coordinators, this film features the duo of Red Horton and "Broadway" Joe Murphy, with the former as second-unit director, and the latter stunt coordinator. They're at 17 and 16 films respectively, which I think are numbers we'll see get bigger as we do more PM flicks.

Two names that are finally getting tags are Michael Worth and Vince Murdocco. Neither have big numbers--five for Worth, 11 for Murdocco--but they both were such a big part of 90s DTV action, especially these PM flicks, that the tagging was overdue--especially if Ian Jacklin's been tagged, because they inhabit a similar space, though to Jacklin's credit, he has more tags than either of them with 13. Worth is the star in this one, and I think there's a sense that maybe PM was positioning him to do more stuff like this, but this ended up being his last film with them, I think due to him making Fists of Iron, which I believe no one that worked on that other than Art Camacho did another film for PM--Matthias Hues hadn't worked with them before, and Richard Munchkin only did some LA Heat and Hollywood Safari episodes. Murdocco is something else. Just saying "it also has Murdocco" evokes a sense of a certain kind of low-budget 90s actioner, and while that movie is often also a PM film, after 1994's Magic Kid II, he doesn't do any other films for them either, but he also wasn't a part of Fists of Iron, so I don't know if it was due to any kind of issues with PM. They may just not have had a place for him as they moved into different movies and got bigger names. I guess I get it, but how could you not have a place for Murdocco?

What the hell is going on in that image below? Are we looking at a potential 10.0 Mulletude mullet? Sure, the business on top is a little more manager at a hardware store business than you'd want, but the party in the back is almost Sunset Strip hair band rager--probably more like backstage afterparty at a Midwestern tour stop for a hair band, and maybe not the headliner like Poison, but an opening band like Trixter or Hurricane--but I'm quibbling on something that at least has to be a 9.8 on the Mulletude scale, and spending way too much time explaining why I'm deducting two tenths of a point, instead of basking the beauty that is that fantastic ape drape. And the thing is, it comes at a time when I'm not sure what's happening with this movie because it's mired in a bunch of fights and intrigue around Alex Cord being a dick, but then I finally get my shot of the Vegas Strip McDonald's so I can tag that, and then boom, I'm hit in the face that with Hall of Fame caliber mullet, and it's just all Tiger Woods on the 18th hole birdie fist pumps from there. I went back through our old posts, and saw that I gave the Barbarian Brothers a 9.8 for their mullets in Double Trouble, and I guess that's because they're more workman-like and added to the overall Barbarian Brothers charm, but that means I either need to go back and drop that rating, or bring this one up a tad. 9.9 sounds too high for this mullet, even as amazing as it is, so maybe the Barbarians need to go down to 9.5 or so.

Finally, one of the elements running through the film is Martin Kove's character's love of the LA Raiders. I'm sure it was just tossed in, but based on his character's age and when the team moved from Oakland, it wouldn't make a lot of sense that he'd root for them, unless there was some kind of quirk in his character or special unique reason for it, neither of which was mentioned. Being born in the late 40s, if he's from LA he'd have grown up with the LA Rams as his team, because the Oakland Raiders didn't move to LA until 1980, when he would've been in his 30s. To give you a history of NFL football in LA would give you a popsicle headache, but if you're not familiar with the league, you could look the NFL up on Wikipedia and find there are no Raiders in LA, the two LA teams are the Rams and the Chargers, but there is a Las Vegas Raiders. Two years after this film was released, the Raiders went back to Oakland, one year after the Rams moved to St. Louis, leaving the second largest city in the US without an NFL team, until the Rams moved back to LA in 2016, and the San Diego Chargers moved to LA one year later; and then in 2020 the Raiders moved from Oakland to Las Vegas. (I'm sorry, I said I wasn't going to get into it, and I did anyway, so hopefully the popsicle headache wasn't too horrible.) My point is, Kove's character should've been a Rams fan, but it's kind of more PM-ish that he rooted for the Raiders instead.

And with that, let's wrap this up. The Roku Channel has this, but when I watched it the audio wasn't synched, so I watched it on YouTube instead, which was fine. However you watch it, it's a solid addition to your PM experience, and one you should definitely check out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108346

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

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!

Pushed to the Limit (1992)

I was looking to get some more Mimi Lesseos on the site, and Tubi kept suggesting this one to me, so I figured why not make it happen. In addition to us, Matt Spector at Bulletproof, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and David Wain at The Schlock Pit have covered this too.

Pushed to the Limit stars Lesseos (who also wrote and produced) as Magnificent Mimi, a star wrestler whose brother (Greg Ostrin) is killed and husband (Michael M. Foley) is seriously wounded by gangster Harry Lee (Eidan Hanzei). To get revenge, she has her husband's sensei Vern (Verrel Reed) train her to fight in Lee's Kumite--that's right, we got a Kumite baby! Only this is more of an evergreen, nightly Kumite, as opposed to a yearly tournament, at least as far as I can tell. Anyway, Lee's champion fighter, Inga, after a successful career as a dancer in Russell Mulcahy-directed 80s music videos, is having trouble finding work in the 90s, so she's changed careers and is now breaking ladies' backs and necks in the ring--though she's kept her make-up from those old videos. Will Mimi defeat Inga and Lee, and bring down Lee's criminal empire?

This definitely borders on what the guys at Comeuppance would call a "That Movie," and by that they mean a Samurai Cop or a Miami Connection. A lot of bad dialog, scenes that don't seem to fit, and an opening credit sequence that looks like The Pod People on MST3K. The difference I think though is Lesseos is a great lead, which keeps the schlock, low-budget elements fun, but also elevates this slightly above those other "That Movies." Another element the guys at Comeuppance always talk about is the Punchfighter, and this Kumite has all of those elements, only in addition to people holding wads of cash, we also have these elderly extended reach claw-like devices that they used to give and take money from the upper levels of the fighting arena. How they kept track of who bet on who is beyond me, I just liked the idea of those devices for myself so I wouldn't need to get on a chair to reach the upper shelves of my cabinets. There are elements of the movie that don't work though. It takes us about a half-hour until we even get mention of a Kumite, and before that, we get introduced to a bunch of Mimi's family members who play no role in the film and only serve to confuse us. Some of the darker sequences are hard to follow, and some of the fights were kind of all over the place and hard to get a consistent look at, which could be headache inducing if you're watching this on a tablet like I was. When the fights were shot well though, they were a fun mix of traditional martial arts with professional wrestling moves, and Lesseos really carried off the fights she was in. Also, I loved the Kumite set, it was like something out of a Fred Olen Ray sci-fi exploitation flick, and the juxtaposition of that kind of T n' A with the fighters here in hot Lycra spandex, but kicking ass and taking names, turned that exploitation on its ear. I think for most of the people reading this, you're going to have a fun time, especially if you're streaming for free, or if you find it cheap in the wild on VHS.

"She's a woman on the 90s." She certainly is, and the movie does a great job of positioning Lesseo's character as a modern woman trying to carve out her own career, versus Inga, an 80s throwback with her hair and make-up, trying to fight the calendar. This is the first of four films Lesseos made between 1992 and 1995, the third of which, Streets of Rage, we've also covered on the site, and while I didn't like this one as much as that one, Lesseos has a great presence and is enjoyable to watch. It made me wonder why she only did these four, and in looking at The Schlock Pit review, David Wain mentioned that she tried to make her movies on her own, which might explain it. For funding on this one, it said she had a $600,000 outside investment, and then funded the rest herself, in part through extreme wrestling matches she did in Japan. She said when she tried to go the more traditional route, filmmakers just wanted her fighting in her bikini, which I get would be annoying for her--only now we see with her new cover for this film, she's in a bikini. It's a shame though, because Lesseos should've had like 20 movies from the early 90s to the early 2000s, just a bunch of films like this where she's beating the crap out of people with the occasional scene interspersed with her training or out at a fancy dinner. I get a shady producer wanting to see her in a bikini, and I also get why she would've said no to that, but we as an audience are the ones who missed out.

We've seen our share of Kumites here at the DTVC. There were the Bloodsport sequels, where we had "The Next Kumite" in part 2, what I'd call "the Reboot Kumite" run by John Rhys-Davies in part 3, and then our first look at a "Dark Kumite," run by Ben Franklin in a prison in part 4. We also had a "Lady Kumite" with Lady Bloodfight, starring Amy Johnston. And then recently, on episode 202 of the DTVC Podcast, Ty and I looked at The Last Kumite, which I took "last" to be not so much "final," but rather "the most recent," because I feel like as long as there are action movies, we'll always have Kumites. This independent Kumite run by the baddie is a mix of the "Lady Kumite"--even though there are men's fights too, so it's like there's a men's and women's division--and the "Dark Kumite," because it is pretty dark. It's also a "Nightly Kumite," which is something we haven't seen yet, usually Kumites are yearly affairs. In my Bloodsport 3 post I suggested a Bloodsport 5 be a Colombian Kumite, where the hero has to fight King from Tekken. I was trying to think of others. What about a "Christmas Kumite"? Like it's a mix between a Hallmark Christmas movie and a Kumite? We could even use Amy Johnston as a young woman who left her hometown, made it big in the city, then returned home for Christmas, only to get roped into the local Kumite, plus find out she really loves her old high school boyfriend, played by any number of lantern-jawed Canadian actors. We could have Wincott hosting it for the full Canadian effect. I think you're picking up what I'm putting down.

You may (or may not) have noticed a new tag, "Chinatown." I decided to start tagging them, after we saw the LA one again. We only have 7 tagged, and of those 7, LA has come up a few times. Other Chinatowns include New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, Australia, and Manila in the Philippines. Hopefully we'll see more--plus I may have more that I haven't reviews found, I only did a search for the term "Chinatown" on my blog. We also had another McDonald's, now 13. I believe we've seen this one before too, it's the one on the Vegas Strip, which Lesseos passes while getting a ride in a limo to a dance gig she has there. I recently had McDonald's while I was at Union Station in DC waiting for my train back to Philly. I told myself I wasn't going to do it, but I couldn't help myself as I passed by, and needed to get a couple double cheeseburgers. It is interesting to think, with 13 posts, that almost 1% of all the films I've reviewed on the site have had a McDonald's in them.

Finally, look at how our baddie is holding his glass of champagne. What are you doing? You're making it warm holding it like that! Do you like warm champagne? He should be holding it by the stem of the glass, instead of the bowl, because the warmth of our hands warms the champagne if we old it like that. What's the point of even keeping it on ice in that bucket, if he's just going to warm it in his hand? I'm getting sick at the thought of warm champagne just looking at that. If you've seen this film before, you might be reading this rant and thinking "Matt, you're upset at how the baddie is holding his champagne, but you're okay with the completely out of nowhere way he suggested he and Lesseos go out to dinner in the previous scene?" That is a great point, in the scene before this, Lesseos finds out her friend is fighting Inga in Lee's Kumite, so she pleads with Lee to cancel the bout, only to have Lee say "let's discuss this over dinner." Wait what? Why? But I guess we needed this scene to establish just how bad our baddie is--I mean, it doesn't get more villainous than enjoying warm champagne!

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi and Plex here in the States. Lesseos delivers another fun 90s actions. It's rough in spots, and very low-budget, but it'll get you where you need to go, which I think is worth the stream.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110918 

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

Showdown (1993)

This has been sitting my Tubi queue for a while now, and I knew I needed to get more Billy Blanks on the site, so it seemed like a no-brainer. What I didn't expect was a backdoor 30 Club induction as well--more on that later in the post. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Karl Brezdin at Fist of the B-List, and RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema have all covered this as well.

Showdown has Billy Blanks as a police officer who's called to break up a teenage house party, only to find Patrick Kilpatrick and his brother terrorizing people there. When they attack Blanks, he accidentally kills the brother, causing him to quit the force, and Kilpatrick to swear revenge. Cut to seven years later, and Blanks is working as a janitor at a worst of the worst high school--the kind where they clean the eyeballs up at the end of the night--where young newcomer Ken (Kenn Scott) is terrorized by a gang of martial arts kids led by Tom (Ken McLeod) because Ken talked to Tom's girlfriend, Christine Taylor. Turns out Kilpatrick and Linda Dona are also running an illegal fight ring with these teenage boys. That's enough for Billy Blanks to train Ken and take down Kilpatrick and company.

This is as fun as a 1993 Karate Kid rip-off should be. Blanks is fantastic as the sensei, and the situation that causes him to leave the force is believable enough. Patrick Kilpatrick is great in the Martin Kove role, though more evil and over the top (Stallone style) as a DTV Karate Kid rip-off requires. Then we have our hero, Kenn Marx, who was 25 playing 16 but looks even older than 25, which is sounds great enough, until you factor in that he's opposite Ken McLeod who is 31 playing 16, so they use all manner of Chess King outfits to try to make him look younger--also good to note that he played a college student in College Kickboxers two years earlier, so I guess if that trend of him playing younger roles continued, there's a 1995 film out there where he plays a 13-year-old? From there though we round out the cast with more familiar names, like Brion James as the assistant principal, John Asher (aka Wyatt from the Weird Science TV show on the USA Network) as the high school friend, DTVC favorite James Lew as one of Billy Blanks's attackers, and then the aforementioned Christine Taylor as Tom's girlfriend, fresh off her stint on Hey, Dude, and two years removed from her breakout role--Marilyn Munster on the TV movie Here Comes the Munsters--which I just found out was directed by Robert Ginty--yes, that Robert Ginty! With all this, I think what works best about this movie is it doesn't try to be more than it is, and I think part of the reason for that is it's directed by Robert Radler, who also directed the first two Best of the Best films and the third and fourth Substitute films. This is the fun 90s Karate Kid DTV rip-off you came for. 

We're now at 11 films for Billy Blanks on the site, which doesn't sound like a lot, but we also don't have many more left to review for him either. If you look at the date, 1993, Tae-Bo took off only three years later, which would make sense that he'd focus on that, but I don't think he picked Tae-Bo over DTV movies, I think he picked it because he wasn't getting the roles he wanted in DTV films. Michael Jai White said in a Vlad TV interview that a producer once told him "I wish there was a white you," meaning "I love your skills, but I can't cast you in leads because of the color of your skin." You'd have to imagine Blanks was dealing with the same thing, and once he did make it big with Tae-Bo, when those same people who wouldn't cast him before came calling, he probably didn't return their calls. Another thing I hadn't considered was if something happened between him and Jalal Merhi, because he doesn't make another film with him after 1995's Expect No Mercy until they reunited for The Circuit TV series in 2020. We know from Cynthia Rothrock's YouTube channel that Merhi wasn't always great about paying on time, so maybe Blanks got tired of it? Those are just my guesses, and maybe it was a combination of factors, but I think it explains why someone as talented as he is drops off not long after this. It's a shame, because we as the audience lose out when this kind of thing happens, but at least we have the films of his we do, including this one. A Hall of Fame induction is probably long overdue for him, so expect that this October--and this would've been a great induction post, so now I need to find something else for him!

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, you may be familiar with The Asylum Rule for inductions, which states that anyone who's in the 30 Club is automatically inducted. We've only invoked it that one time, for The Asylum, because we try to preemptively get people in before that--for example, Danny Trejo's induction post was also his 30 Club entry. That brings us here, to this review, where I discovered that Imperial Entertainment didn't have a tag. When I went back and retroactively added it, I saw that they had 29 films--Mean Guns was posted twice, so they had 30 tags. That makes this their 30th film, and as such gains them entry into the 30 Club. So I guess we now have two of our October Hall of Fame inductions set, and it's only February. I was surprised that I hadn't tagged them already, because that opening animation is a thing of beauty, almost as nice as Cannon or PM's. Like those others, it was a sign that you were in for a good time, evoking a comfort food kind of feeling, like smelling McDonald's fries from one of their establishments five miles away. And like that McDonald's, sometimes the person working the fryer was having a bad day, or maybe you got the last order from that batch before they started a new one, but at least it did the job, like Imperial's films, whether they were the cinematic equivalent of a piping hot order of fries or a limp, lukewarm last-of-the-batch order, they got you to the church on time. In this modern age of 8 animations before we get to our movie, each as unrecognizable as the one before it, it's nice that we have access to Imperial's films on places like Tubi.

Out of everyone else, James Lew, who only has one scene when he's part of the gang that attacks Billy Blanks, has the most films on the site, now with 18. It was kinda too bad that it was only that scene, because he and Blanks are good. Once they realized they had Lew, they should've worked in some random fights between him and Blanks throughout the rest of the film, like maybe he holds up a convenience store Blanks is in. If that scene would be too expensive to shot, what if Lew holds up a kid's lemonade stand? After Lew, we have Brion James with his 15th film. In this role, he's a goofy assistant principal who's trying to maintain some sense of control over the school, like Kevin Tighe in Road House before he decides to call in Dalton. In one scene we see that he's been collecting cigarettes he's confiscated from students so he can smoke them himself. Beyond how great a racket that is, is there another actor who could pull that kind of thing off better than him? Finally, Mr. Kilpatrick as our Martin Kove character now has 11 films on the site. I saw that before this he only had one tag, because I'd only tagged him for Best of the Best II and nothing else. I've corrected that, but even 11 seems low. I think that's because a lot of DTV films employ a Patrick Kilpatrick-esque baddie in their films, so it feels like he was in things that he wasn't. I don't think it's because they couldn't afford him, I think it's because he does so much, he's probably not always easy to find available.

Boom mic, big time. And it just hovers there too, like someone's dog or cat moseying into the frame when they're on a zoom call for work. On the one hand, I want to forgive this and say maybe they didn't plan on releasing a widescreen cut, so they figured the stuff on the left wouldn't be in the final version of the film. I'd buy that, except IMDb only lists the 1:85:1 aspect ratio, and the mic is right above Ken McLeod's head, and I feel like they intended to have him in the shot. Speaking of IMDb, in the goofs section people mention that a stack of books that gets knocked over in one shot is magically restacked in the next, that a folder that was on a table in one shot is magically being held in someone's arm in the next, and that "Selina, KS" was mispronounced, but they all missed the boom mic? Imagine being that pedantic that you're concerned about a stack of books, but you miss a boom mic that was in the shot for the entire scene! I guess when you crowdsource information the way IMDb does, that's the crowd you're sourcing it from.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi, Freevee, Plex, and myriad other free streamers here in the States. If you haven't seen this before, it's a fun time. It knows it's a 90s DTV Karate Kid rip-off, it doesn't try to be anything more, and in the process is exactly what you want. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111174

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

 

Lady Bloodfight (2016)

This is one I've been meaning to get to for some time, evidenced by the fact that it's not only a complete the triangle film, with Brett and Ty at Comeuppance and Mitch from the Video Vacuum having already done it, but it's also what I've now dubbed a "superfecta," as this is one that Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has done as well--the superfecta bet being the one where you select the horses that come in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and now me with 4th. We'll see if that term sticks.

Lady Bloodfight is a take on Bloodsport, only with female fighters. In this case, two rivals, Wai (Kathy Wu) and Shu (Muriel Hofman) fight to a draw in the previous tourney, so to claim victory, they need to train new fighters to win in their stead for the next one. Wai starts by training a Ling (Jenny Wu), thief who broke into her dojo, and then Shu follows by training Jane (Amy Johnston), an American from Pittsburgh who has come to Hong Kong to find out what happened to her father when he came to compete 18 years ago. Will one of these women prevail?

This is the real deal. The fights are great, it's well-shot, well-acted, it just all works the way you'd want it to. It's directed by Chris Nahon of Kiss of the Dragon fame, and written by Bey Logan of The Medallion and White Tiger fame. Yes, the plot is a bit derivative, but it has some unique elements that give it enough for me, especially when you pair it with the action and performances. I think Amy Johnston is set up to be the hero, and it does work from that perspective; but the rivalry between Wai and Shu is prominent as well; and I think the Ling character was compelling too, making it a shame we didn't get more of her, but I also understood to get us down to 100 minutes we needed to cut things somewhere. Another thing that could've been cut was the whole conflict between Jane and Shu, as it felt a bit contrived, like conflict for the sake of conflict, and for a fight movie I don't know that we really needed it--though it did give us a great scene between Ling and Jane in the aftermath that was really good. Even that complaint is a small one, because overall this worked, and I really enjoyed it.

This is now three Amy Johnston films so far on the site, and in each one she's given a great performance. The numbers aren't quite there yet, but when you think about how a Mimi Lesseos only has five films where she was the lead, Johnston could be on her way to being one of the top female action stars, especially in the DTV realm. After Rothrock, there's a large drop down to names like Kathleen Kinmont, but Amy Johnston should have more films where she's the lead than Kinmont did. Zoe Bell is another one that I need to catch up on, and in looking at her CV, she has more stuff I could review on the site than Johnston does. Either way, the potential is there for Johnston to be among those names, especially with the roles she's had so far. She has those action lead qualities that make us want to see what she has coming next, so hopefully we keep getting stuff like this from here--and if we do, it's going to be exciting to follow her growth. One thing that could possibly derail her: getting cancelled like Gina Carano did. Please Amy, we implore you, don't tweet any dumb stuff!

With men as the action leads, the bonds that characters form are in more of a bro vein. "Thanks for havin' my six man." "Let's grab a beer and get into a bar fight." "They killed my bro, time for a dysfunctionally masculine cry, followed by a vengeance mission." With women though, emotions are considered okay, and if the characters form more of an emotional bond, like Johnston and Hofman form as Hofman is training her, we as the audience are more okay with it--which shouldn't be the case, we should be okay with dudes doing that too. Anyway, I liked how they used the bond Johnston and Hofman were forming to juxtapose with how Kathy Wu's character was training Jenny Wu, where Kathy was stricter and harsher. The problem was, with harsher one, we don't get enough development of Jenny Wu's character, in part because we couldn't, but it made the juxtaposition less complete; but even bigger, when Hofman's character gets upset with Johnston after she takes out a gang of guys who mugged her earlier in the film, it also doesn't fit with the emotional bond Hofman and Johnston have formed. To make it work, they needed to play more into why Hofman's character would've been hurt by what Johnston's did--maybe go back to what happened in the past between Hofman and Wu. It's that thing where action filmmakers are trying new things when they have women in the lead, but ultimately they need to fall back on old male-lead tropes. Hopefully as time goes on they'll be able to break away from them more. A great example getting out of those male-dominated cliches was Zoe Saldana's Colombiana.

Amy Johnston's lead was solid enough that we didn't have a Destro Effect, but I really liked Jenny Wu's Ling character, and I also liked how they used the harsh methods Kathy Wu's character employed to train her to create some ambiguity in Ling's motivation. In a different world, Ling would have been the hero of this movie, and maybe she has to fight her trainer, Wai, in the finale. That was another aspect of this that was different from other tournament fight films, there wasn't a Bolo Yeung or Michel Qissi looming at the end of it all. The closest we had was Mayling Ng's Svietta, who was great as the Tong Po-esque baddie, but with the construct of Wai and Shu needing to train fighters to win for them, Johnston had to fight Svietta earlier on. Maybe the better approach is if Ling and Johnston's Jane befriend each other, and Svietta is the evil looming in the finale. As an aside, I didn't realize this, but this is the third film for Ng on the site too, the other two being Acceleration and Debt Collectors. Hopefully we'll see her again, because she was also great here.

Finally, from a personal standpoint, this film features two cities I've always wanted to visit, Hong Kong and Pittsburgh. Obviously one is much further from me in Philadelphia than the other, but it's interesting how Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are connected--or not connected. My wife and I don't have a car or drive, so there is no driving option for us to get from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh for me, but that seems to be the best way to get there. There's really only one train a day that connects the two, and going west, that train gets to Pittsburgh in the evening and comes back to Philadelphia the next morning. So that means to do anything there, like catch a Pirates game, I'd need at least a two-night stay. You can also do the Megabus, which also only has one trip a day, so if I'm doing that the train's nicer than the bus; or Greyhound, which has more bus times, bit do I want to take a Greyhound just to say I've been to Pittsburgh? Compare that to Boston, which is roughly the same distance away, but has myriad train options, plus flights aren't as expensive either. You could make the point that the big difference between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia and Boston, is one of those two has one of the largest cities in the world between it. Fair enough, but I don't think you could find a similar situation in Europe where two large cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are connected by only one train trip a day. The answer is always "Americans just love their cars," but the Germans love their cars even more, and they have no problem connecting major cities with trains, and trains that are faster than traveling by car too.

Since I've spent a paragraph ranting about the lack of train travel outside the Northeast Corridor in the US, it's probably better to wrap this up. Here in the States this is available to stream on Prime, Plex, Pluto, and my favorite, Tubi. If you haven't seen it yet, it's time to make it happen, as this is a lot of fun, with some fantastic martial arts action. It's the great irony of America: tons of great content to stream for free, but you have to drive everywhere so you can't watch any of it on a long trip. Maybe Tubi, Netflix, Amazon, etc. should team up with Amtrak to get us more train service... sorry, I said I was done ranting...

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4327752

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Ba Wong Fa aka Top Squad aka Inspector Wears Skirts (1988)

This is it, with this post Cynthia Rothrock joins the illustrious DTVC 40 Club, the second-most exclusive club on the site after the 50 Club. She's also only the third actor to get in, after Dolph and Gary Daniels, and the first woman to make the club. When I saw that this movie was on Tubi, I figured it would make a good one for her 40th post. In addition to us, our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have done this one as well.

Inspector Wears Skirts has Sibelle Hu and Cynthia Rothrock as two top cops on the Hong Kong police squad. After an attack on a visiting sheik and his family ends in disgrace for the force when male officers touched the sheik's wife while trying to protect her, Hu is tasked with creating a female commando squad. Between the recruits not taking it seriously, and the guys in the other training groups not taking them seriously, Hu has her hands full, but she's able to whip them into shape, later with the help of Rothrock. They get their chance to prove what they can do when a famous jewel is on display in Hong Kong, and the force has intel that a gang wants to steal it. Will Hu, Rothrock, and their team be up to the task?

 

This one starts off fantastic, with a great action scene featuring Rothrock and Hu. From there it settles into a kind of Fact of Life or John Hughes movie kind of thing, only with plenty of Hong Kong physical humor, and then finishes off with more high-octane action scenes. At first I was like "what's happening here?" but I started to lean into it and liked the idea of an 80s John Hughes movie featuring action like this. Imagine Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy kicking ass and taking names between scenes of hijinx at the high school or a local hangout. Not only that, but Ringwald and Sheedy doing all their stunts! I don't know that this is the first movie for someone who is new to Rothrock or new to 80s Hong Kong cinema, but I liked the idea of it, and Rothrock and Hu were fantastic in their martial arts scenes.

40 movies for Cynthia Rothrock. The first film of hers we covered was X-treme Fighter aka Sci-Fighter, which was a lackluster effort that also starred Lorenzo Lamas and Don "The Dragon" Wilson. That was back in March of 2008, so almost a year after we'd started the site. I think part of the reason why it took so long to get a film of hers up was classics like China O'Brien were harder to come by. Now we have Hong Kong movies like this available on Tubi, so hopefully this is a sign that more of her stuff will get Blu-ray releases or just become easier to get overall. One thing that makes this movie a good one to post for this honor, is it really showcases her high level of skill and athleticism. She's scaling walls, kicking grenades back at baddies, and dodging axes and swords. She's truly one of the best to ever do it, and it's as evident here as it is in any of her films.

 

Rothrock was more the co-star, with Sibelle Hu as more of the lead. I knew of her before this one, but I'm not as up on Hong Kong films, so I can't tell what else I've seen her in. The character she plays here, Madam Wu, was spun-off from a role she played in other Hong Kong films with stars like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, and which she played in sequels to this movie. I haven't seen any of those, as I haven't really delved into Hong Kong cinema as much as I should have, I kind of come to it more when stars like Rothrock are in a movie. Again, with the availability of more of these films either on Blu-ray, through streamers like Tubi, or archived by a user on YouTube, there's a lot for me to get into, and some of the ones Hu has done look like good places to start, because she was great here too.

The construct of this film is interesting, because it replaces some of the action with more comedic scenes, so the rhythm of an action scene every 10 minutes or so is thrown off a bit. By the same token, it deals with ideas like chauvinism--from a story standpoint in the police department, but metaphorically in the action movie realm--but unfortunately the message didn't make it across the pond in any substantial way. Rothrock herself never quite had that success she deserved, in part I think because American action filmmakers at the highest levels didn't know what to make of her as an action lead. All they needed to do was watch a film like this and it would've told them what to think. As we got into the 90s, we had one-off films with female action leads, and then we had DTV franchises led by Rothrock, or Andy Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies movies that were led by Dona Speir and then Julie Strain; but it's some time before we start to get Milla Jovovich doing Resident Evil movies in 2002.

 

And that gets me to this last paragraph of where we put Rothrock all time among action leads. In the DTV world, I only have Dolph and Fred Williamson ahead of her, and I think she and Wilson are tied for third behind those two. I have her third all-time among female action leads as well, behind Pam Grier and Michelle Yeoh, and then I think Zoe Saldana and Milla Jovovich are right behind her. Among all the action leads I don't know, I've never really done that list out, but it's hard for her with no real big screen movies to compete with names like Schwarzenegger and Stallone--yet by the same token, should we hold the fact that she didn't get the opportunities against her? Had she had the opportunity to make her Commando or even Cobra, do we doubt she would've hit it out of the park? Of course she would have. Unfortunately we can only wonder what if, and enjoy the gems like these that we have from her, especially as the more obscure ones become available.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can stream this for free with ads on Tubi here in the States. That version is Chinese with English subtitles, which is fine for me, but some people prefer English dubs. However you watch it, this is worth checking out. And congratulations to Cynthia Rothrock for becoming the third actor and sixth member overall of the DTVC 40 Club! It's well-deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094694

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

Fight to Win (1987)

This looked like a pretty sweet deal, especially considering it featured the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire of DTV action, DTVC Hall of Famers Cynthia Rothrock and Richard Norton. Always good to get films in with this pair. Took a while to get, but a friend hooked me up with a VHS, which was very nice of him.

Fight to Win has George Chung as Ryan, a cocky kid with major martial arts skills but is totally full of himself. After winning a local tournament, his father and his sensei's old nemesis, Richard Norton, comes by and challenges the kid to fight one of his guys, and naturally, the kid loses bad. The sensei's got some heart trouble, so he calls in prized pupil Cynthia Rothrock to train the kid, and it just happens she has an ax to grind with Norton as well. Can the kid put his ego in check long enough to gain his redemption?



Wow, this is a pretty sweet deal. Not the best, but for bad action, really good. The fight scenes were solid, there were some jokes that were funny, and some jokes that didn't work that were even funnier, and some serious moments that were even funnier than that. I posted a short dance/martial arts montage on the image page that was one of the funniest, but I think I could've posted five or six videos, there were that many great moments. Also, there was some really impressive music, solid 80s stuff, and great mullets and outfits. This is just really good 80s bad action.

I know I should be posting a Cynthia Rothrock image here-- and I put a couple on the image page-- but I had to indulge in this Norton one here instead. It has everything, the windswept, feathered mullet; the leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up; the sweatsuits; and most importantly, the vintage Ford Escort. Man, if I had the money, I'd get one of those things and have so much work put into it-- hell, I'd even get the "Antique" plates. How sick would that be? As far as the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire of DTV action, they were both good. Norton had a lesser role because he was the baddie, but he had some good fight scenes, especially with Rothrock; and Rothrock was great as the trainer who then takes on a more active role in fighting. Not the best of their team-ups, but not a bad one either.



One of the best Gary Daniels films we've reviewed is Bloodmoon, and like Darren Shahlavi, who was great but hasn't had the roles since then that he deserves, the same can be said for Chuck Jefferys, who is also a fantastic fighter. He seems to be here more for his comic relief-- and his great Eddie Murphy impression-- but when he gets his chances to show off his prodigious martial arts skills, he doesn't disappoint. A guy that definitely deserved more work.

All right, I'm going to get a little film snobby on you and bring up Yasujiro Ozu, but bear with me, I have a point. This movie, though it obviously wasn't completely Ozu-style, had some of his hallmarks, particularly a still frame that he allowed all of the action to move within without excessively panning or zooming in. (You're going to think I'm crazy when you see the one clip I decided post, because that's all kinds of edits and whatnot, but I swear, that was the exception.) One thing Ebert remarked on with Ozu's style is that it allows the viewer to fall into a rhythm, which makes the movie pass quicker in our minds, as opposed to something like Armageddon, where no shot is on the screen for more than a second, and as a result, because it's so cut up, it takes forever. Fight to Win is a great example of that juxtaposition with the modern punchfighting movie, that is a mess of bad edits and gimmicky crap that diverts out attention. We have fight scenes in this that are allowed to breathe in front of us in one continuous shot with a camera that moves ever so slightly to keep all of the action within frame, and for us the viewer, it makes it easier to get into. The thing is, this movie looks like it was made on a shoestring budget, so if they can make a fight look good with limited edits and zero computer gimmicks, then the modern DTV flick should have no problem either.



That's Hall of Fame (NFL not DTVC) safety Ronnie Lott. He has a short cameo where he comes in on a four-wheeler and shoots a bunch of guys up, then banters with one of the good guys. It's crazy to think how much the world of football has changed between 1987 and now. In 1987, Lott's 49ers were one of the best teams ever, and the idea that they would ever be the sack of asscrack they are now was inconceivable. At the same time, the idea that instead of the '9ers, it's the Pats that are one of the best teams, is equally crazy. I guess it's a reminder that nothing in sports is guaranteed, and the Pats could drop out eventually too.

And that's it, this is a good one, if you can find it. VHS, and I'll tell you, this transfer isn't great-- lots of scratches from the source film. But for you VHS nostalgists, that probably makes it all the better. I think this is more of a collector's flick, so keep your eyes peeled, and don't be afraid to spend, because it's a good one for your collection. They don't make 'em like this anymore, which is too bad.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165776/

Circle of Pain (2010)

About a month ago I reviewed a film called Locked Down. In the comments section of that post, two things happened. First, our friend Ty at comeuppance reviews, gave us the term "punchfighting movie" when describing this UFC/TapOut sub-genre of low-budget martial arts films, complete with the tatted bruisers, songs performed by Disturbed derivatives, and sea-sickness inducing MTV film edits. Second, our friend Jason over at elementarybeatboxoperator,storylike made the joke that he might handle these films better while under the influence of Mountain Dew. And thus the Punchfighting Movie Mountain Dew Doritos Experiment was born.

I decided to go back to my movie watching roots for this one. On a recent free day, after my morning walk and a quick shower, I planted myself on the couch and had Mountain Dew and Doritos for lunch-- that's it-- while I watched two recent Punchfighting movie efforts, Circle of Pain and Beatdown. Below is a picture of what I put into my system:



And no, Mr. Anonymous from Unrivaled, it wasn't this:



Before I get into the review, let me just say that I was ill equipped physically to deal with the ramifications of what a lunch of Mountain Dew and Doritos meant. I was lightheaded, felt some tingling in my left arm, and thought on numerous occasions that I might have what the competitive eaters call a "reversal of fortune". As late as midnight-- twelve hours later!-- I was still feeling these effects. I know as a blogger the idea is that junk food is considered an average meal for us in our parents' basements; but in the real world, as an actual person, I'm too far removed from my college days when I used to pull this kind of shit and get away with it. My body just doesn't find it funny anymore.

Anyway, so here we are, onto Circle of Pain. It stars rising Punchfighting guy Tony Schiena (Locked Down) as a former fighter who broke his buddy Dean Cain's back with a spin kick (believe me, it was hilarious). Five years later, Bai Ling, who runs the MMA outfit Schiena used to fight for, decides that he needs to fight again against her champ, Heath Herring. She twists his arm by evicting Schiena's baby mama and daughter out of the house Ling provided for them, somehow circumventing any landlord/tenant laws in the process. Now Schiena must overcome his regrets for what he did to his buddy and climb back into that ring triumphant.



I don't know if it was the Mountain Dew or what, but this wasn't too bad. Yes, the scene where Schiena breaks Cain's back is hilarious, and the flashbacks after are even better-- "I play that moment back in my mind, just thinking 'why didn't I kick him a little higher!'" The fight scenes outside of the ring were pretty clunky, like the one with Kimbo Slice, pretty much just wait, punch punch, wait, punch punch, wait, kick, block, throw, repeat; but the final fight inside the ring was great, one of the best MMA dramatizations we've seen in this sub-genre. Also, it was refreshingly light on the MTV gimmicky camera effects. Schiena in the featurette called it the "Rocky of MMA", which is what Unrivaled technically was too, but this was much better. The plot didn't stray too far and get weird on us, and Bai Ling as the MMA organization president was too perfect for words in my opinion. I would say it's more Rocky V than Rocky, but it was a good Rocky V.

Tony Schiena worked better here as the hero than he did in Locked Down, though I have to say he didn't work in the latter more because of the convoluted plot that made him act in awkward scenes than it was him. I do love that he always speaks in these breathy tones, like he's an obscene caller or something. "Hey Dean Cain, do you know who this is? What're you wearing? Are you wearing corduroy? Ooh, I can hear you swish swishing around the house as we speak..." He's a great fighter though, so hopefully he'll get more and better work.



Speaking of the devil, Dean Cain plays a paraplegic. In the featurette, he said he wanted this role because he knew people who were paralyzed, and he saw how they lived very full lives in spite of their disabilities. That brings in an interesting question: is that good enough for you Dean Cain fans out there? What I mean is, is not seeing him fight that much enough for you, if you find out after the fact why he took the role he did? It's one of those things about the featurette, because it explains a lot, but do you except the explanations if you were looking for something else? I was fine with it, even before finding out about why, but that's just me.

One of my favorite MMAers, Frank Mir, has a small, clunky cameo where he gets his ass kicked by Heath Herring. Again, in the featurette, we find out he was just doing it to get his feet wet in the acting world. I'm good with him doing that, but by putting his name on the cover, it's a bait-and-switch. Also, his fight scene wasn't very good at all. Wait, punch punch, wait, knee knee, throw. If he's going to go the next level and get a bigger part, I'd say make him a cyborg or something that throws people a lot and breaks their arms with nasty jiu-jitsu holds. That would rule. As an aside, the background of his one scene is a sick Shelby Cobra-- at least I think it is, I don't know cars that well.



Bai Ling was awesome, and if you see her in the featurette, she's even more awesome. The first thing she says is "this movie is better than drugs, alcohol, or anything else you're taking." Umm, Bai, what exactly do you think I'm taking? Oh wait, that's right, Mountain Dew. Then she says the director was a genius for casting her, because she was playing a part made for a white man. Simply beautiful. I could have done with her in a better haircut, and the leopard print nail polish was a little bit much, but otherwise, she totally sold it. It was one of the elements that elevated this from the run-of-the-mill Punchfighting film.

All right, so final verdict, clunky fights, but a really amazing last one; a pretty funny storyline, especially when you see the actual kick to the back; a script that uses the word "fucking" as its go-to verb; yet also a great Bai Ling; and a hero who speaks in breathy tones but is a solid fighter and a guy worth rooting for. It's the Rocky V of MMA films, which isn't so bad a deal. Again, maybe it was the Mountain Dew that made me lighten up, but I didn't hate this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1541664/