Open Fire (1989)

Open Fire (1989)- * * 

Directed by: Roger Mende

Starring: David Carradine, Kansas Carradine, Bruce Ly, Ashley F. Brooks, and Hugo Stiglitz

“Get out of my way.” – Joe Rourke

When Wyoming governor Joe Rourke (Carradine) visits the small South American country of Los Flores for some sort of goodwill diplomatic mission, he thinks everything will run smoothly and relations between America and this small, godforsaken country will be better than ever. 

To add icing to that particular cake, his wife Gabby (Brooks) is traveling separately by bus to Los Flores with a group of multi-ethnic singing tots called the World Peace Singers. The Rourkes’s plan to meet up and save the world seems assured. But then, of course, tragedy strikes: a band of paramilitary commandos shows up and starts shooting everyone in sight and blowing up every available food and/or fruit cart. They then kidnap the singing children (most of whom we never hear speak, much less sing). (Come to think of it, perhaps we dodged a bullet on that one, unlike Joe Rourke). Yes, you read that parenthetical sentence correctly, Joe Rourke gets shot and is bedridden for a while.

Luckily, an all-female group of fighters known as the Panther Squad steps in and begins fighting the rebel army. Their coach is Master Ly (Ly). That’s right, they have a coach. Mainly because their prior experience consists of standing in the town square and doing synchronized light calisthenics for the bored townspeople. But they look cool in their matching black jumpsuits. After holding off the fighters as long as they can, “Action Governor” Joe Rourke emerges from his recuperation and begins kicking and shooting the baddies. Will Rourke and the Panther Squad save the children and/or Joe’s wife? We know neither he, nor the baddies, are afraid to…OPEN FIRE!

Based on the above description, this movie sounds cool, right? Well, unfortunately, not so much. The elements are all there, but they’re not really capitalized on to their utmost. The problem is that not much actually happens in this movie. Yes, there is a ton of shooting and blow-ups, especially towards the end. The movie doesn’t skimp on the action. But there’s no real plot or emotion to glue it all together. It’s all pretty brainless, and for us to even say that, you can imagine it must be pretty darn brainless.

The main baddie is apparently named Pecos and he looks a lot like Miles O’Keeffe. He doesn’t say anything and he just strokes his pet falcon, which is supposed to be intimidating (?) – the guy who plays him wasn’t in any other movies. Carradine’s daughter Kansas does a nice job as one of the kidnapped children, and she wears a great shirt of the type kids would wear in 1989. She’s in danger of being upstaged by the little black kid who wears a full three-piece suit even though he looks to be about three years old and he’s in a sweltering South American country. He looks very confused. Fan favorite Bruce Ly makes a brief appearance, and during a lot of it he’s toting a machine gun. While interesting as a novelty, I think I speak on behalf of all the Ly fans out there when I say we’d rather see him doing Martial Arts. Just another misstep of this blip of a movie.

Because of its “in one eye and out the other” forgettableness, perhaps that’s why it never secured a VHS release in America. And that’s saying something, because 1989 was a high-water mark year for VHS here in the USA, a time when there were many video stores and they were all clamoring for content. Just why Open Fire wasn’t deemed good enough – despite its reasonable competence and presence of not one but two Carradines, Bruce Ly, and Hugo Stiglitz, and its exploitable subject matter (mainly the Panther Squad, although there’s no nudity) – remains an open question.

Lest we forget one of the main things that makes Open Fire watchable – the funny dubbing. Many characters “talk” without moving their mouths, or voices are heard from offscreen and you don’t know who is supposed to be talking, or the voices don’t match who we’ve heard speaking previously. 

There’s also a first for us (at least so far as we can remember) – REPEATED overdubbing. You’ve heard us talk about repeated footage. Now we’ve got repeated talking! Not once, but twice (at least), David Carradine “says” the line “Get out of my way”. Then he proceeds to kick or shoot a baddie. He doesn’t do a ton of punching. He was probably maintaining character because he got shot. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Anyway, it’s the SAME line reading. They just replayed it. Well, why mess with perfection?

In the end, Open Fire (not to be confused with the Jeff Wincott film of the same name of a few years later) is your standard jungle blow-em-up with a handful of unintentionally funny moments. But it’s hard to sustain interest over a 90-minute running time.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Chinatown Connection (1990)

Chinatown Connection (1990)-* * *

Directed by: Jean-Paul Ouelette

Starring: Lee Majors II, Bruce Ly, Art Camacho, and Brinke Stevens



“If a cop ain’t got an attitude, he’s dead”- Warren Houston










 Warren Houston (Majors II) is an L.A. Cop On The Edge or COTE for short. He has a serious attitude problem. Also he plays by his own rules. When batches of poison cocaine start killing off the local drug-taking population, Houston wants to find out who is responsible. But he is teamed up with John Chan (Ly), a Martial Arts expert with a thick Chinese accent. Chan is running an experimental program at the police precinct, where instead of suspending officers with anger issues, he teaches them Martial Arts moves in the gym. Sort of a cross between anger management and Karate class. 

The latest recruit into the program is Estes (Camacho), an ally to Houston and Chan. They are searching for an underworld figure known only as “The Scarface Man”. I guess simply “Scarface” was taken. Will these unorthodox “Kung Fu Cops” get to the bottom of the CHINATOWN CONNECTION?

You thought you loved Lee Majors. You thought he was the only Lee Majors. You thought wrong. Not only is there a son to the great Keaton’s Cop (1988) star, but his name is not simply “Lee Majors” or even “Lee Majors Jr.” it’s Lee Majors THE SECOND. Kind of like Pope John Paul II. And not only that, in this movie he’s teamed up with not Bruce Lee, Bruce Li, Bruce Le, or (personal favorite) Bruce Rhee, but with yet another “Bruce”, this time Bruce Ly. Add Art Camacho and Brinke Stevens to the mix and you have a movie that should be a bit more well known, both for the cast and for the fun moments it contains.

Sure, the movie is plotted and paced weirdly, and maybe not all the punches and kicks connect, but so what? The Houston/Chan team-up (either by accident or design) actually avoids some of the “you don’t speak English” cliches we’ve seen many times in the past. They get along well together, as best evidenced when they’re both speaking with a drugged-out informant known as “PCP”. But the only acid on display is the wash in Lee Majors II’s jeans. Though it is curious that no one ever comments on John Chan’s super-thick accent even once. It’s all just taken for granted.

It should also be noted that the police chief is the time-honored WYC (or White Yelling Chief), and Houston is known as “That Crazy Cop” (kind of like “That Darn Cat”?) and that he hates Slime. He calls criminals Slime at least twice in the movie. He has an awesome fashion sense, from his mustache down to his high-top Nike’s. Additionally, it being the 80’s, he even, inexplicably, has to face off against a Ninja at one point. 

Luckily his house is well-equipped with weaponry (this will remind watchers of The Office of how Dwight has various weapons hidden around the office). As if that wasn’t enough, one of the baddies is none other than Malibu, AKA Deron McBee. Sadly, it’s an uncredited role, but finally now we’re shedding light on it.

Despite (or, more accurately, because of) Chinatown Connection’s more amateurish qualities, there’s a lot to like about this movie. Released by South Gate to video stores in 1990, and featuring the song (which gets no credit so we don’t know who it’s by or the precise title but we think it’s called) “You Decided To Play”, Chinatown Connection is ideal for action fans that don’t take themselves so seriously.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty