Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel (1993)

When last we left off on the Ring of Fire series, part 1 ended with our hero, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, getting the girl, Maria Ford, and defeating her brother in a fight. I wasn't sure what to expect from a sequel, and to be honest, I didn't understand why there even was a sequel. I mean, part one wasn't screaming out for a follow up, was it? Was anyone saying "man, what happened to Vince Murdocco's character after the story ended?" or "does Ron Yuan continue to wear V-necks that go down to his bellybutton?" All these questions and more are answered here, in Ring of Fire II: Blood and Steel.

Ring of Fire II takes place sometime after part 1 ended. We join our lovely couple in a jewelry store, picking out Maria Ford's engagement ring. But this is Wilson we're talking about, and "trouble seems to find him", and before you know it, a group of armed robbers bust in and shoot one of the clerks. They make a mistake in confronting Wilson, and he kicks a dude's ass. I'm not sure if it's that dude (who is also shot to death by the cops... I think), or the one who's blown up in a chase after, but one of them is Ian Jacklin's brother, and he ends up in the hospital, as does Ford when she's hit by a stray bullet in the robbery. Anyway, in an attempt to get their gang member back, they run into Wilson again, the brother dies in his hospital bed, and to get revenge, the kidnap Ford. Now Wilson has to brave the dangerous netherworldly Underground to find Jacklin, Evan Lurie, and the rest of the gang, so he can get Ford back.



I'm going to switch things up a bit here. Usually I start with what I liked, and then do what I didn't like. I think if I reverse it here, I can leave you with the impression that overall I had fun with this one. Anyway, here's what I didn't like. First and foremost, Maria Ford was totally wasted. In the opening scene she looks hot in her new red hair, and that's the last you see of her that hot. Whoever came up with the idea that "hey, let's get a hottie like Maria Ford, shoot her in the arm, have her look like crap after that, then have her kidnapped in that condition. Let's get tons of white make-up and have her look as pale as possible, and then barely put her on-screen."? Really dumb idea. Second, who decided it would be better to have Ian Jacklin as the number one baddie ahead of Evan Lurie? Seriously, you had both guys screen test, and that's the way you went? Another dumb idea. Finally, somehow in between parts 1 and 2, Ford's brother, who killed Wilson's brother in cold blood, is now friends with Wilson and his gang? And Murdocco too? We're supposed to buy total racist meatheads (and in the brother's case, a murderer) as good guys now? Wow, great idea.

Okay, so now that that's out of the way, let me get into the good. This was a lot of fun. It had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it, combined with a video game-style story, as Wilson moved from level to level, fighting tougher and tougher baddies. The music was great, the fights were solid, plus you had some amazing explosions. It is prevented from being perfect by the three main complaints I had above, but all in all it worked in that PM Entertainment kind of way. It had all the 1990 Bronx Warriors moments, from the guys on rollerblades, to the guys in silly outfits, all roaming underground for Wilson to contend with in some nice looking fights. The one-on-one showdown between Lurie and Wilson delivered, and the Jacklin one wasn't bad either, but not on that Lurie/Wilson level. Overall, this is good, just not as good as it could have been.



This was perfect Wilson though. Great fights, really nice guy forced to get tough with the bad guys who took his woman, and most importantly, hilariously acted dramatic scenes. This made up for the lack of Wilson fighting in part 1, and made up for it in a big way, giving us perhaps one of his best ever martial arts performances-- probably right behind Operation Cobra and Bloodfist IV. We're only ten films away now from getting all of Don's films up here at the DTVC, plus, this post marks his 20th tag, meaning when we're finally done reviewing his DTV movies, he'll have 30 total. Not a bad deal.

See how hot Maria Ford looks there? That's it for her after that. She still looks cute in the hospital bed, but when she's kidnapped, first she's shown with pale white skin, and then we barely see her for most of the rest of the film, until she's rescued by Wilson. Come on man, this is Maria Ford here. Why even cast her if this is what you're going to do? Here's what I would have done: first, she doesn't get shot at the jewelry store; when she's kidnapped, she's kidnapped at home; second, the baddies make her dress in the leather outfits the other women are wearing, maybe even really make-up her face too; finally, when she's forced to watch the fighting and is being menaced by the baddies, show it close up, don't give us these wide shots obscured by poor lighting and smoke. This is a DTV PM Entertainment movie starring Maria Ford, and as consumers, we expect her to be Maria Ford, and we expect to see Maria Ford. Otherwise, you're wasting our time.



DTVC favorite Evan Lurie plays the baddie's number two guy. I didn't realize this until midway through the movie, when Ian Jacklin is sitting on a throne, giving Lurie orders. I just naturally assumed Lurie would be the leader, right? Especially over Jacklin. Lurie is much better spoken, comes off as much more intelligent, and has more leadership potential, right? It takes a really sophisticated baddie, like John Sears from 90210 (see Martial Law II), to supplant Lurie as a head baddie. It looks like we have four DTV movies and a TV movie, and then that's it for Lurie, we'll have done all of his films. I don't know, it's a bittersweet thought. Of all the people we cover in all these posts, I think Lurie is the one I'd like to meet the most, the one I'd be the most starstruck in front of, the one I'd be most likely to buy a beer for. He's just that great.

Okay, so maybe that last paragraph let you in on why I was so upset that Jacklin was given head baddie status over Lurie, but the Ford complaint is a legitimate one, so if you're looking for her in this go somewhere else. As far as Wilson goes, this is some of his best. It's kind of Alice in Wonderland meets bad action, and on that score, it can be a lot of fun. Netflix doesn't have it, but you can get it used on DVD or VHS. How much you're willing to pay is up to you, but I'd say not too much.

PS
Ron Yuan does rock the V-neck that goes down to his bellybutton again.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107962/

Mega Piranha (2010)

I was initially hesitant to review this, because it's listed on imdb as a TV movie, and I seldom do those. The three examples that come to mind all involve Hall of Famers, Blackjack, Raptor Island, and Mercenary. When I looked into this one, though, I found that it was essentially an Asylum film, only in this case they were able to give SyFy first dibs, making it a DTV film on TV. Plus, the movie looked like a lot of fun, so why be such a stickler all the time, right?

Mega Piranha is about some genetically altered piranhas in Venezuela that attack a US diplomat and a Venezuelan politician and eat them. The US thinks it's a terrorist attack, and they send beefcake Paul Logan down to investigate. At the same time, a trio of scientists, Tiffany among them, know that these are genetically altered piranhas that are causing the deadly stink, they just can't convince anyone. Luckily, Logan goes under water and sees some himself, killing one and bringing the rubbery evidence back for everyone to see. From there it all devolves into people not doing what they should, getting in the way, and the piranhas growing to epic proportions, eating anything metal or human in their path.



This was pretty sweet. I mean, you had so many hilarious parts, especially with the CGI fish jumping out of the water and exploding into buildings, or our hero kicking them while lying on his back. The thing is, I guess, how much can you make a movie about that? The films of the 50s and 60s they're doing a send up of usually ran about an hour long, and this one was closer to 85 after the credits are taken out. There was a lot of stringing out scenes that weren't very suspenseful in a way that was more annoying than fun. A car chase that goes on longer than it should. Three or four too many scenes of the people chasing them getting closer. A couple extra gratuitous shots of a clock ticking before something is done just in time. It had that feeling that I find in a lot of Asylum's films, that I really endured something, as opposed to enjoyed a movie. Fun, but annoying at times.

Now, don't get me wrong, this had it's moments. No, it wasn't Titanic II, but at the very least, you could tell the people putting this together "got it", which is more than we can say for a lot of the Asylum's efforts. I wonder if because they put this on SyFy, that they had to deliver 90 minutes in order to fit their time slots, because then I could maybe give them more of a pass on the padding. As an aside, I should mention the term "padding", because it's often used as a catch all to describe shortcomings in films when people don't really know how else to explain why a film didn't work for them. That's not what I'm doing in this case. For instance, there was a constant repetition of the same or similar shots, like when a helicopter was leaking fuel, so we saw the fuel gauge numbers running down. It's funny to go back to the gauge once and see the number greater than it was before, but five times is too much, especially when we know what's going to happen. Once is funny, five times is padding-- and annoying. There was really no padding in the plot or superfluous segments of dialog though. I don't know, it felt like going to a party with someone else driving, and the night is over, and you're ready to leave, and the person who drove you there acts like he or she is ready to leave too, but stands in the doorway for fifteen minutes conversing with party host, when you're like in your head screaming "come dude, let's get moving for God's sake!"



80s pop princess (so described in her imdb bio) Tiffany is in this. I don't really know what the thinking was behind her outfit and hairdo, but it was very unflattering, making her look like a soccer mom. I mean, she is 39, and does have an 18-year-old son, but I imagine in real life, she doesn't look like a soccer mom, nor would she want to look like a soccer mom unless she was playing one for her role. And I'm not saying soccer moms can't be hot, I'm saying this was like an outfit and hairdo that a soccer mom who's ten years older than Tiffany would be rocking. It just didn't do her any favors, and I don't know whose decision that was, whether it was wardrobe or the director. She's slated to be in the upcoming Asylum effort, Mega Python vs. Gateroid, so hopefully someone will rectify this situation. It also stars Deborah Gibson, so if Tiffany looks like a 50-year-old soccer mom, and Gibson looks hot, I can't imagine Tiffany'll be very happy-- as well she shouldn't be, help her out damn it!

You a Brady Bunch fan? Greg Brady plays the Secretary of State. The show was on every afternoon when I'd get out of school growing up. There was something awesome about the whole thing, from the parents, to the kids, to Alice, to Sam the Butcher. It's probably why I'm so hard on TV programs today, and why I almost exclusively watch reality shows or anything to do with sports. I can count like five shows off the top of my head that I really liked that came out after the 70s, and really nothing since Seinfeld-- okay, I like The Office, but it's nothing like the sheer awesomeness that was The Brady Bunch.



Google has this thing it does with our blogs where it lets us look at the stats-- what posts are the most popular, what part of the world are the readers from, what sites are they going through to find it, all the usual suspects. I discovered some interesting trends, one of which is that it's movies like this, and not the Dolph Lundren films or bad actioners, that generate the most page views. The reason why I find that interesting, is that I get most of my comments and requests for future posts on the action films. So, here's my message to anyone that loves these crazy monster films that end up on SyFy or whatever, if you want me to cover more of them, drop me a line in the comments section.

All right, this is a lot of fun, but also a lot of annoying when they just don't get on with things. It can be a labor of love, but there's also some absolutely hilarious and memorable moments that make this worth checking out. One of the easiest ways to do that is through Netflix Watch Instantly, or on DVD through Netflix, or you can even check your TV listings to see when SyFy will show it again. I imagine in a large group this could be even more fun, so that's something to consider too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587807/

Lady Dragon 2 aka Angel of Fury (1993)

I guess I got the UK VHS of this, because one, it's titled Angel of Fury, and two, it's rated 18 by the British rating system. Not a bad deal for this post to be a symbol of UK/US solidarity, after both of our countries were jobbed by FIFA and the World Cup decisions-- though losing out to Russia isn't even a fraction as ridiculous as losing out to Qatar (not pronounced "cutter", buy the way).

Lady Dragon 2 is not an actual sequel to the original, it's just named like one. Here we have DTVC Hall of Famer Cynthia Rothrock as a karate champion married to an Indonesian soccer star. Billy Drago and his two buddies have stolen some diamonds, and need a way to get them out of the country, and happen upon a bellhop taking Rothrock and her husband's luggage out of the hotel they're all in. Drago stashes the diamonds in one of the hubby's suitcases, and when they make it back to Jakarta, the Dragonator and his buds pay Rothrock and her beau a visit. They carve up the husband's leg and rape Rothrock, but can't get the diamonds because the maid storms in with a shotgun to save the day. Anyway, turns out the hubby kept the diamonds, Drago kills him, and Rothrock swears revenge, taking Drago and his two buddies out one-by-one.



This is a weird one, because the description I'm about to give you will make it sound awesome. It's like a Rothrock Lifetime movie. I know, the idea of Rothrock in a Lifetime movies sounds awesome, huh? Well, this ain't that awesome. It's like it's Lifetime in the wrong areas, and action in the wrong areas, if that makes sense. I mean, the plot hits all the spots of the Lifetime movie: woman attacked by a criminal, husband turns out not to be the man she thought he was, the authorities are no help (but to be fair, Rothrock never gives them a chance to be), so this one woman takes things into her own hands, against the system, against all odds, and wins her vengeance. The problem was, this is Rothrock, and that kind of thing doesn't work with her. She's the one training Meredith Baxter-Birney or Joanna Kerns, not the Baxter-Birney or Kerns character herself. Plus, the areas without action were kind of weird, especially the conversations during her husband's funeral. There were a few bright spots, like the end fights (though the ending itself carried on a little long), and this really cool tribute to A Clockwork Orange in the scene where Drago's gang finishes off Rothrock's husband. Overall though, a total miss for me.

I don't think this film did Rothrock any favors either. She did get to show off her martial arts eventually, but being the damsel in distress first diminished it all for me. I was always under the impression that Rothrock's selling point was that she was a hot chick, but she could hold her own with the big boys, and by that I mean can play parts usually written for men, and play them as a woman without losing any toughness. Sure, we've seen guys like Dolph, Van Damme, and Lorenzo Lamas captured by the enemy and held captive, but this was different. This was a straight up Lifetime movie victim, damsel in distress kind of deal, which might work with a lot of other actresses, but it just goes against what I think Rothrock is about. No matter how much ass she kicked after, it wasn't enough to make up for making her into Meredith Baxter-Birney.



A couple weeks ago I watched The Expendables with some friends, and my buddy's wife, who was already complaining that we weren't watching a movie she wanted to watch, made a comment to the effect of "why do they always have to capture the girl?" I had never really thought about it, I guess in part because they don't always have to capture the girl. Sometimes she's killed off. Sometimes there isn't any girl period. Sometimes she's captured, but we find out she's in on it. But yes, I guess when you get down to brass tacks, more often than not, the girl is captured by the baddie and menaced in some way, and it's up to our hero to save her. This is the stereotype Cynthia Rothrock was supposed to be challenging through her success as an action leading lady, and seeing her bound and gagged and helpless as Billy Drago fondled her in front of her husband, made her the cliché she was constantly challenging in all of her other films.

It was funny though just how much this film followed the classic Lifetime movie paradigm. It was clunky in a lot of cases, because all the characters behaved in ways that made no sense. First, if Rothrock's character was as with it as she ends up being, why did she not insist on filing charges aganst Drago's gang when they first attacked her and her husband? We find out he didn't want to file charges, because he had the diamonds, but what about her? Second, they know full well Drago's gang wants these diamonds, and have already attacked them at their home once, yet they continue to live there, easy prey for future attacks. Why would you do that? Why not get the hell out of their and hide out some place else? Finally, why would Drago's gang try to smuggle diamonds in someone else's luggage in the first place? Diamonds have to be the easiest things ever to get through security. I mean, are there some kind of diamond sniffing dogs I'm unaware of?



I mentioned in the synopsis that Rothrock's husband was an Indonesians soccer star. I didn't mean an international soccer star who was born in Indonesia, I mean someone who played in the Indonesian soccer league. He plays for Jakarta, who played a game against Kuala Lumpur-- I guess it's some kind of Indonesian-Malaysian soccer league. I went to Wikipedia to see if this league really exists, and it doesn't, but there is an Indonesia Premier League that is starting in 2011. Should be exciting. I can't wait to see FC 1928 Jakarta battle FC Tashkent in the Asian Champions League.

That was totally digress city, so I'll wrap things up here. This was sautéed in wrong sauce, a bad mix of action and Lifetime movie, unfortunately marrying more of the poorer elements of both cinematic genres, instead of the best parts. Also, Rothrock as a damsel in distress, even if for only one scene, was a bad look for her, and made the film even weirder. Also, as far as I know, this is only available on VHS. I wouldn't go out of your way to get it though.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107356/

Capital Punishment (1991)

I got this on accident, not that I wasn't going to review it eventually, I just wasn't expecting to have it as soon as I did. It was near the top of my Netflix queue, but not in first place, and the films above it weren't available like they were listed as being, and the next thing I knew I had an e-mail in my inbox telling me to expect Capital Punishment on Monday. Well, here it is.

Capital Punishment has DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels as an underground kickboxer who draws the attention of the DEA when his old sensei starts dealing Kick, some Taiwanese designer drug that is very addictive, and causes birth defects. The DEA is being controlled by another HOFer, agent David Carradine, who is in cahoots with the sensei to distribute the drugs in the country. As things unravel, Daniels finds himself increasingly tangled in a web of intrigue and deceit. Can he roundhouse his way out of it?



I have a feeling I'm going to take a hit on this one, but I liked Capital Punishment. I don't know, it just had this surreal quality, like one of those dreams that seems real, until elements occur here or there that don't fit. The scenes were put together in this way that made them almost like non sequiturs. There were no bumpers, no transitions, things just seemed to happen. One moment Daniels is being interrogated, the next he's in a hallway fighting thugs, then he's shot with a tranquilizer dart, and wakes up in his bed. People use words like "immune" as verbs, middle-aged businessmen know martial arts, Daniels kills some people and leaves some alive with no rhyme or reason, and some of the stuntmen wear clothes or recite lines that make absolutely no sense whatsoever-- like this one dude in a bright purple polo and red pajama pants among a gang of thugs that are all wearing black. The best way to describe it is, if Andy Kaufman made a 1990s bad action film, this is what it would look like. And I don't know, I loved it. It was tons of fun. Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age.

I don't know though, because if you go to my last however many Daniels posts, I haven't been too nice to them. At the very least here, they used him for his martial arts prowess, and didn't inundate us with bad dramatic sequences where Daniels' fighting was foregone for the sake of some misguided plot exposition. This was great because, even though the scenes seemed like maybe they didn't go together or came out of nowhere, he was getting into fights quite regularly, and his fights were tons of fun. In one he empties out a pay phone, puts the quarters in a sock, beats a dude with it, then spills the quarters out of the sock onto the dude, telling him "keep the change". Later, that guy comes back and throws some quarters at him, saying "I think you dropped these". Daniels thanks him by shoving a pool cue through his throat. This might not be Rage or Bloodmoon, but for my money it's pretty close, and for fans of old Daniels, you can't do much worse.



As for our other Hall of Famer in the film, David Carradine looks like he was in another movie, because he has two scenes with one of the other actors, Daniels' helper Linda Lightfoot, and the rest are of him by himself either on the phone, or behind the wheel of a truck. If you go back to the Martial Law II post, in the comments section Mr. Kenner from Movies in the Attic and I had a conversation about Billy Drago being grafted in like John Saxon in a bad Italian movie. I disagreed with him on that case, but in the case of Capital Punishment, I think we have a better example. If not for those two scenes with Linda Lightfoot, you'd say it was like Bela Lugosi in Plan Nine from Outer Space. I have to admit again, I actually liked that though. It just added to that fascinating surreal quality for me.

Daniels' sensei was played by Tadashi Yamashita. He's not quite the ninja star Sho Kosugi is, but he does all right. You may have remembered him as the Black Star Ninja in American Ninja. In Capital Punishment he was great. His scenes made almost no sense, not because his English was bad-- his English was the most coherent element!-- but because of what happened in them. He'd be in a business meeting with two prospective drug dealer/investors, and the thing would devolve into a fight with guys coming at him with martial arts moves, and him taking them down and breaking their necks. Part of me wonders what he thought of shooting on this movie. I mean, it must've helped that he didn't speak English that well, so as not to be too confused by what he was supposed to be doing.



I was trying to think of what to do for the seventh paragraph, and I decided on a second one devoted to Gary Daniels. This will be his 21st tag, which puts him in fourth all-time among actors, behind Dolph Lundgren, Lorenzo Lamas, and Michael Dudikoff. That number isn't as important as the number 50+ (okay, not really number, but you get the idea), because that's what Daniels could ultimately end up with when all is said and done. We like to call Dolph the Babe Ruth of DTV, well, that would make Daniels the Hank Aaron or Ken Griffey Jr. Right now he has six films in production, plus some others that will be out soon, like Tekken and Game of Death (which stars Wesley Snipes), so it's not like he's going to stop anytime soon either. The one argument one could make against him is that a lot of his tags come from really small roles, as opposed to Dolph, who is almost always the star of his films; but a tag is a tag, and Daniels is on pace to have the most.

I'm not sure if I can recommend this one. I loved it, yes, but in some sense it was from a weird fascination. I don't know, it felt like a Crispin Glover movie, the way things went together. But it was an action film, and a lot of fun. I guess you gotta ask yourself, what kind of action movie do I like? If you like them so bad they're good-- so weird they're fun-- this is your kind of movie.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101541/

Shootfighter: Fight to the Death (1992)

There was a post a while back where someone hit me with a comment saying something to the effect of "dude, you gotta get Shootfighter up here. Bolo Yeung, William Zabka, it's all good." I can't remember when, or what post, or even the actual comment, I just know it was a long time ago. Anyway, I finally tracked it down after a long time of searching, so here it is.

Shootfighter has Bolo Yeung as a former underground shootfighting great, who retires as a champ after seeing his buddy's throat ripped out in another fight by Martin Kove. In LA, he trains William Zabka in the world of legitimate fighting, while Zabka runs a dojo teaching kids martial arts to make ends meet. He gets into some trouble with a loan shark, and at the same time, his best friend and girlfriend's brother comes back into town. The best friend is more of a streetfighter, and he reminds Zabka that Zabka only knows how to fight for sport. These money issues and pride issues come to a head when Kove's men come calling, roping Zabka into fighting in their dangerous shootfighting circuit in Tijuana. Can Bolo Yeung get down there in time to save the day?



Hell, if he can swim to Hong Kong to escape communist China, he can get down to TJ, and when he does, it's pure awesome. Everything here is pure awesome. It is a little brutal, in a zombie movie kind of sense, with people having hearts ripped out, throats ripped out, and the skin on forearms bitten off. But it's done in that B-zombie movie kind of way that's more funny than sick-- it's just important to note that it's also R rated. Beyond that, the film really sets itself up as the film The Karate Kid should have been, i.e. totally awesome. Sure, Pat Morita is great, but he's no Bolo Yeung. Kove is still stellar as the head baddie, but then they cut out the Macchio role, allowing us to root for Zabka, which just works out so much better. Then you have all the great martial arts, the blood and gore, and a cameo from John Barrett. This is one of the best of the decade, and that's saying a lot considering it's a 90s movie.

And a huge part of that is Bolo Yeung. Whether he's putting mustard on French fries in Tiger Claws II, dressing like a woman in Breathing Fire, or throwing a crushed Alka Seltzer tablet in Jean-Claude Van Damme's face in Bloodsport, he's always great to watch. It's funny, because of his size and fierce scowl, he's usually cast as the baddie, when he actually makes a great good guy, as evidenced by his role here in Shootfighter.



Anyone who grew up in the 80s has to love William Zabka, right? On some levels, though he is on the side of the good guys here, he does channel that heel element that marked the early part of his career. This will be his third tag, the first two being Gale Force and Interceptor Force, but it won't be his last, because he does have some other DTV films to his credit, including the sequel to Shootfighter. As an aside, he has a cameo in Hot Tub Time Machine, a surprisingly great movie.

John Barrett is in this with a short cameo. I've never gotten why they don't use him in films like this for more than the cameo. I think he's great, a great actor, a great fighter. His one scene is kind of brutal, and it doesn't end well, but I loved the pants he had on. This was one of those early 90s "did he have to wear those pants?" kind of films, but Barrett's worked. I might be out on a limb on that one though.



I had two places I wanted to go with this paragraph. First, I wanted to lament the fact that I'd been to San Diego before, and didn't make it down to Tijuana, and this film reminded me of that regret. The other was a personal story based on Zabka's character's name, Ruben. I knew a kid named Ruben back in college. He was an interesting cat, he could tightrope walk, hitchhiked home from school-- which was over an hour away-- all sorts of crazy shit. Anyway, he told us this story about how he met this girl at a party, went back to her place, and hoped to hook up, but she wasn't ready to move that fast, so he slept on her couch. He's kind of disappointed, but thinking he has an in with this chick, only to be woken up by her gay male roommate trying to do him! He freaked and split from there in only his boxers. About three days after he tells us the story, a girl remarks to his roommate that she saw flowers in his room, and asked who his secret admirer was. "How do you know they weren't Ruben's?" he says, to which she replies "I don't think Ruben would get anything like that..." and one of my buddies jumps in and says "Oh, you'd be surprised what Ruben gets!" I told that story to some friends when I got home for the summer, and that became our catch all phrase, "you'd be surprised what Ruben gets!"

This can be tough to get at, but it's so worth it. In my mind, one of the best of the 1990s, and it's to bad it's taken me this long to get at it, but here we are now, better late than never. Also, have you noticed I write less on the ones that are really awesome than I do on the ones that I didn't like? Maybe I need to fix that in future posts.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105395/

Bad Pack (1997)

We'd been looking to get some more Rowdy Roddy Piper up here, so when I found The Bad Pack, I figured why not. It also sports Ralph Moeller, Robert Davi, Marshall Teague, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Larry B. Scott (Revenge of the Nerds and Snake Eater II), and Brent Huff ( Strike Commando 2, and he also directed). Ensemble cast, Seven Samurai or Magnificent Seven remake, can't go wrong, right?

The Bad Pack is about a town in Texas near the Mexican border that is terrorized by a militia group run by the evil Marshall Teague (he might not be overtly saying he used to fuck guys like you in prison, but he's certainly thinking it.) A couple townspeople get bold and go looking in LA for a mercenary. They find Robert Davi, who's less than impressed, until Larry B. Scott, a CDM (Can Do Man-- though he often calls himself a "CDM Man", which I guess would make him a "Can Do Man Man") lets him know that there is tons of money at Teague's compound. So Davi rounds up his friends-- four of them-- who with Davi, Scott make a six-man army ready to hand that militia it's ass. Then they find Brent Huff on the side of the road, and that rounds out their seven.



I kind of liked this movie. Sure, it had some shortcomings, first and foremost among them, Vernon Wells is only in like 1 and 1/2 scenes (more on that later). It also was somewhat light on the action, but what action it had, it was pretty fun. Also, Davi, Piper, and pretty much everyone else did a great job. This really is DTV made for DTV fans. You get the great one-liners, the great explosions, the great baddie that you really want to root against, and the great heroes you want to root for. This one worked for me.

This is only post number 13 for Mr. Piper. Looking over his DTV oeuvre, there aren't many DTV films left that are really appropriate for this site. He doesn't have a huge role in this, and he plays a driver with a bum leg, so no body slams or sleeper holds. You're certainly not watching The Bad Pack expecting Tough and Deadly. You're probably wondering why, if his DTV output is so scant, he's a DTVC Hall of Famer? Most of ten or so DTV films where he's a main star are really great. Plus, he did They Live. Plus, he he's Rowdy Roddy Piper. Inaugural Hall of Famer, and well deserving of it.



Many of you know my taste in movies spans many genres and styles, and that includes a enormous love of Akira Kurosawa's films. We've seen some remakes of his other works in the past, in particular, Omega Doom and Desert Heat remaking Yojimbo. The plot of Seven Samurai also lends itself to remakes, and though this might be better classified as a remake of a remake, Magnificent Seven, the idea is roughly the same. I think this one did a pretty good job with the source material, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.

You might be wondering about Robert Davi as the main hero. In the first diner scene, when he takes out a bunch of armed robbers, it doesn't look as great as it should. But Davi sells everything else, playing the stoic old warrior to the hilt, then really bringing it in his final fight with Teague, delivering one of the all-time best gun to the back of the head disarmament scenes. One issue I had, though, was in an earlier scene, he plays blackjack with Teague, and with twenty showing, he hits, drawing an ace. Later, when he kills Teague, he calls him a bad card player. In actuality, it was Davi who was the poor card player, because he hit on twenty.



Man, we got robbed on Vernon Wells. Only one scene, and he looks like John Goodman with a mullet. Seriously? What happened to Bennett? Why isn't anyone telling him to let off some steam? And am I the only one who noticed that he has an Australian accent? Why waste that? Sven-Ole Thorsen isn't supposed to have lines, and you gave him more lines and scenes than Wells. Bad move Brent Huff. Bad move.

I'm thinking VHS is the only route on this bad boy, depending on where you're living, though Amazon has a few DVD versions floating around on their website. If you find it, and don't have to spend a lot on it, it's a pretty fun time, and I'd say worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147868/

Night Hunter (1996)

I've always loved the idea of Don "The Dragon" Wilson as a vampire hunter. Sure, I like the idea better of Sarah Michelle Gellar as one, but I digress (and can digress even more by mentioning her Buffy co-star Charisma Carpenter-- that's two mentions of her in a little over seven days). Anyway, it's just the idea of Wilson as some dark, brooding, duster-wearing anti-hero, I mean, don't get me wrong, he's plenty good at kicking ass in his movies, but there's always been an aw-shucks element in his style, and I was curious to see what a movie would look like without that, see if he could carry it off.

Night Hunter has Wilson as the son of James Lew, one in a long line of vampire hunters. He sees his father killed by Vince Murdocco and the rest of a gang of vampires. He grows up and exacts his revenge on them, only to find out they aren't the last of their kind. There's Vincent Klyn, Ron Yuan, Maria Ford, and the head honcho, Nicholas Guest. At the same time, he's wanted for murder for the killings of Murdocco and his clan; and in his escape from them, he bumps into hottie Melanie Smith, who plays a reporter investigating his case. Wilson needs to defeat these vamps before the solar eclipse, otherwise they'll breed or something, and if they do that, it could be bad.



This could have been awesome, except for one enormous bad decision on the part of the film makers: in every fight scene, they shook the camera. You know, like how they do on Star Trek to simulate the bridge being attacked. I mean, you have great talent like Wilson, Yuan, Lew, and Klyn, not to mention Art Camacho choreographing the scenes, and you gotta do a camera effect that makes me sea sick? This could have been tons of fun, and instead it was pretty much ruined. Good work out of you guys, whoever decided on that one.

We're cruising right along on our Don "The Dragon" Wilson completion project. After this we'll be down to ten more. Also, one more after this will get him to that rarefied air of 20 tags. As far as Night Hunter goes, there was something inorganic about him in this role. It's like they were trying too hard to do The Crow and other anti-heroes of the time, so they crammed him into it. The duster and hair were actually more Lorenzo Lamas as Reno Raines in Renegade. I think too, his natural tendency is to be a pretty stand-up guy, and no matter how much the role calls for being dirty and gritty, that decent guy will always rise to the top-- and to be honest, I'm good with that. He kicks plenty of ass as a decent guy, doesn't he?



DTVC favorite Vincent Klyn is one of many in a great supporting cast. We also had Ron Yuan and James Lew, two guys we're used to seeing as hatchetmen in Asian gangs in DTV films. All of these guys brought it in one way or another, which made it more of a shame that every great fight was ruined by that shaky camera trick. Ugh! Speaking of Klyn, Point Break was on Versus of all channels last week. "Back off Warchild, seriously."

Nicholas Guest played the head baddie. You may remember him as the head master in USA High, among other roles. He usually plays the stuffed shirt style English man, which suits him better than the slick evil vampire. I don't know, maybe the people making the film thought one Limey was as good as another, that they didn't need Julian Sands or Bruce Payne. I was also of the understanding that all Englishmen make good baddies, but upon seeing this, I realize that that was a stereotype. Maybe it's the half Mick half Frog in me, but to all my readers from England, I wholeheartedly apologize. Go Gunners!



Over and over I hear all about some latent eroticism inherent in the whole vampire thing, and I never get it. Other than the fact that you're talking about men with tons of experience but none of the side effects of aging, there's nothing about biting people's necks and lots of blood that's hot. This film takes a different track for a moment. The two female leads are played by Maria Ford and Melanie Smith, and they have something of a Russ Meyer inspired scene in an elevator where, after some silly punches to Ford's face by Smith, Ford throws Smith against the wall, then pins her arms behind her back, holding her helpless. Total girl-on-girl action. I get that I'm not the target demographic for Twilight, and I get that there's a level of teenage angst that drives those stories; but for my money, Twilight would be a whole lot hotter with some serious girl-on-girl action. That's hot, vampires are not.

This would have been a real winner if not for the shaky camera affect. All right, maybe not a real winner, but pretty fun. Sometimes, less is more, and that's especially true here. If you're daring, though, this is actually available on Netflix-- though who knows for how much longer, because Wilson's films are fading out of print, and when they're out of print, Netflix doesn't make them available anymore.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113981/