6/09/2010

Forgotten Warrior (1986)


Forgotten Warrior (1986)-* * *

AKA: U.S. Warrior and Commander Rainbow

Directed by: Nick Cacas and Charlie Ordoñez

Starring: Ron Marchini





"The rainbow is good luck."







Steve Parrish (Marchini) is fighting in Vietnam in 1974. He is injured and after a six-month recovery in a small village, he decides to stay behind and marry a local woman. He teaches the whole village martial arts including a small boy who resembles Scott Baio and has the fan favorite bowl haircut.



Everything is going swimmingly, and Steve is enjoying his only piece of clothing, a bright yellow sleeveless shirt, when peace is disrupted. His old 'Nam buddy Thompson, who now works for the Pentagon, and is now evil, tries to find Parrish and along the way works with the local army of baddies run by Col. Minh. Parrish gets really teed off when Thompson rapes and kills his wife. Now, Steve is a one-man-force to be reckoned with.



Marchini yells, many huts explode, and there is a very high kill count. In fact the baddies keep coming and coming, and they are more endless than Olive Garden breadsticks. Didn't we learn anything from the Orange Grove Chase from that same year's Cobra (1986)?

'Warrior is just as good a Rambo knock-off as Final Mission (1984). Marchini even ties a scrap of his yellow shirt around his head very tightly a la John Rambo, later parodied in one of the Hot Shots! movies.

Marchini's Ron-Fu is at its absolute peak here. His skills are never bettered in his later films. Once again, like Death Machines, there is a freeze frame at the end of the movie. This time there are actual credits over it. Marchini is improving.

For 80's fun-action-Vietnam-VHS-silliness, it is hard to do better than Forgotten Warrior.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

8 comments:

Weekend Video said...

Loved this one as kid and i probably will end watching it again this weekend thanks to you guys. :)

Ty said...

Very Cool. Your welcome! It is one of Marchini's best.

Dolemite said...

Just got this one at the only VHS rental store (all the others closed) Hope it is as good as the sequels jungle wolf and return fire!

Ty said...

Nice! Return Fire was great, Forgotten Warrior is fun too. Thanks for your comment Dolemite!

venom said...

There's currently a Beta tape of this film being sold on Ebay, it's also availible on Ioffer.

Ty said...

Very cool if someone buy this on Beta.

Bram Ananta said...

Haha, I kept this movie poster (with Ron holding a katana) for a long time until it vanished somewhere. Reading this makes me down the memory lane with this fun Vietnam slugfest.

Ty said...

That's so cool you had the poster! Happy you have a great memories of this movie. Thanks for your comment. :-)