Karate Warrior 6 (1993)

Karate Warrior 6 (1993)- * * 

Directed by: Fabrizio De Angelis

Starring: Scotty Daffron, Ron Williams, Rafaele Exina, Dorian Field, Richard Goon, Timothy Smith, and David Warbeck



“Here’s your mermaid, you stupid jerks.”

Leo (Daffron) is an overweight college student who runs into a bit of good luck. That’s because as he’s riding his bike while simultaneously having a snack, a limousine carrying some sort of foreign diplomat cuts Leo off and he falls off the bike. While not really injured, Leo overinflates the situation and the diplomat gives him $10,000 in cash right there on the spot. Leo then takes his buddies on a shopping spree, and then on a vacation to Greece. While in Greece, the boys fall victim to a scammer and lose all their money, so they try a gentle scam of their own – they pretend to be tour guides in order to make enough money to get back home.

Unrelated to pretty much all of this, one day Larry Jones (Williams), who is one of the group of friends, sees an attractive Greek girl being assaulted by some toughs, so he intervenes and beats them up. After saving her, she mentions that the yearly motocross race is coming up, and that could get them the money they need to fly back home. So they all go back to her house to fix up an old, shoddy motorcycle. The guy that wins every year is named Mustafa (Exina). 

After Larry bests him, he gets mad and challenges him to a Karate match. He wins that every year, too. Larry gets his girlfriend Betty (Field) and the token family friend/Karate Master Mr. Masura (Goon) to come to Greece to train him. Naturally, it all comes to a head at the final fight, which Larry’s father (Warbeck) also attends. Who will be final champion, Larry or Mustafa?

As you may have noticed, there are SIX Karate Warrior movies. This sixth and, to date, final installment in the long-running series was again directed by Fabrizio DeAngelis, using his usual Larry Ludman pseudonym. The above description details the rambling and ramshackle nature of the plot. A bunch of things happen, it all unfolds in due course, but the Karate angle doesn’t show up until later, and is just another “thing that happens”. We’re all surprised when we finally see Larry is even a fighter of some sort. Another element to this is a pleasant, but pointless, Greek travelogue.

There’s a lot of ridiculous and silly dialogue, and speaking of silly, the main nemesis of the movie, Mustafa, doesn’t inspire much fear. He’s thin, waifish, and looks like a more effeminate version of Balki. Karate Warrior 6 came out in 1993, which was the same year as the last season of Perfect Strangers. So it’s safe to say that America was in the grip of Balki Fever at the time. DeAngelis, as was his wont, was just capitalizing on it. Balki was from the island of Mypos, which was Greek (?) so it all makes sense. And he fights a guy named Larry, so we finally get to see what we as viewers have been waiting for for so long: Larry vs. Balki.

Fan favorite David Warbeck is in the movie for probably less than a minute, all told, so any Warbeck fans out there, don’t go into this expecting him to go around busting any heads. What you do get, however, is one of the friends, Greg (Smith), who looks a lot like the elder Pete on The Adventures of Pete and Pete. In the name department, it’s hard to do better than Richard Goon. He plays Masura, and, while training Larry, he calls him, “Larry-san”. Larry does something that looks a lot like Daniel’s crane move from a certain other movie series.

Finally, it should be noted that the scam the boys fall victim to involves a guy who says they can take a picture with a real live mermaid, and then he steals their pants. That’s right, the old mermaid scam. In part, maybe that’s why the Karate Warrior series never made it to any home video format in the U.S. after the first one (which was released by Imperial). Maybe someone, somewhere figured American audiences couldn’t handle the silliness of volumes 2-6.

Anyway, there’s not a lot of substance here – or Karate, for that matter – but the movie isn’t awful. It’s competently made and there are some funny moments. It just rambles and doesn’t have a lot of focus. Are there any Karate Warrior completists out there who have seen all six? If so, write in today.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Karate Rock (1990)

Karate Rock (1990)- * *

Directed By: Fabrizio De Angelis

Starring: Antonio Sabato Jr., Dorian Field, Natalie Hendrix, Andrew Parker, Timothy Smith, Robert Chan, and David Warbeck



“Why don’t you go iron your tutu?”

Kevin Foster (Sabato Jr.) is the new kid in town. He comes from Oakland to live in Savannah, Georgia with his father John (Warbeck), a police officer. Inexplicably, this makes him the target of ridicule amongst the local bully population, who tease him by not only calling him “cop’s son” but also just “cop” (!) – so Kevin goes to the local discotheque, as all Southern teens were doing in 1990. He enters the “Rock Competition”, by which the European filmmakers must have meant “Dance Competition”. Naturally, Kevin wins, but that’s when all his troubles start.

A love triangle develops between Kevin, who likes Kim (Hendrix), and Connie (Field), who likes Kevin. Kevin’s interest in Kim, as well as his superior dancing abilities, really tees off the head bully and Karate champ, Jeff Hunter (Parker). Jeff gets really mad when Kevin bests him at a truck race through the “Tunnel of Death”, so Jeff and his goons beat up Kevin several times. Eventually, Kevin wises up and begins training with his father’s friend Billy (Chan), an older Asian gentleman who long ago swore off using his Martial Arts abilities but who now really wants Kevin to get revenge against Jeff Hunter. The two boys set up a final showdown at the local dojo. Who will be victorious?

Our old buddy Larry Ludman serves up a cross between Footloose (1984) and The Karate Kid (1984), but notice that both of those movies are from the great year of 1984. Today’s movie in question came out in 1990, and, for better or worse, times had changed. Maybe that’s why this never got any kind of a release in America. Anyway, it should be noted that there is no rock and very, very little Karate in Karate Rock. It’s maybe 85% Footloose and 15% Karate Kid. The box art, great as it is, is very misleading. It’s not the Martial Arts version of Body Rock (1984) that we were hoping for. But, in all fairness, even Sabato would have a hard time filling the shoes of Chilly D.

Sabato wears an oversized white cardigan and rents videos from a store called Video One. There was a Hard To Kill (1990) poster in the window, so presumably that’s what he was renting. In the same strip mall is the dojo with two names. It reads “Korean Karate”, and then, as if to correct itself, “Savannah Tae Kwon Do”. It’s easy to see why Kevin has such a crush on Kim. She has a fantastic sideways ponytail and wears triangular earrings. On the other side of the equation, Jeff Hunter has rockin’ after-market pink windshield wipers on his 4x4. It’s going to be a tough choice for her.

The Yaz-like synth disco score is by Donald Brent, who only has one other music scoring credit, another Fabrizio DeAngelis movie called Breakfast With Dracula (1993). That’s a shame, as we would like to look forward to more scores by him. As far as we can tell, neither score has been released on CD or vinyl to date. Speaking of sound, when the characters talk – in any setting – it sounds like they’re speaking into microphones with both the echo and reverb turned up. This unnatural circumstance leads to a lot of funny mishearings, such as when Kevin’s Black friend is introduced as “Chocolate Chip”. Sadly, his name isn’t Chocolate Chip, or even just Chip. Even still, the classic nerd, Mortimer (Smith), almost steals the movie. Maybe this is because we get such minimal Warbeck.

In the end, Karate Rock is a teen movie, and not the shirt-ripping fight-fest the box art seems to indicate that it is. Kevin doesn’t even start training until the movie is almost over. Perhaps the most interesting things about Karate Rock, seen from today’s perspective, of course, are its time-capsule points of interest. And also the fact that what you see here is what a bunch of European adults thought American teens were like. It’s a reasonably fun trifle, but it’s not, strictly speaking, an action movie.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Tiger Joe (1982)

Tiger Joe (1982)- * * *

Directed by: Antonio Margheriti

Starring: David Warbeck, Luciano Pigozzi, Annie Belle, and Rade Abadeza









“Tiger” Joe (Warbeck) is a pilot in Southeast Asia. He’s a devil-may-care daredevil (who’s also a handsome devil with a devilish smile). At the small airport he works out of, Midnight (King) and Lenny (Pigozzi) are his co-workers and friends. Whether because of personal convictions or because of money, Joe uses his plane to deliver weapons to rebels fighting an oppressive regime in Cambodia. When he’s shot down in the jungle and his enemies capture him, it seems Tiger Joe has gone on his last flight. But he teams up with a “ferocious female freedom fighter” (to quote the title of an unrelated movie) named Kia (Belle) and her native companion named Datu (Abadeza). 

The three of them face many trials, tribulations and travails in the jungle as they fight the baddies and try to find freedom. Meanwhile, Joe’s buddies Lenny and Midnight engage on a trek of their own to try and find the missing Tiger Joe. Will they find him? Will Tiger Joe make it out of his cage? Find out today!

Here we have a jungle actioner with all the typical trappings such as multiple shots of waterfalls, machine guns mowing down Asian baddies with those conical hats, and maybe an exploding hut or two.

 But because it was directed by Antonio Margheriti, it has a certain touch that saves it from being bland. In addition, there’s some funny dialogue, such as the very first exchange of the movie when the advice is shouted, “You need to eat more carrots!” There’s even some classic political incorrectness of the day, such as how the Black Guy is named “Midnight” and other racial references in that vein. There’s also plenty of funny NON-dialogue, such as the noises the baddies make when they get shot: their flailing “AAaaahhhh!” will put a smile on your face, even after the 1000th time. Really, it will - it gets funnier every time you hear it.

The solid Italian B-movie cast of King, Pigozzi, Belle and Warbeck help things out. Warbeck especially puts in a witty and charming performance. While shirtless for 90 percent of the movie, you root for him anyway.  Plus he looks like a young Jack Nicholson. Warbeck should have had much more mainstream American success than he did. 

But Italian exploitation fans will always love him and that’s all that matters. On the negative side of Tiger Joe, there’s no one big villain to fight against and that’s always a problem. Who is good and who is bad isn’t always made clear. It’s a bit on the long side as well for such a threadbare plot - it should have been 5 to 10 minutes shorter. And since this movie was made hot on the heels of Margheriti’s The Last Hunter (1980) - which is a superior movie (check out the DVD from Dark Sky) - try not to compare the two too harshly. Margheriti was seriously blowing up the jungle at this time, besides Tiger Joe and The Last Hunter, he also did Tornado (1983) and Codename: Wildgeese (1984), among others in this timeframe. God bless Margheriti. He’s a great man.

On the technical side, the VHS was released by the great Lightning label back in the 80’s. This release is relatively easy to find today. The DVD, released as part of the Mercs box set, is in Widescreen, or something like Widescreen, so it’s probably preferable to see it that way. Thankfully, there are no technical glitches on this part of the Mercs set.  Whichever way you see it, despite its flaws, don’t be afraid to say hello to Tiger Joe.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Miami Horror (1985)

Miami Horror (1985)-* * *

AKA Miami Golem 

Directed by: Alberto De Martino

Starring: David Warbeck, Laura Trotter, and John Ireland










Craig Milford (Warbeck) is a Miami-based TV reporter who thinks he’s seen it all. That is, until he gets involved in a complex plot that involves DNA from an alien race, the businessmen that want it to control the world, the malevolent extraterrestrial fetus that holds the powers, and a telepathic lady, Joanna Fitzgerald (Trotter) who can help him communicate with the forces from the universe that are commanding him to get the vital information away from Anderson (Ireland) and his goons. At first, Milford is skeptical, but as he goes on his journey of discovery, it does turn out that space aliens have chosen  this lowly local TV reporter to be the one that will save all life in the universe. Will Craig Milford be up to his immense task?

Miami Horror, also known as Miami Golem, was an Italian production directed by Alberto De Martino (using the pseudonym Martin Herbert) and picked up for release by AIP. The tape contains no AIP trailers. But whoever designed the logo used for the movie was clearly “inspired” by the then-hot Miami Vice TV show. Such was the power of Crockett and Tubbs, it even filtered down to bizarre sci-fi/horror/action hybrids such as this, which really have no connection to the show whatsoever. Even the music by Detto Mariano is decidedly Jan Hammer-esque. Miami Horror is a nutty movie, notable in its own right for its weird touches and strange effects, not to mention its grab-bag of a plot that’s quirkily entertaining one minute, and oddly slow the next.

The great David Warbeck is always charismatic, and he basically carries the movie. This time around he’s being shuffled between intergalactic commanders and being chased by rednecks with shotguns as he escapes on a fan-boat. One thing you can say about Miami Horror, it’s never predictable. When he’s not talking on his awesome car phone, he’s shooting with a handgun at a helicopter that is chasing him in a sequence seemingly inspired by North By Northwest (1959). But does the heli explode? You’ll just have to track down the movie to find out. It’s really hard to describe Miami Horror - its off-kilter, off the wall, and off beat vibe is...off the beaten track and fans of Italian productions from the 80’s should appreciate what’s going on here.

Some people say Italian productions “ripped off” other, more popular movies and shows in order to exploit their current popularity. But as is evidenced here, that may be a starting point, but - just like the musical score - the final product is something strangely original. No one can deny that when all is said and done, there is no other movie like Miami Horror. Add to that some classic dubbing, some scientist goons fistfighting, and American Commandos (1986)-style repeated footage (not to mention all the other wacky ideas being floated around) and there you have it.

While it might not be to everyone’s taste, Miami Horror is still around for people out there that have seen all the other Italian productions of the 80’s and are still seeking out what’s left.

Also check out a review by our buddy, Cool Target! 

Comeuppance Review by: Brett