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/

Terminator Woman (1993)

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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

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

Pocket Ninjas (1997)

I was completely shocked to find that this was available from Netflix. We're talking #9 on the imdb Bottom 100, and the film is still in print? On the one hand that sounds really cool, but on the other, I think of all the great Gary Daniels films that aren't in print or available on Netflix, and it irks me that this one is.

Pocket Ninjas has Gary Daniels as a sensei teaching his students how to be vigilante fighters in order to defeat the evil power of Cobra Khan, now embodied in a little kid named Cubby Khan, but originally embodied in DTVC favorite Robert Z'Dar, whose enormous face alone was bigger than that kid. Anyway, the kids go out and fight Cubby Khan's goons, then have some kind of showdown with virtual reality video games.



This lives up to it's Bottom 100 billing, but that's not exactly a good thing. First off, it's trying to be a parody of martial arts movies, but it's so not funny that it falls flat on its face. The number one rule to a good parody: be better than the material one is mocking, and Pocket Ninjas couldn't deliver on that. Second, it tortures us with these drawn out training sequences with the kid and the baddies that have no point other than hurting our sensibilities and hammering this repetitious synth music into our skulls. Third, we get a healthy dose of annoying kid actors, especially this one with a high pitched voice that was supposed to be our comedic lead, but just made me wish the girl in his group would kick him in the nuts-- over and over. Finally I don't know what was going on with Robert Z'Dar. They were going for some kind of Three Stooges thing, but I found myself with my mouth agape, totally stunned and baffled-- nonplussed, so to speak, not knowing how I was supposed to react. Had the people involved let off the schlock a little bit, and trimmed about five minutes off a lot of their scenes-- which is saying a lot for a film with a 76-minute running time-- this could've been a fun bad movie in MST3K terms. Instead, it was just 76 minutes of extreme tediousness annoying the hell out of me.

The opening credits tell us that this is a "special appearance" by Gary Daniels, but he's in it a fair amount, though some of those are clips from other movies, most prominent, Capital Punishment. He was trying his best here, so you gotta give him an A for effort, but this was a hardcore painfest. It's funny to watch, though, just to see Daniels giving it his best, not betraying the silly dialog, or the outfit, or the scene where he's covered in water (I guess sweating). In the review for Across the Line, we discussed Daniels's trend of doing smaller parts in films with bigger actors so he can rub shoulders with them. I wonder if this film is on his mind every time he takes one of these small roles. I wonder if, during the wrap party, he's deathly afraid someone will bring it up, maybe a practical joke where the scene of him covered in water is plastered across someone's 58" plasma.



Robert Z'Dar. Yep, showing us his comedic acting skills. Oh, I know, he's a comedic actor when he's playing it straight, what's it like when he's trying to evoke the Three Stooges? In a word, shocking. He's like the guy at the frat party who's like a friend of a friend, and gets really drunk and acts a fool, and you're there trying to not to make eye contact with him, for fear he'll bring his routine to you, and latch onto you, preventing you from making a connection with the girl you've struck up a conversation with. It was uncouth, and perhaps more frightening than any of the baddies he's ever played.

All of the scenes of Tadashi Yamashita are from Capital Punishment, and I guess for that reason he's uncredited. You also have a quick shot of Ian Jacklin-- the guy from Kickboxer 3-- probably also from another movie. How does one do that, make a 76-minute long movie, and use footage from another film? And then, half the scenes they did shoot originally went on too long. I mean, this entire thing is high school kids on YouTube quality, and I know if they had the rights to movies like Capital Punishment that they could splice in, they'd probably make a much better movie.



This was shot in 1994, but not released until 1997. With that in mind, I'm assuming the female lead, played by Sondi (just the one name, and just the one role according to imdb) is about my age, or maybe a year or two older. Her character, the way she looked, the way she dressed, the way she wore her hair, it reminded me of the girls I grew up with in middle school into high school. People my age probably remember what I'm talking about. Girls back then seldom wore skirts or dresses, usually dressed in slightly unflattering jeans and baggy shirts and sweaters with sneakers. It sounds like a Tom Boy, but these were feminine outfits, all these clothes came from the girls' of the department store section. There was something about those days when a girl that I was so used to wearing jeans and a sweater would come into to school with a skirt on, and though the girl in this movie never wore a skirt, there was something about her clothes that reminded me of those days, where a girl that I always thought was cute would be transformed into something more, just because, for whatever reason, today was a skirt day. It's so weird, because skirts are common on women today, and we really don't think anything of it, but back then, if a girl wore a skirt, it was a big deal.

Okay, so I'm way off track here reminiscing about the early 90s. Pocket Ninjas is enticing, believe me. imdb Bottom 100, Gary Daniels, Robert Z'Dar, and easily available on Netflix. Just be very careful, because you're entering into a 76-minute long painfest, something that will harm your sensibilities, and leave you for hours after with this atrocious, repetitive synth track buried deep in your dome.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107838/

Across the Line:The Exodus of Charlie Wright (2010)

I put this in my queue, first and foremost, because it lists DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels in its cast, a cast which is very star-studded, including Mario Van Peebles, Bokeem Woodbine, Corbin Bernsen, Andy Garcia, Gena Gershon, and Aiden Quinn. I had a feeling Daniels wouldn't be in it much, but I figured I'd give it a look anyway.

Across the Line has Aiden Quinn as very successful investment broker whose enterprise has been revealed to be a Ponzi scheme, ripping off investors to the tune of $11 billion give or take. Before FBI agent Van Peebles can get a warrant, Quinn escapes, meaning he could be anywhere. Turns out anywhere is Tijuana, where a lot of people want him and his money. Andy Garcia runs a crime family on the border that is into some scary characters in Mexico City for some big cash, and he sees Quinn as his gift from God. Back in LA, a couple retired Russian mob bosses that Quinn ripped off for $100 million want their pound of flesh, and they hire Luke Goss to hire Gary Daniels's mercenary team to get him. As all of this is going on, Quinn is looking to make amends for a major regret in his past, which is the reason he's in TJ to begin with.



This looked like it was going to be a pretty decent film. It was moving along pretty well with few dead spots, and I actually cared enough about Quinn's character to see what happened. But then it just ends with nothing really happening, and I'm like "what's the point?" I mean, you gather all this talent, give them pretty solid characters, and that's it, the movie just kind of gives us "as you were". Seldom do I go in for the whole temporal refund deal-- you know, that's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back-- but I'm feeling it here. Why waste my time?

Daniels had a rather small part, as leader of a three-man mercenary team that included him and Bokeem Woodbine. I'll get into later how confused I was that he wasn't playing Luke Goss's character, or something a little better. Of the three films Daniels did this year, this one, The Expendables, and Hunt to Kill, he only had a small supporting part in each of them. Is this a disturbing trend in Daniels's career? Is he foregoing smaller budget actioners that cast him in the lead, for these smaller roles in slightly bigger movies where he gets to rub shoulders with bigger names? It's a tad disconcerting to say the least, though if he's doing it to make a better name for himself so he can get back to those leading roles, only on a level with guys like Dolph and Seagal, it could be a great move. I guess it's a reality check that a guy that we dig so much isn't as big a deal to everyone else. Hopefully he will be.



Can someone explain this to me? I'm talking about this guy, Luke Goss. Does he make any sense to you? Does he make any sense as somehow above or better than Daniels to you? What, he's bald? Is that it? He looks like a grown up Ben Seaver. Just because you're selling him to me as cooler or better than Daniels or Bokeem Woodbine, doesn't mean I have to buy it. According to imdb, he was in a boy band in the UK called Bros, which sold out Wembley Stadium. I guess they also played at MSG here in the States. That's hot. He should've been Mario Van Peeble's FBI partner, and Daniels should've been given a bigger part, representing his own mercenary team to the Russian mobsters.

At first blush, the idea of casting Andy Garcia as a sophisticated Mexican mob boss sounds good, right? It doesn't work though. Garcia is too good for a part like that, he's too good for the cheesy, poorly written philosophy that these characters spout out, the dime-store novel existentialism, it's all somehow beneath him. The other thing is, he's very American, and didn't work as a native Mexican. In reality, he would've been perfect for Aiden Quinn's part. One side note about Andy Garcia: I loved his work in The Godfather III, a movie that I otherwise thought was a total disappointment.



One of my regrets in life was, on a visit with a friend to San Diego to see his mother, I didn't make it across the border to Tijuana, and this film was a constant reminder of that regret. It's funny, growing up in Maine, four hours or so from Montreal, I've never been to Canada either. I know, that's crazy. My only foray outside the country was to England and Scotland in 1997-- a trip I remember very little of, spending most of the time either drunk or hungover-- I was 18. I actually was going to go to Montreal two years ago, while in Burlington, VT to see some friends, but we didn't make it because there was a huge snowstorm.

Way more information about me than you probably needed, so let's wrap this up. It wasn't a bad movie to begin with, but at the end I was left with this "what's the point?" feeling, and that's never a good thing. Also, there isn't much Gary Daniels here, which seems to be a trend with his new work. Overall, a lot of great talent chewing up scenery, but that's all they're doing.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663193/

Final Round (1994)

I wish I could remember exactly when I first saw this. It's like asking me if I can remember when I first saw The Running Man. Okay, no it isn't, but I'm just sayin'.... Anyway, it took me a little bit to track it down on VHS... okay, no I didn't track it down, I came across it and figured why the hell not, but I'm just sayin'... why don't I just get to the review?

Final Round stars DTVC Hall of Famer Lorenzo Lamas as Tyler Verdiccio, a motorcycle mechanic who can also fight. Kathleen Kinmont sees him at a gym beating a guy who once starred as a bad immortal on Highlander: The Series, and she decides he's good fresh meat for this Running Man rip-off game run by another Highlander: The Series villain (two-time in fact) Anthony De Longis. Thing is, De Longis is mad at Kinmont, so after he captures Lamas, he throws her in the game too, along with one of the guys from Homicide Life on the Street. Now Lamas needs to become the hunter, or some such shit.



imdb, in their "Movie Connections" section for this film, listed The Running Man as one of the connections, and gave this as the reason "This movie directly lifts the concept of The Running Man". This is no where as good as The Running Man, of course, even down to the Homicide Life on the Street actor they used-- what, Yaphet Kotto wasn't available, or didn't want to walk within ten feet of this? Forget the rip-off factor, because I'm usually up for a good rip-off when done well, but this was just a big old pile of suck. There's one scene where one of the hunters turns out the lights on Lamas and co., and uses night vision goggles to see them. She spends an inordinate amount of time cutting them with a knife, toying with them, and we're wondering how Lamas will get out of this one. Well, Kinmont simply turns on the lights, and they kill her (the hunter, not Kinmont). It was a metaphor for the whole film: scenes that went on too long, that were more annoying than suspenseful, and didn't take any ingenuity from our hero to solve them. This is hard to watch, and not a lot of fun, even to make fun of.

I must say, I was rather disappointed by this turn of events, because the film started off well-- even if in only a funny way-- and a big part of that was Lamas. The hair, the boxing gloves, and then after the working on the bike with no shirt on, and then the overalls with one unsnapped he wears to meet Kinmont for their date at the bar. It's just classy Lamas all the way around. The problem was, the film artificially diminished his character because they thought it would make him more intriguing or something. Instead, it only helped to further diminish the film. I mean, the only thing this film had going for it was Lamas as the hero and De Longis as the baddie. Make Lamas totally awesome, totally kick ass. Right away, when the Dan Dierdorf look-alike bodyguard leads Lamas into the playing field at shotgun-point, Lamas, instead of meekly doing what he's told, should whip around, disarm him, and in the next scene we see the hunters coming across his dead body with a note attached about how he (Lamas) has a gun now. But I guess being awesome is a little too much to ask of a movie like this.



This scene here with the laser sight reminds me of a similar one in the Dolph Lundgren classic Hidden Assassin, not to be confused with another Dolph classic, Hidden Agenda. If you're wondering, the laser sight in Final Round is attached to a crossbow, which is shot by Ian Jacklin. Does it get any more jack-ass-y than that? I should probably be saying jackbutt, right, since I don't have the adult warning gate to enter my blog. Oh, I guess I said "shit" two paragraphs ago, which either means I need to fix that, or I can say jackass. What if I just want to say jackbutt, just to say it? Like, Ian Jacklin with his mullet and the camera on his face that looked like an eye patch and his tiny crossbow with a laser sight looked like a total jackbutt. That this movie looks like it was made by a bunch of jackbutts. Frickin' jackbutts.

Jackasses, okay, they were jackasses. Kathleen Kinmont and Lorenzo Lamas had one of the most awkward love scenes, which is saying a lot, because DTV movies seem to be a haven for awkward love scenes. We had Kinmont, in her underwear and nylons, and she peels one of her nylons down seductively-- only to run into her shoe, which was a mess of buckles and ties and whatnot. So she just rolled it down that far and left it, which looked so weird. Then she saunters over to Lamas, who takes her other leg, and proceeds to do the same thing, down to the shoe, and leaves it there. How hard would it have been to make that less awkward? I guess if you're a jackass, too hard.



Look at that shot up there. It looks like it's from an indie art house flick about a small Midwestern town in the 50s. How does something so awesome emerge from a film so ah-trocious? I mean, you'd never know that, instead of James McAvoy coming out of his garage to meet Kira Knightly or something, we have a shirtless Lorenzo Lamas coming to meet Kathleen Kinmont so the two can have a sexual innuendo conversation about bikes.

What do you want me to say? Yes, rent The Running Man on DVD, or if you own it-- of course, you don't need me to tell you The Running Man was awesome, what you need me to tell you is this rip-off of The Running Man was no good, and I'll be happy to oblige you. Pile o' suck.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106907/

Red Sun Rising (1994)

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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

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

Black Horizon aka Stranded (2001)

This was a Michael Dudikoff flick I'd had a little trouble coming across. The way it looked, I was under the impression that there wasn't going to be much Dudikoff in there anyway, so I wasn't too worried; but when I came across it recently, I figured I'd go for it.

Black Horizon is about an orbiting space station manufactured by some rich corporation, and the corporation cut corners-- sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Now its orbit is disintegrating, and the station is falling into the Earth, requiring NASA to send a rescue vessel. To add a little spice to the affair, the company is manufacturing a fancy death ray, and the NSA wants the plans for it before the crew is evacuated. But hold on cowboy, we aren't done yet, there's an asteroid shower pelting the area, and Dudikoff's (he's our ace astronaut) ship is damaged. How will they get down?



At least when movies like this were made in the 50s, we could say it was the 50s, and laugh at them, or get a kick out of the technology. When the exact same paradigm is recycled in 2001, it's just a plain old snooze fest. We all grew up watching space shuttle launches in school, so splicing in the stock footage isn't exciting, no matter how much stock excitement music you pump into the background. The only really cool and intriguing stuff was the investigative work Ice-T's character was doing on the ground to figure out what the corrupt businessman was up to-- though even then the second shoot-out he's in is just a lame old people firing on each other out in the open, and no one hitting anything kind of deal. Dudikoff does his best-- he is in it a fair amount, contrary to what I initially thought going in-- but he's working on a tired retread of a plot that's been reused to death. We go through the same crap of the film makers playing God and deciding on a whim who gets to live and who dies by random horrible accidents or tedious twists of fate, stretching out 35 minutes worth of plot over an hour and a half. If I want a movie like this, I'll just watch an old MST3K episode.

After this post we'll have only 6 films left to complete Michael Dudikoff's DTV filmography here at the DTVC. Black Horizon is definitely one we could've done without, though. I mean, don't get me wrong, Dudikoff is fun as an astronaut, but he's at his best when he has bad guys to defeat, and stuntmen to beat the crap out of. It's boring to see him in a space suit simulating a space walk. I'm trying to think, of all the Dudikoff flicks we've done on here, which ones were worse, and I'm not sure there were any-- I mean some were close, but...



I really liked Ice-T here. He's seldom a good guy in DTV films, which has always struck me as odd, because he made a great good guy in Law and Order: SVU-- I'm not saying he doesn't make a good baddie, just that maybe there should be a more even split. Anyway, he plays an NSA agent, which in this film means he's like a police detective who occasionally throws around secret service lingo about "cleaners" and whatnot. He had one great scene where these guys ambush his hotel room, and he hides out in the bathroom, waits for them to stop shooting, then jumps out and pops them all. I'd like to see more of that Ice-T, and less of the gangster.

Fred Olen Ray directed this. I think that's like five or six he did with Dudikoff (it's hard to go through Ray's filmography on imdb, because for every relevant DTVC film listed, there's like five or six skin flicks), and I think The Shooter is the only one I gave a favorable review to-- a lot of them actually are like this, tons of stock footage mixed with very boring premises, like stranded space ships or submarines or planes. He's definitely one that would be primed for a look at the Hall of Fame, but we'll need to not only review more of his movies, but review more winners.



I was trying to figure out where I recognized Yvette Nipar from. It was the RoboCop TV show. She also did the two Walking Tall sequels (part 2 and part 3) which starred DTVC favorite Kevin Sorbo, and which are her last two listed credits on imdb. She's that DTV heroine who, though still very attractive, isn't there merely for eye candy and sex scenes and to be rescued. I've noticed that Dudikoff, more than most DTV action stars, works really well with that type of female co-star. It's too bad they were wasted here, because they would've been much better in a Bounty Hunters style actioner-- and it would've been much more fun for us.

I don't know what to say about this one. It's hard to come by, and maybe that's a good thing. It's out of print, but you can get it used on DVD if you're so inclined, but you're probably better off not being so inclined, if you know what I mean. Boring, well-worn material that even Dudikoff couldn't rescue.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274905/