Huang jia shi jie aka Yes, Madam! aka Police Assassins (1985)

I decided to take another dip into Cynthia Rothrock's Hong Kong career with the Corey Yuen flick Yes, Madam, which also has the distinction of being Michelle Yeoh's breakout movie. This is unofficially the first post we've had that starts with the letter "Y"--and when I say unofficially, I mean unofficially, because the version I had was titled Police Assassins.

Yes, Madam has Yeoh as a cop going to meet an old friend at his hotel room, only to find him dead, and a guy dressed like a waiter suspiciously exiting his room. The old friend is a Brit, so Scotland yard or something sends Cynthia Rothrock over as a liaison, and she and Yeoh don't get along. Meanwhile, the man who really killed the old friend is after a microfilm the guy had, but the thieves, who were dressed as waiters and went in after him have it. Now everyone is trying to find out who has what and who's responsible for what, as it's a big old mess.

A very interesting movie. The fights with Rothrock and Yeoh were excellent, and some of the other action was great too. But then there was this Three Stooges element between the thieves--there were three of them, including one played by legendary Hong Kong director Tsui Hark--that took up a lot of the film's time, and got old kind of quick. The movie became more about them than the two cops, which made for tedious viewing at times. But man, those fight scenes were really good, which makes this film worth watching.

According to IMDb this is Cynthia Rothrock's first big role, and she kicks ass in it. People had to have seen this and been like "we need to get her in more films!" She has a great fight to start with with a dude credited as Eddie Maher, and her final one with the main baddie is amazing. She also worked really well onscreen with Michelle Yeoh. Though I would've liked to have seen more of both women, i.e. not seen the film devolve into something centered more on the Three Stooges, it was a great first major part for Rothrock.

This is also Yeoh's breakout film, and we know what her career has led to. I believe this is the third film of hers we've done, the other two being Silver Hawk and Tai Chi Master. Like Rothrock, she's totally hot and totally kickass, and I think she was actually supposed to be the star of this film--and in a way she is, but again, the writing runs off the rails, and we lose her for big chunks as we become too involved with the Three Stooges. Another interesting thing to note: she is five years younger than Rothrock.

Famed Hong Kong director Tsui Hark (or Hark Tsui) has a part in this as a forger, and member of the Three Stooges. He does a lot of stunts, so I guess at the very least, anyone who stars in his films can look at this and think "well, it's not like he hasn't done this shit too." Among his many credits are two films with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Knock Off and Double Team.

I keep harping on the Three Stooges thing, and the reason is, how often do we have two of the greatest actions stars--and not just female action stars either, Yeoh and Rothrock are two of the greatest actions stars period--in a film together? I have to think people watching this when it came out were thinking the same thing, "why are we seeing so much of this Three Stooges thing when Yeoh and Rothrock kick ass?" But this also seems to happen in Hong Kong action films, there's this comedic secondary plot that runs throughout, almost like "your brain can't handle that much awesome action, you need a breather." I get that, but maybe we don't need that much of a breather, especially when we have two talents of this caliber in one movie.

There are a few other things to like in this, like how Sammo Hung is one of the producers, and has a small cameo as an old dude in an old age home. I don't know, for 90 minutes, it's not like it's that long, and the action, when it's there, is excellent, it's just that they spent too much time on the Three Stooges element, and that took away from the great action. I should also say that this can be a bit of a tough one to get, as Amazon has a few different versions, some expensive, some cheaper. I'd keep an eye out for it more than I'd go out of my for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093229/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Moving Target (2000)

This film took quite a bit of work to get to me, spending a huge chunk of time in my Netflix queue under "Short Wait" status, yet constantly being passed over for other films further down the line. Then one day Netflix sent me an e-mail, essentially saying "Hey sweet-ums, we're going to ship it to you from somewhere else, and it'll get to you later." But after a week, I didn't see it, so I clicked on "report a problem," which means that's it, it's considered lost, and I wrote it off, only to have it pop up in my mailbox a few days after that, like a dirty dog that's been lost for a while, then shows up at your doorstep out of the blue, all wrinkled and messy. I should also point out that this film should not be confused with the 1997 Moving Target, starring Michael Dudikoff, or the 1998 Miles O'Keeffe flick Moving Targets.

Moving Target has Don "The Dragon" Wilson as an American kickboxer who comes to Ireland to meet the woman he'd been dating on the Internet. At the same time, a rogue off-shoot of the IRA is trying to sell a six-pack of Beamish stout, which has nuclear detonators in it, and somehow Wilson ends up in possession of it. Now everybody wants him, people are getting gunned down, his Internet woman has been kidnapped, and he has to kickbox his way out of all of it.

This film should be confused with Bloodfist IV, because it's a remake of it, only without the too sweet Gary Daniels. Another thing it could be confused with is a Marx Brothers picture, because the whole "who's got the Beamish?" felt like a goofy construct from one of their films. Wilson's fight scenes were so clunky they felt like acts of physical comedy as well. I don't know what that means for a recommendation though. You tell me what "remake of Bloodfist IV that devolves into bad Marx Brothers style comedy" means.

Looking at it though, I'm not sure another actor could make this as ludicrous as it was--and I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing either. Wilson has this combination of "awe-shucks" and kickass kickboxer that just makes the whole Marx Brothers element more... I don't want to say surreal... how about real?... He enhanced that side of it, made it feel more like it was a parody of action films, as opposed to an actual action film. The thing is, I know that's not what they were going for, which makes it that much harder to know how to take it. Maybe so bad it's good?...

I can point to one moment where the movie jumped the shark, that cemented its "I can't possibly be expected to take this seriously" status. Wilson, in escaping from the law enforcement net closing in on him, grabs a horse out of a stable and rides away. Really? And it's done with a total straight face. I ask you, what am I supposed to do with that?

This film brings to mind and interesting difference between the English spoken in America, and the English spoken in Ireland and the UK. C. U. Next. Tuesday. is like one of the worst things an American man can say to a woman, and the only situations where it wouldn't be is if the woman is someone who isn't easily offended, which means the word would probably not be used in malice. On the other side of the pond, however, it's really not that big of a deal, evidenced by this film where a dude calls another dude that after he's shot by him. I know people personally from England who also don't care about it, and it's through them that I've learned to love the word in less uptight company. It's very fascinating, and I'd like to know how the difference came about, because what we're looking at is a different definition for the same word, based on how the two cultures take it.

I've never been to Ireland before, but Galway, where this was shot, is the city where a couple of my friends went for two weeks during one of our college breaks. It was some kind of exchange program I guess. I don't remember anything they said in particular about the trip, other than one of the professors looked like Marty Stouffer of Wild America fame.

I think you can buy this rather cheaply at Amazon. I'm not so sure Netflix is a great route, considering what it took for me to get it from them, but you can try. Of course, all of that hinges on whether or not you want to see this at all. I'd say go through a much bigger chunk of Wilson's filmography first, especially Bloodfist IV, and see how you feel, before you tackle something like this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213094/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

 

Postmortem (1998)

I've had this one in my Instant Queue for awhile now, but it came to my attention when Albert Pyun mentioned it in a Facebook post (which, if you have Facebook, "liking" Albert Pyun is the best way to keep up with movie news and other projects he's working on) amid the turmoil surrounding Charlie Sheen. He talked about how professional Sheen was, even in the face of the long shooting days and the tight schedule. It made me think that maybe this was a good time to review this film too.

Postmortem has Sheen (credited as "Charles Sheen") as a former serial killer profiler who solves a grizzly child murderer case, which ruins him inside and causes him to turn to alcohol. The success of a book on the case gives him the financial freedom to runaway to Scotland, where he can bury his torment in alcohol even more. Problem is, a serial killer in Glasgow has targeted Sheen, dropping clues and even one of his victims in Sheen's backyard. Now he's in deep, and may even find redemption in solving another case.



Let's talk about the movie first. This sounds like a gritty serial killer drama, and though it is, it had some interesting differences. One, the killings, instead of being extremely sadistic and gory, are very clean-- like literally. A very cool departure, considering what else was out there in the market at that time, and how much more gruesome the market would get. I also liked the sweeping crane shots, and constantly moving camera angles, which might have been more cinematographer George Mooradian. I usually don't notice technical aspects like that, but this was very apparent, and it served to give us, the viewer, a constantly shifting perspective, almost mimicking the detectives, Sheen and Michael Halsey, and the way they're constantly trying to see things in different ways. For the most part, I don't go in for movies like this-- and I wouldn't have this one either if it wasn't an Albert Pyun flick-- so I'm not sure how to recommend it, but if you like serial killer suspense movies, I think this one works.

It's hard in watching this now to not see similarities to Sheen's character and his life, both then and now. I have to imagine in acting for this part, that he was drawing on his own experiences with addiction, which made the role very compelling. What's happened now, though, in his real life, is that as opposed to the movie, where he could gain redemption by stopping a serial killer and saving a girl's life, to gain redemption for ruining his career through addiction and a hard partying lifestyle, he had to play ball, if that makes sense. He had to do the sitcom, and worse, he had to play the butt of Michael Jordan's jokes in underwear commercials. Can we blame him for wanting to break-out? The problem is, the average person says "why wouldn't you want to play ball? And if you don't, it must mean you've fallen off the wagon again", which isn't always the case. We'll see what happens, but I think judging from how well he was able to play ball for so long, his talent as an actor can't be in question.



This is definitely a departure from what we're used to seeing from Pyun here at the DTVC-- and I probably wouldn't have done it so soon if it wasn't so relevant with current events, considering we have a few others of his, like Nemesis 4 to get to too-- but I'm glad I got to see it. Like I said above, I generally don't go in for this genre, but with the unique shooting elements, plus the Sheen redemptive aspect, it had a little more than your run-of-the-mill Kiss the Girls or The Bone Collector.

I really loved Michael Halsey in this, though I also loved him in Mean Guns. He plays a Glasgow detective who reluctantly takes Sheen's help, then grows to respect him. This kind of movie needs this kind of character, and often, in the big screen versions, they get an older bigger name who just mails it in. You know Halsey won't mail it in, and by not mailing it in, he plays the part he's supposed to play: the glue that keeps the rest of the film together.



Another great performance was Ivana Miličević, who played a Scottish woman working under Halsey in the police department. Her accent had hints of Bosnia in it, which actually could've been a cool thing if they'd changed her character name to something Slavic, and had her be an immigrant; but the accent aside, she worked really well too. It's an easy move for film makers to throw her into a skimpy outfit-- though her skirts were pretty short here too-- and have her just be window dressing, but to have her be an integral part of the investigation, and to have her pull it off, was really cool.

This is currently available on Watch Instantly, and it might be worth giving a look, both in lieu of what's going on with Sheen right now, but also to see what Pyun does with the genre, and to see Sheen draw on the demons from his past back then to create a very compelling character. Of course, if you're not into this genre, those elements alone might not be enough to keep your attention-- even though they were for me.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130192/

In Her Defense (1999)

I always said that I would save this Michael Dudkioff film for last, because it was so outside the norm of what we were used to with him. Well, now we're here, the end of the DTV line with Mr. Dudikoff, and he joins Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme as the only other Hall of Famers to hold that distinction.

In Her Defense is a Film Noir in the mold of a Double Indemnity, about a lawyer in St. John, NB, Dudikoff, who falls in with a very hot artist, played by Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, and has an abusive husband. Somehow, Dudikoff ends up at her place when the husband comes home, and in the ensuing conflict, Dudikoff shoots him dead. Now Dudikoff needs to cover up this crime, and get Matlin acquitted from her murder charges. But, as in all, Film Noir, things aren't what they seem.



This wasn't too bad for what it was, though it veered quite a bit into Lifetime Movie territory, and the only thing keeping it DTV was the language and Marlee Matlin simulating oral on Dudikoff. Definitely, this kind of thing has been done before, and done better before, but because I dig this kind of thing, I liked it. I'm not so sure if everyone else will, especially considering what we expect out of the usual action fare from Dudikoff.

Dudikoff proves again that he's not a one-note actor, because he's really great in this. In a way it's a more fitting final DTV film for him, because it shows how much he could really do. Don't get me wrong, I prefer Dudikoff kicking ass and taking names, but I like seeing him switch it up, and I like that it works when he does. This isn't the total end for Dudikoff at the DTVC though. He has two films in development according to imdb, plus he has a few major release films like Uncommon Valor and Bachelor Party that I may cover too.



I was trying to see how many Oscar winning actors Michael Dudikoff has worked with. You have Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party, and Gene Hackman in Uncommon Valor, but I think Matlin is the first winner that he's acted with in a DTV flick-- you have Robert Mitchum in Midnight Ride, but he was only nominated. They (Matlin and Dudikoff) actually have a lot of chemistry on-screen, which is really cool to watch. She pulled off the Film Noir leading really well too, which I guess is to be expected considering she's an Oscar winning actress.

I really liked Daniel Pilon, who played Robert St. Laurent, or the Film Noir detective who knows something's fishy, but doesn't know if he can crack the case. He was also in another Dudikoff flick, Musketeers Forever. He had a very Edward G. Robinson mixed with northeastern Canada feel that really worked in the role, and just added another layer to the film that it needed.



Add St. John to the list of McDonald's sightings. I really do have to start tagging these, but I can't remember them all now. In my life, the only time I've had McDonald's outside of the US was on a school trip to England senior year of high school. There was a 24-hour McDonald's near our hotel in Earl's Court, which I partook in many a night drunk. Coolest thing about that: they still used the Styrofoam containers. I grew up about four or five hours away from St. John, and have never been there, or anywhere else in Canada, which is crazy, considering I grew up so close. It looks like a very nice city, so I'll have to check it out.

You can get this on Watch Instantly right now, which is good. It's up to you and what you're into, but just know going in that this is in no way an action flick, and in fact, it borders on Lifetime Movie. I still kind of liked it, so maybe you will too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158671/

Bloodfist VII: Manhunt (1995)

I could've sworn I'd reviewed this one way back when I first started the DTVC. I know I saw it on Spike, and back then, if I caught a film like this on Spike, I'd just write the review and see if I could Print Screen some images from the trailer. Those were some crazy days back in 2007. It feels like forever ago, huh? And apparently they were more crazy than I thought, because a few months ago I went to the archive to look at my Bloodfist VII review, only to discover, it didn't exist. Boy do I have egg on my face.

Bloodfist VII has our hero Don "The Dragon" Wilson back in his reoccurring/non-reoccurring role, this time as a drifter heading to Mexico when he bumps into Jillian McWhirter, who pulls the ol' "can we share a hotel room I'll wake up before you in the morning and steal your car and leave the keys to my Beamer" maneuver, which Wilson doesn't take too kindly too. He tracks her to a house in Hollywood, which has been ransacked, and in which he's ambushed by an off-duty cop, whom he kills. After a quick interrogation where he tells police captain Stephen Williams what happened, some other off-duty cops take him to a place to beat info out of him he doesn't have, he escapes, and the Bloodfist parts IV, V, VII, and VIII paradigm is on, where it's Wilson against the world, and he can't trust anyone as he tries to put the pieces together and clear his name.



I actually really liked this one. It's 86-minute running time moved very quickly, and didn't have the usual downtime and awkward plot exposition scenes that hamper some of the other films in the series. Wilson was great, especially with the martial arts, and Stephen Williams was too amazing for words (though I'm going to try in a couple paragraphs). Don't get me wrong, this is pure DTV bad action, from the music, to the shimmying stuntmen getting sprayed with Uzi fire, to the Chess King fashions, but it's the kind of pure DTV bad action that works really well, especially in 2011.

This was the kind of movie that got Don "The Dragon" Wilson into the Hall of Fame. I mean, the film starts with Rick Dean at a biker bar acting like a sleazeball, just asking for D The D Dubs to smack him with the butt end of a pool cue. And from there, it's either Wilson fighting, or Wilson running from the cops in some great foot chase scenes. We don't need Wilson to act, we need him to fight, and that's what we got here, great Wilson action.



The reason we don't need Wilson to act? That's right, Stephen Williams did all the acting we needed. I swear they wrote the character name "Marvosa" into the script just to hear Williams say it. I mean, the moment he steps on-screen, it's like he's saying "step aside children, Daddy's here", and from that moment, he owns it like it's his-- "this is my house, my lawn, my barbecue, and I'm willing to let you kids hang out, just as long as you know whose shit this all is." What a coup it must have been to get him in this movie, but we're all better for it.

There was a Neo-Geo sighting. There's a pic of it on the image page. I guess it was at the police station. I went with that for this paragraph over the Ian Jacklin sighting and Jillian McWhirter's hair-- which I have no idea what they were thinking with that, "hey, let's give a 30-year-old woman a 50-year-old haircut." I don't really remember the Neo-Geo. They had it at the local arcade, but I don't think I played it. Too much Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter I guess.



Who's that dude rocking the Chess King/Color Me Badd outfit? It's Stephen Quadros, or as I like to say, The Poor Man's Kevin Bacon. There were some better pictures where he looked more like Kevin Bacon, like one of him wearing a welding mask, but I just loved the clothes here. This is an area where I like the 80s/90s movies better than today's that the modern movie can't really help. This shirt is the Ed Hardy busy T-shirt of 1995, and just because the older one has the charm of age on its side, doesn't mean it's any less egregious a fashion error. Maybe in ten years we'll see a dude in a punchfighting flick with a sleeve of tats and an Affliction T and we'll be like "they don't make clothes like they used to." Maybe we won't.

This is no longer on Netflix, but can be bought new at Amazon for as little as $3. Thing is, that's too expensive when you tack on the additional $3 in shipping. It does mean it could turn up in a bargain bin here or there, so keep an eye out. This is a total fun time.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112533/

Robowar (1989)

Our buddy from down under, Sutekh, who runs the great blog Explosive Action, sent me a copy of this along with a bunch of others, including Deadly Prey, almost a year ago. Don't ask me why it's taken me so long to get this and the others he sent me reviewed up here, I guess it's always a matter of timing, but we're finally making it happen.

Robowar is 85 percent Predator, 12 percent Robocop, and 3 percent Philippines Vietnam War film (which equals 100 percent awesome by my calculations, but we'll get to that in the next paragraph). Reb Brown plays the head of a rag tag bunch of ass kicking special forces dudes sent into the jungle after what they think is a band of guerrillas. Not the case, it's actually a cybernetic killer created by the US military that needs to be tested by the best the Army has to offer. Will our boys figure out what they're up against before it's too late? Is it too late anyway?

Did I mention this was awesome? Yes, in a Deadly Prey or R.O.T.O.R. sense, but still awesome just the same. Reb Brown is Reb Brown, and everything else is as simply fantastic as that synopsis above would suggest. I watched it initially about a year ago with a buddy while he was house sitting, and we were in agreement, this belongs up there with some of the best bad movies ever.

Yep, that's Reb Brown in a belly shirt. And yes, Reb Brown screams a lot in this movie. And no, he doesn't wear the belly shirt the whole time, this scene is the last time we see it. And yes, Reb Brown screams a lot. Did you know this is only the second film of his we've done? I think it's just a by-product of the fact that a lot of his movies are in that third or fourth tier--maybe fifth tier--and we're still working our way through the first and second tier of the DTV world. As we get more films of Hall of Famers out of the way, and as I finally give up on those new punchfighting movies, I'll make more room for Reb Brown on here, something that's probably been long overdue. Besides, Sutekh also sent me Strike Commando, so we'll always have that bad boy.

This is Jim Gaines. He had a significant role in the Gary Daniels classic Final Reprisal, and he's something of an icon in the Philippine cinema world, though if you look at his IMDb bio, he has as many bit parts and cameos as he does big roles like he did here and in the Daniels film. Also of note on his IMDb bio: he apparently was in the new The Rock movie Faster. I haven't seen it yet, but even if the movie sucks, the fact that he's in it, for however long he's in it, is awesome. Here's to you Jim Gaines, you're one of the good ones.

Another one of the good ones: Catherine Hickland, who plays Virgin. I think it was supposed to be Virginia, but that's what they listed her as in the credits. I guess it's apt, considering the land of Virginia was named after the virgin Queen Elizabeth. Anyway, I thought I recognized her as a Soap actress, and I was right, One Life to Live, but even better, she was married to The Hoff, as in David Hasselhoff, and co-starred in a couple episodes of Knight Rider, including one where The Hoff infiltrates a rock band. Now she's married to a dude whose real name is Michael Knight, but I guess she filed for divorce there too.

I wanted to point out this scene, because it hit me, the reason why these movies from the 80s and 90s worked so well, and these newer ones don't so much. You can say what you want about Bruno Mattei, good or bad, or about Albert Pyun, or about any other B-movie director, but the one thing they always are is a movie director, not a music video director. I mean, would we see a scene like this in a modern DTV flick? Not just the skull rock, but holding on the shot, and holding on it for more than .1 seconds. I think if you're an quick-cut filmmaker, you should watch Robowar and know that you're not better than this, as much as you'd like to think you are.

Obviously this is a tough find. Sutekh sent me his copy of a Japanese VHS--it even had the Japanese subtitles. Amazon doesn't have it, but it is on YouTube as of the writing of this post, cut into multiple parts, and with the same Japanese subs. I won't put the link, just because those things change as people add and close accounts, but if you go to YouTube and type in Robowar, it'll pop up.

Note: updating this post in 2024, Severin Films has a Blu-ray version.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096000/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

The North Star (1996)

I've been trying to get my hands on this one for some time, simply from the standpoint of a Christopher Lambert completist. I ended up getting this super-widescreen deal (hence the long, thin images), only to discover tonight as I was looking it up on Amazon that it's available from them new on DVD. Anyway, that's for the final paragraph, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here...

The North Star takes place in 19th century Alaska, where an evil businessman, played by the legendary James Caan, is usurping all the lucrative land claims, either by illegally voiding them because they were made by foreigners, or by simply murdering the owner then outbidding everyone at auction when the claim is up for sale again. He tries this move with Christopher Lambert, a half-Caucasian/half-Native American who claimed a land containing a sacred cave so his people could retain it. After surviving Caan's men's attack, he comes back for revenge, and kidnaps Caan's girlfriend, played by Catherin McCormack of Braveheart fame. Now Caan wants him dead, and he's chasing him through the frozen tundra, while the Nome sheriff has called in the US military to take control of the city back from Caan and his posse.



This was pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised. I don't know if you'd call it a Western in the strictest sense, because it took place in the frozen Northwest, as opposed to the dry, hot Southwest, but it had that feel, with the frontier lawlessness, the evil rich business owner, and the principled hero that might not always do the right thing even if he has the best intentions. Plus you had the saloon and the posse and all that jazz. The 84-minute running time moved very well, and before I knew it we where at the end. Overall, not a bad deal.

It's been a while since we've done a Christopher Lambert film, the last one being when we revisited Mean Guns for Albert Pyun in November, and then the last one before that was almost a year prior in November of '09 with Highlander 2: The Renegade Version. A big reason for only three posts in almost 15 months mostly has to do with the fact that we've covered almost all of Lambert's DTV oeuvre. As far as I know after this, we'll only have Metamorphosis, and that'll be it-- but it's hard to tell with Lambert, because he has a lot of foreign films, TV movies, and small-run big theater pictures mixed in in his filmography. This one is one of those, because it feels as much like a TV movie as it does DTV, especially being a Western. I liked it though, and I liked Lambert. His voice is especially great, and you get good doses of it-- it's vintage Lambert, and I think that's all you can ask for when you see his name on the cover.



This is our second James Caan movie we've done here, the first being one he had a very small cameo in, Santa's Slay. As much as the Lambert was vintage Lambert, the James Caan in The North Star was classic James Caan. Sometimes the dialog or story took a left turn into "I don't knows-ville", but he rolled with it and made it notsobad in a very James Caan kind of way. One of the plot twists is when we find out Caan is half-Native American too, and it's so grafted on that it had pretty much zero bearing on the rest of the film, but Caan does great with it, and when the Native American tracker they have with them calls him out on it in private, the guy says: "don't worry, I won't tell anyone", and we see what's coming coming, but Caan still makes it great when he says "I know" and stabs the guy in the gut. Fantastic.

Catherine McCormack plays Caan's woman/Lambert's Stockholm Syndrome ally. I wonder if Braveheart is the Best Picture winner with the most connections to DTVC movies, because you not only have McCormack here, but you have Tommy Flanagan from Hero Wanted, the late Sean Lawlor from two Asylum greats co-starring Lorenzo Lamas, 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus, and finally Angus McFadyen from the Peter Weller flick Styx. That's not bad, four actors in five movies. I should also point out The North Star also featured Burt Young, who was in Rocky with Sly Stallone, or as I like to say, Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield, which is one of my all time favorite films.



We got a little ice climbing going on in The North Star. It's actually really unrealistic ice climbing, with Lambert making his way up a frozen ice wall, using only his enormous hunting knife to dig in, and then finding places for his feet and other hand as he goes. I have to imagine whoever wrote this scene has never been ice climbing before, because I can tell you, without crampons, it's pretty impossible. The strain on the forearms alone would be immeasurable. Then the slickness of the ice, even if it was stepped enough to find footholes like one might do in rockclimbing, would mean that his feet would be more of a liability than they'd be useless. Usually I'd be all about ice climbing making it into a movie, but when it's fake and unrealistic like this, it sucks more than it's awesome.

But that's just me as someone who has been ice climbing picking a nit. For the most part this isn't a bad deal. As I said above, I thought this was a tougher one to get than I thought, but Amazon had it for $5 new, meaning you might find it in a bargain bin somewhere too, and I think that's not a bad deal. $8 after shipping from Amazon might be a bit expensive, but a few bucks in the bargain bin, pull the trigger-- at least I would.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114622/