Crisis (1997)

 

Crisis (1997)- * *1\2

 Directed by: Jalal Merhi

 Starring: David Bradley, Tony Milne, Cameron Michell Jr.,  Thorsten Nickel, and Pavlo

"The shoe salesman is on the loose!" - Random Baddie

An idealistic young man named Tony (Milne) is part of a group named Greenworld (occasionally called Greenworld 2000). They're kind of like hippies, but because it was the 90's, they wear plaid flannel shirts. They decide to target Dr. Tom Ross (Mitchell Jr.) They want him to use something called Toxin Retardants. Or maybe they desperately want him to NOT use Toxin Retardants. It's never made completely clear. So the merry band of do-gooders invade Ross's house to get what they want. This doesn't put them in the most sympathetic light.




Things go from bad to worse when a terrorist named Simon (Nickel), his Evan Lurie-esque henchman Snake (Pavlo), and some other baddies take control of things in the Ross household, holding Ross, his wife, daughter, and maid hostage. They want missiles (prounounced in the Evil dialect: MisSYLes). Thankfully for the Ross clan, and Tony, Tony's brother Alex (Bradley) came along on this mission. He goes under the cover of being a shoe salesman, but he's actually a bagman for the mafia. At one point he describes himself as a "cleaner". Despite his job title, Alex must snap into action, stop the terrorists, save the Greenworlders, and the Ross family. Can he do it? Or will there be some sort of CRISIS?

When the first credit onscreen for any movie you decide to watch is: "Jalal Merhi Presents", you can do one of two things. You can either run screaming from the room, flapping your arms wildly, vowing to never enter that room in your house again because the "bad thing" in the room gave you PTSD from the last time you saw it. Or, you could roll with the punches and see what silliness and stupidity is on offer and take a slightly more relaxed approach. Thankfully, we opted for the latter in the case of Crisis. And yes, it's VERY dumb, but it's so darned stupid that you can't really hate it. It's like a not-very-intelligent puppy that follows you home.


It's yet another home invasion movie. They must keep churning these things out because they're inexpensive to produce. Even up to today, as in The Gardener (2021), baddies are still invadin' homes like there's no tomorrow. What keeps Crisis afloat are the constant hilarious line readings - just the way people talk in this film is really funny. There are tons of face-palmingly stupid situations and you just have to laugh. Probably to keep from crying.



We get some nice 1997 phones, TVs, and computers. The score by action-film mainstay Varouje has some pleasantly jazzy moments. At the outset of all this, there are some exterior, possibly stock shots of New York City, including the Twin Towers, so we're led to believe the story takes place there. Then we're treated to cars with Saskatchewan license plates, emergency workers with jackets that read "Saskatoon EMTs", outside the house is a vast, snowy expanse that decidedly does not look like NYC, and there's even a box in the house that simply reads "Saskatoon". If the filmmakers were trying to hide the fact that they were in Saskatoon, they didn't do the best job.


Perhaps distracting from all this is the presence of one Thorsten Nickel as Simon, the lead terrorist baddie. Maybe after the original Die Hard (1988) was such a success, it was written somewhere that every action movie must contain an evildoer with a thick accent, preferably German. Thorsten Nickel could be the new Werner Hoetzinger. And we don't use that phrase lightly. Maybe Christoph Kluppel wasn't available. In any case, he makes his own presence known. There's no counterfeiting THIS Nickel.


And all of this is before we get to David Bradley. He spends a lot of the film tied up to a weight set in the basement. He also doesn't do a ton of Martial Arts. He's disrespected further when, in the end credits under fight choreography, his name is spelled incorrectly ("Bradly"). Bradley does what he can in the face of all this, but he's faced with a tide of low-budget silliness that's easy to get washed away in.



The whole thing is 80 minutes pre-end credits. It COULDN'T have been longer. There's only so much of this stuff anyone can take. We're only human. (Well, maybe Thorsten Nickel isn't, but that's another story for another day). Adding insult to injury, the Platinum Disc DVD promises a quiz as a special feature. We were looking forward to testing our knowledge about weak-looking muzzle flashes, maids that look like Rosanna Arquette, or typing your computer password into Microsoft Word. Alas, there is no quiz. They out-and-out lied. Don't promise a Crisis quiz if you can't deliver.



Okay, now I'm so mad I can't continue. I can't do this anymore (walks out of room and slams door).

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, DTVC!

Fearless Tiger (1991)

 

Fearless Tiger (1991)- * * *

Directed by: Jalal Merhi 

Starring: Jalal Merhi, Monika Schnarre, Lazar Rockwood, K. Dock Yip, Bolo Yeung, and Jamie Farr

"Tell me about Fish Food!!" - Lyle Camille

Lyle Camille (Merhi) seems to have it all in life: he's engaged to the beautiful Ashley (Schnarre), and is poised to take an important position in the family business, which is led by his father Sam (Farr). His charmed life is about to be derailed when his brother overdoses on a new drug called Nirvana, which clearly was the only thing with that name to become popular in 1991. (The drug also seems to have a code name on the streets: Fish Food).


Naturally, as any good brother would do after such a tragedy, Lyle flies to Hong Kong, studies with Martial Arts Master Do Man (Yip), meets the mysterious Master on Mountain (Bolo), and enters a King of the Kickboxers-esque fighting tournament. Lyle then returns to his native Canada after an undisclosed amount of time, and proceeds to use his newfound skills to get revenge on the baddies, and his main target is the dastardly Saalamar (Rockwood, not to be confused with the Jody Watley and Soul Train-affiliated singing group with a similar name). Will Lyle Camille reach his newfound lifelong goal of becoming a FEARLESS TIGER?




Fearless Tiger is probably one of the better Jalal Merhi movies we've seen to date, because it's full of enough silly and amusing moments to keep the whole thing afloat. Some scenes are genuinely well-shot and lit, and there's usually a fight or an explosion coming soon.

Because Merhi's real accent is so thick, Jamie Farr probably thought he needed to keep up with that, so his accent seems to get thicker as time goes on. The rise of Lyle Camille (how do they come up with these names?) was a bit like if Latka from Taxi trained hard to beat people up. What they should have done back in '91 - though it's not too late still today - is have Jalal Merhi and Bronson Pinchot play twin brothers who team up to get revenge on a drug cartel. Perhaps the cartel could operate out of the island of Mypos and their last name could be Bartokomous. It's too good of an idea. We'll keep waiting.



Anyway, Bloodsport (1988) and Kickboxer (1989) were very popular at the time, so here comes Fearless Tiger. What those classics don't have, however, is the hero fighting an overweight man wearing rainbow suspenders while on the back of a moving dumptruck. Lazar Rockwood, who plays the main baddie, looks like an Asian Billy Drago. We were happy to see Monika Schnarre here, in her first cinematic role. She later went on to be in The Death Merchant (1991). Like a lot of similar outings, a lot of time is taken up by the baddies looking for "the disk". It's a classic cliche we all know and love.




Co-writer J. Stephen Maunder went on to direct Tiger Claws II (1996) and Tiger Claws III (2000), as well as Shadows in Paradise (2010). He also wrote a lot of other titles we're all familiar with, such as Expect No Mercy (1995). With Fearless Tiger, we have something with enough absurd or entertaining moments to keep it all moving forward.




Featuring a quality end credits song, Face of Fear by Britton, Fearless Tiger is indeed recommended if you like those early-90's video store actioners, and we all can't get enough of those.

Comeuppance Review by Brett and Ty

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, DTVC!

The Circuit III: The Street Monk (2006)

 

The Circuit III: The Street Monk (2006)- * *

Directed by: Jalal Merhi

Starring: Olivier Gruner, Brad Milne, Cristina Rose, Jason Carter, James Lew, Jalal Merhi, and Loren Avedon 

"Mission Control: We've Found Mr. Longstreet." - Helicopter Pilot

After Circuiting it up over the past two films, our old pal Dirk Longstreet (Gruner) has renounced fighting and becomes a surfer. He lives in a van down by the ocean and just wants to be left alone to hang ten to his heart's content. Things change for Longstreet when he rescues a young girl named Cherrie Wendover (Rose) from a bunch of thugs. The baddies were after her because she knows the truth about Octavio Ventura (Carter), a man who stages illegal Punchfights to the death at a strip club called the Playpen.




When Cherrie gets kidnapped, Ventura forces Longstreet to come out of retirement in order to win her freedom. But he has to fight the current champion, Stuart "Spider" Webb (Lew), among others. Meanwhile, both Editor Bill (Merhi) and Detective Sykes (Avedon) want to figure out what's going on. Will this be the FINAL FLIGHT - or is it FIGHT - for THE STREET MONK, Dirk Longstreet?

Okay, we know that Dirk Longstreet is an awesome name, but we established that a long time ago. At this point, the whole "Circuit" thing is starting to wear a bit thin. It has an even cheaper look to it than the other installments, which wouldn't be such a bad thing in itself if the writing wasn't so monosyllabic, monotonous, and moronic. Yes, the whole thing is very, very dumb. While you shouldn't run to the Circuit series expecting intelligence, it still comes off as somehow disappointingly stupid.


There are only a couple moments when the dumbness becomes funny or entertaining, such as when one of the baddies inexplicably hires a group of surfers to beat up Dirk Longstreet. Normally not known for their violent tendencies, perhaps the choice of paying a gaggle of extra-chill California surfer dudes to assault Longstreet was the wrong move. Longstreet dispatches with them quickly by beating them up extra-stupidly with his surfboard. Oh dear.


Other funny moments occur when fights break with little or no pretext. A lot of these fights have, let's just say, choreography issues. We don't mean to nitpick, because it's probably hard to make a movie like this, but come on. A little more professionalism would have gone a long way.


In between all this, there are many scenes of Longstreet having his own Endless Summer (AKA endless surfing). While that slows things down considerably, the real problem is that Longstreet isn't that likable a character, at least for 90 percent-plus of the movie. He's kind of a jerk to Cherrie for no reason that we can see. Having likable characters is key, and The Circuit III does not deliver them. Avedon and Merhi don't add much to the mix, and James Lew doesn't say anything. This ship is sinking fast.


The many scenes at The Playpen strip club got us thinking. If men go to strip clubs to see naked women, would they be happy or disappointed to see a bunch of half-naked men grappling with each other? Would this be a net benefit for the strip club patron, or an unpleasant surprise? Nevertheless, all the fights at this one location, with its particularly annoying announcer, got repetitive fast. It's all very reminiscent, unfortunately, of Las Vegas Warrior (2002). That's probably the film that's the closest comparison to Circuit III.


While the film opens up with a truly impressive location, the top of some sort of mountain, the scenes that take place up there are face-palmingly dumb. Longstreet is at the top of the mountain wearing a Karate gi, and guys just show up there and begin fighting him in a very silly manner. It goes on for a while.


While The Circuit III was never released in America - and it is unfair that Merhi would foist this muck on the rest of the world - it can now be seen on Merhi's YouTube channel. While it all caps off with a catchy song, performed live by Cristina Rose, perhaps the best thing about the whole experience is its end credits. It's so filled with spelling and other errors, it's more entertaining than the movie itself.


However, we would only recommend this to those who have seen the other two Circuit films and are Circuit completists and need to see it out of some kind of OCD-like compulsion. Assuming you don't have this kind of medical issue, we can safely say to skip this one.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out a review from our buddy, DTVC!

Operation Golden Phoenix (1994)

 

Operation Golden Phoenix (1994)- * * *

Directed by: Jalal Merhi

Starring: Jalal Merhi, Loren Avedon, Karen Sheperd, Al Waxman, and James Hong 

It is said that whoever collects the sacred "Golden Phoenix" medallions of Lebanon will be led to a secret hiding place where riches will rain down upon them. That's why rivals Mark Assante (Merhi) and Ivan Jones (Avedon) are both after the medallions. It seems Ivan is the baddie in this situation because he's working with a diabolical mastermind named Chang (Hong). The quest for the medallions goes from Beirut to Toronto to Lebanon, where Princess Tara (Sheperd) comes into play as another treasure hunter. Naturally, there are plenty of fights and blow-ups that happen along the way. Who will find the treasure at the end of OPERATION GOLDEN PHOENIX?

Much like how Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were once touted as "Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together!", now, finally, we have Jalal Merhi and Loren Avedon co-starring together as ultimate rivals in a battle for the ages. It has been said that - allegedly - these two men were difficult to work with, so it makes sense that they could only work together. Neither Merhi nor Avedon were ever the most likable action stars out there, and that doesn't change for Operation Golden Phoenix, but you may be surprised to know that we liked the film overall. Here's why. 

It's very, very silly. It's also, in the best, most complimentary sense, stupid. It attains the kind of silly-stupidness that makes it enjoyable to watch. The opening shootout scene, with all its shooting, blow-ups, and fights, is a remarkable cross between technically very well-done and impressively executed stunts and pyrotechnics, with amusing "facepalm" staging. 

Another movie highlight comes when Merhi has a fight on a bridge. Dressed in a denim button-down shirt and jeans, Merhi looks alarmingly like Jay Leno. This might not be notable in and of itself, but his opponent strongly resembles Freddie Mercury. If you've ever clamored for a Leno-Mercury brawl to end 'em all, your prayers have now been answered.

Which leads to perhaps one of the greatest strengths of OGP. (Don't worry, we're not going to ask if you're "down with" it). The scenery is really impressive in this movie. At times it's downright stunning. The filmmakers chose some really breathtaking locations to stage the fight scenes. The bridge setting was good, but it was just the beginning. The final fight takes place at what looks like an old archaeological site that would be perfect on an episode of Ancient Aliens. If memory serves, Baalbek has been mentioned on that show.

Other highlights include the scene where Assante (not Armand; in this case it's Mark) gets arrested and put in a holding tank. He's surrounded by toughs, and guess what happens? A fight breaks out, but what's funny is that the holding tank is notably (excessively?) large enough to accommodate a healthy brawl. 

Additionally, both of the main characters are exclusively called by their full names. It's always, "Ivan Jones did this" or "Ivan Jones did that". He's really just Ivan to us. Al Waxman, so memorable from The Hitman (1991), has a sort of thankless role here as Chief Gordon (of course his name is Chief Gordon). It also would have been nice to see more of Karen Sheperd in the film, but we're just happy she was involved.

Also when the main professor is kidnapped so he can translate what's on the medallions (using an old Apple computer, of course), for some unknown, unfathomable reason, this poor man is shirtless. He looks to be in roughly his 60's and resembles Uncle Leo from Seinfeld, but he's shirtless. No explanation is given. He spends the entire rest of the scene that way. It's one of the many mysteries of the Golden Phoenix, perhaps even more so than the medallions themselves.

All of what we've just described - and more - is all topped off by some extremely funny line readings, accents, grunts, yells, screams, dubbing, and other strange sounds from the participants involved. It keeps the movie afloat most of the time. Yes, it does slack a bit in the middle, but that happens a lot in these B-actioners. The final fight and the shirtless professor more than make up for it.

Surprisingly, OGP got a VHS release not on a small label, but on a major - MCA/Universal. Even with that, the VHS is not an easy one to come by. Perhaps the big company got cold feet with their release and had no faith in the film. Then they just didn't print that many copies for wide release. That seems to happen a lot. So with that in mind, if you ever see the tape anywhere, definitely pick it up.

We have to say that Operation Golden Phoenix was a pleasant surprise. We didn't go in expecting much, but we came out smiling. While Avedon and Merhi might not be your favorites, don't let that stop you from checking this movie out. You'll most likely enjoy it a lot.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Tiger Claws III (2000)

Tiger Claws III (2000)- *1\2

Directed by: J. Stephen Maunder

Starring: Jalal Merhi, Loren Avedon, and Cynthia Rothrock

Tarek (Merhi) and Linda (Rothrock) return as “New York City”* cops in this third and, thankfully, last installment of the Tiger Claws franchise. And what a franchise it was. This time around, an evil baddie named Stryker (Avedon) comes on the scene. While we have seen many guys over the years with the name Stryker, this time he mentions that his name is “Stryker Godunov”. Okay. So, Stryker Godunov for some unknown reason unleashes three unkillable Martial Arts masters onto the streets of  Toronto...sorry, NEW YORK, and all sorts of havoc ensues. Because Tarek is a bit slow in the head, it takes him a while to find the answer that will stop all the madness. Obviously, the answer is Carter Wong, just like in real life. Carter, as Master Jin, takes Tarek to the icy wastes of...New York...to train hard, Rocky IV style, to fight the bad guys that are Superman 2 style. With Stryker controlling the baddies, is anybody safe? Will Tarek rise to the occasion? Or will something truly stupid happen to screw it all up?

Yes, as you may have noticed, there is a Tiger Claws THREE. Just why, exactly, is anybody’s guess. We had a hard time sitting through TC3 (and if Billy Blanks is to be believed - and he usually is - there are only 1,997 sequels to go) for numerous reasons. Sure, it has some of the standard low-budget movie pitfalls we are more than used to and totally okay with: bad lighting, junky-looking cinematography, and acting so stilted it should be used by Uncle Sam in a Labor Day parade. The real crime here, if you can overlook the surface problems, is the minimal appearance by fan favorite Cynthia Rothrock, in favor of Jalal Merhi and the ever-unlikable Loren Avedon. Though, to be fair, he is well-cast as a pompous jerk bad guy.  

Why director Maunder thought axing the delightful Rothrock just so Merhi can clog up our screens like a hairball in a shower drain remains unknown, but maybe it wasn’t up to him. Maybe Rothrock, wisely, said no more. Speaking of hair, and to be fair to “Tarek”, Merhi’s hair does look less painted-on than usual. But the lack of Rothrock isn’t even the worst of Maunder’s sins. Without giving anything away, there is a mind-numbingly stupid plot twist that, as a viewer, will likely make you feel angry and insulted. Again: why? And no amount of recycled Bolo Yeung scenes and “33% new footage!” flashback moments can paper over it.

So while Stryker’s need to take three 500-year-old outfits in a museum display and make them come alive and do wire-fu is not explained, neither are the methods used to combat it. Tarek prepares to combat the supernatural evil by attempting to snatch a piece of sushi hanging from a string by sticking his hand through a Price is Right-style moving wheel. That oughta show’em. Thankfully, however, the great Carter Wong is here to help us all, and his classic Hardcase and Fist-style delivery is still in full force. For example, when he says the word “Stryker”, his super-thick accent makes it sounds like he’s saying “Fraggle”. Which leads to quotes such as “Fraggle is against me”.  Perhaps a Doozer would be more intimidating than Loren Avedon.

There’s the time-honored warehouse fight, a lot of yelling and grunting (mainly because the three baddies never say anything), and even a T.I.G.-style farmhouse fight. Even at the final fight, the jumping/alternating hitting the sides of the feet thing looks less like a battle to the death and more like the Kid n’ Play dance. At one point, someone even says “they are fighting spirit” - perhaps a reference to the 1992 Loren Avedon movie of the same name? But, in the end, Tiger Claws III feels like a loser of a movie, if not a complete waste of time...and that thing we mentioned earlier is the straw that breaks the Tiger’s back.

*Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, DTVC!

The Circuit (2002)

The Circuit (2002)- * *

Directed by: Jalal Merhi

Starring: Olivier Gruner, Ilya Morelle, Jalal Merhi, Loren Avedon, Gail Harris, Michael Blanks, Bruce Buffer, Bryan Genesse, and Billy Drago











Dirk Longstreet (Gruner) truly has it all. A great job as a college track and field coach, a great first name, a great last name, and an overall vibe that tells the world, “I’m Dirk Longstreet”. Trouble arises when his younger brother Jeremy Longstreet (Morelle) begins attending illegal underground Punchfighting matches known as “The Circuit”. Deeply in debt to Circuit ringleader Vixton Hack (Genesse), who really gives Dirk Longstreet a run for his money in the awesome name sweepstakes, Hack tells Jeremy he can work off his debt by fighting in the ring. The problem is, Dirk was an undefeated champion of the Circuit in his past, but he walked away and started a new and better life for himself, and he wants to forget the old days. 

So even though he’s in top physical shape, he begins training with Circuit boss Lenny (Drago) so he can defeat current reigning champs the Kwan twins (Simon Kim and James Kim). Meanwhile, a typical female reporter, Nicole (Harris) has been tracking the Circuit and even gets close to Dirk on false pretenses. Her editor, Editor Bill (Merhi) (That’s how he’s credited) wants to pull her off the story, but her connections with cop Det. Sykes (Avedon) have her closer than ever to exposing The Circuit to the public. What in the world is going to happen?

So many shirtless men punching each other, so little time. Fascinatingly, the main thing about The Circuit that would seem to anger most people, was, to us, one of its greatest strengths. That being the dialogue, which is written insipidly, delivered stupidly, and recorded unintelligibly. Half the time you’re yelling “WHAT?!” at the screen. When you get some dialogue spoken clearly, as ring announcer Bruce Buffer does (yes, Michael’s brother - ring announcing must be in the Buffer family DNA) we get such gems as: “a warrior for many years, the Ninja Warrior.” Hm. How inspiring. Another example is said by a random goon: “Dirk Longstreet’s in the house!” Maybe when Dirk Longstreet starts his rap career as MC Dirk Longstreet, he can sample that and put it on his album. He can always team up with Chino XL, who appears in the Circuit 2 (2002).

Of course, there are the time-honored training sequences, shots of audiences screaming while clutching their cash, and the prerequisite barfight (s). But thanks to his past that he’s trying to escape, Dirk suffers from “punchdreams”, where he has nightmares of being punched. Truly that’s the next frontier of Punchfighting movies. A cross between Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Fist Fighter (1989). Producers out there, take notice. The Circuit doesn’t go that direction, of course, but viewers may suffer from Restless Legs Syndrome. It doesn’t help that the movie has these annoying, eye-singing flashes that unnecessarily appear between scenes. Unless Jalal Merhi has some sort of deal going with LensCrafters to surreptitiously drive business their way from eyeball-damaged Punchfighting fans, there’s no need for this.

Speaking of Merhi, he has a sit-down role (as he does in The Circuit 2) as Editor Bill. Thankfully, when his parents named him, they knew he would be a newspaper editor. That was fortuitous. Kind of like how fish grow to fit the bowl, or subconsciously, people come to fit their name, like Jay Woelfel, the director of the horrendously awful Iron Thunder (1998), which is indeed woeful (as we pointed out in our review). Thankfully, Merhi doesn’t do much (though even what he does do is unlikable), and neither does his buddy Loren Avedon. Apparently these two guys are so hard to work with, they can only work with each other. They’ve been exiled to the outer reaches of DTV slop, as has Bryan Genesse, who here resembles a card-carrying member of the Trenchcoat Mafia. A general rule of thumb is, if Genesse is involved, you’ve hit rock bottom. 

Fan favorite Billy Drago is...here...and Michael Blanks plays a guy named- wait for it - LL Cool J! Isn’t that against copyright law? How are they able to get away with that? Regardless, his name in the movie is LL Cool J. Clearly the writers of this movie were doin’ it, and doin’ it, and doin’ it, but not so well.

No one alive knows why, but there are THREE The Circuit movies. Now we just need to track down the hard-to-find third entry. For the sillier and less-substantial end of the Punchfighting genre, there’s always The Circuit.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Also check out write-ups from our buddies, DTVC and The Video Vacuum! 

Tiger Claws (1991)

Tiger Claws (1991)- * *

Directed by: Jalal Merhi

Starring: Jalal Merhi, Cynthia Rothrock, Bill Pickells and Bolo Yeung












 A mysterious serial killer known as the Death Dealer is stalking the streets of “New York City” (not Canada. Not Canada), and the only clue the police have to go on is that the dastardly murderer uses an obscure, underground fighting style known as Tiger. Because of this, the police chief assigns officer Linda Masterson (Rothrock) the case - he knows she is a practitioner of Martial Arts. He has another “Kung Fu cop” on the force, a strange foreigner named Tarek Richards (Merhi), so, naturally, he pairs the two up and sends them on their way. Despite Tarek’s lack of enthusiasm, he still is a rogue cop who plays by his own rules. Usually garbled, presumably. So Tarek goes undercover at the Tiger training center and meets the mysterious Chong (Bolo). Will our two heroes get to the bottom of the mystery of the Tiger Claw Killer? Find out sometime...

So if you were going to paint on your hair, what would you do with your life? Maybe become an insurance salesman? Carny? CEO of a company? Nah, you’d want to be in front of the camera, whether you had any business being there or not. Hence the rise (?) of Painted On Hair Guy, AKA Jalal Merhi. Seriously, this guy doesn’t use a comb, he uses a paintbrush! Hey-Oh! But, in all seriousness, if you could paint on any hair in the world, why would you choose that?

He also has a thick accent AND deadpan delivery. This “Deadpan Accent” is slowing things down, and he has no screen presence or spark. On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, we have top fan favorite Cynthia Rothrock as his partner. Any interest generated by this movie comes from her. However, the no-energy of Merhi coming up against the genuine energy of Rothrock results in a wash for the viewer and the two forces cancel each other out. So we’re left stranded in a Sargasso Sea of slowness in this amateurish, low-budget-junky-feeling exercise.

Much of the movie has almost a childish feel - there are silly shootouts and fights that feel like kids playing in the schoolyard. Even the laundry list of cliches - it’s an election year, the final warehouse fight, the baddie saying to the hero how they’re really both the same, the drug deal gone wrong, among many others - here are not FUN cliches, necessarily, like they many times can be. 

You get the feeling director Makin was makin’ this stuff for the first time ever, not retreading it. Amazingly, the writer, Maunder, came on board as director for Tiger Claws II. The dialogue also feels infantile, with a Detective Henderson stating, and we quote, “Serial killers are hard to find.” Additionally, if more people die horribly, it “won’t look good.” But there is a classic “searching for the Martial Arts school montage”, so, there’s that.

For the deadliest Martial Art ever, the extensive training sequences sure are boring, and pounding your fists in woks of sand repeatedly somehow start to lose their flair. This highlights the main problem with Tiger Claws - missed opportunities and untapped potential. You’d think with Rothrock and Bolo Yeung, if not Merhi, the movie would have been better. But Rothrock does pioneer the maritime Martial Art of “Oarfighting”, hinting at what the movie could have been if it had a bit more life and pizzazz.

Many in the cast have funny voices, and perhaps leading the pack is one Bill Pickells, in the acting stretch of a lifetime as Bill Pickells. Supposedly he’s a badass Martial Artist, but the guy looks like Oates and sounds like he’s been sucking on a helium balloon for the past several hours. But his credit at the end is almost up there with gems like “Sgt. Slaughter as Sgt. Slaughter” and Mike “Cobra” Cole as “Cobra” Cole. But Pickells would still have been a better choice for the male lead than Merhi, who is very stiff, and, if we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times, he was separated at birth with Bronson Pinchot. We’re fairly certain Merhi was actually born on Mypos.

Featuring the hair metal song “Break the Walls Down” by Attitude (in the poolhall scene - another sliver of what the movie should have been all along) - Tiger Claws was inexplicably followed by two sequels. We would say it’s for Rothrock and Bolo Yeung fans only.


Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett 

Also check out a write-up from our buddy, DTVC!

Expect No Mercy (1995)

Expect No Mercy (1995)-* * *

Directed by: Zale Dalen

Starring: Billy Blanks, Jalal Merhi, Wolf Larson, Laurie Holden, Anthony De Longis, Real Andrews, and Michael Blanks












Warbeck (Larson) and his sidekick Damian (De Longis of CIA II, 1993 fame) run the Virtual Arts Academy, an institution of “higher learning” that teaches its students Martial Arts mixed with heavy doses of Virtual Reality (or “VR”, as seemingly countless 90’s movies and TV shows insisted would be the future). However, as awesome as this place seems, something fishy is going on there, and Federal Agent Justin Vanier (Blanks) is assigned to check it out. So he goes undercover and enrolls as a student. As it turns out, the maniacal Warbeck is training high-tech assassins to go on missions to kill people, including witnesses for potential trials. Along with Eric (Merhi) and Vicki (Holden), Justin must bring down Warbeck’s sinister organization. But first he must figure out the differences between “virtual” and “reality” in this confusing new world.

Like we always used to say about the chain of stores Xpect Discounts, you can expect discounts, but you might not necessarily get any. However, after watching the absurd opening sequence to Expect No Mercy, you realize you are in for a ridiculous romp with plenty of 90’s nostalgia thanks to the plentiful computer graphics. Following Talons of the Eagle (1992) and TC 2000 (1993), Billy Blanks and Jalal Merhi team up once again. They must really get along well. Blanks has some funny catch phrases (and funny hair, and funny outfits), and Merhi is just mush-mouthed and incomprehensible.

Take the scene where Justin (i.e., Billy) is going to enter the VR school for the first time. He’s wearing a baseball cap and jacket. Right before walking in, he turns his hat around backwards, and unzips his jacket, exposing a lot of chest because he’s not wearing a shirt underneath. WHY? Did he think this would make him “fit in” at the school? Presumably Warbeck saw this and thus made him his mortal enemy. It would certainly explain their fight scene where for no comprehensible reason, after fighting for a good ten minutes, they then tear each other’s shirts off. Hmmmm...As far as Merhi, one of the scariest things in a non-horror movie is the disembodied Merhi head. You might scream.

As far as the other baddies, we have Damian, who wears a whip as some sort of tie, Real Andrews of Last Man Standing (1987) and Red Scorpion 2 (1994) fame, who would appear with Blanks the next year in Balance of Power (1996), Michael Blanks as Spyder, who is Billy’s brother and appeared in Ring of Steel (1994) and the fascinatingly-named Lazar Rockwood, who looks exactly like Billy Drago. We’re not entirely satisfied that it’s NOT Billy Drago. So the supporting cast is solid, and along with plenty of fights and blow-ups, Expect No Mercy provides the action and (presumably) unintentional comedy that makes for good entertainment.

An example of humor is in the set decoration: there are massive posters of Wolf Larson’s face everywhere. Where are those posters now? Also, since this was made at the height of the Mortal Kombat craze, there are some similarities there, and there’s even a real computer game you can buy based on this movie. But in the VR fight sequences (even the one with the Dee Snider-like villain Fango), are our heroes really punching NOTHING? When Billy Blanks had that fight scene with some steam in Balance of Power, was that a really more substantial opponent than the enemies here? Something to really (not) think about.

It has a memorable score by Varouje Hagopian, and even funny (presumably ADR?) sounds from the fighters, as if the filmmakers thought the fights were too boring, so they felt adding some actors shouting “chaw!” “chaw!” would really liven things up. Unsurprisingly, the movie was shot in Ontario, Canada and has a very Canadian feel (again, not a bad thing, just an observation).

For 90’s action silliness, Expect No Mercy is a solid choice.

Also check out reviews from our buddies: DTVC and Lost Video Archive!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Tiger Claws II (1996)

Tiger Claws II (1996)-* *

Directed by: J. Stephen Maunder

Starring: Jalal Merhi, Cynthia Rothrock, Bolo Yeung, Eric Lee, Han Soon Ong, and Evan Lurie













When evil arms dealer Victor (Lurie) joins forces with the sinister Chong (Bolo), presumably to start some kind of criminal empire, and people are found dead all over San Francisco, cops Linda (Rothrock) and Tarek (Merhi) want to get to the bottom of it. Also they are in a romantic relationship. Things get really complicated when Dai Lo Fu (Ong), using his Chinatown restaurant as cover, is staging underground martial arts contests - with a supernatural twist. Now, to get to the truth, Linda and Tarek must compete. Will any of this make any kind of sense?

Clearly the world was asking - nay - BEGGING for one more Tiger Claws movie. And there’s even a third one after this! This movie is a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas that make no sense. It feels like the filmmakers were just kind of flying by the seats of their respective pants and kind of making stuff up as they went along. Probably not a good idea, especially if your choice for the male hero is the unintelligble, mumbling, personality-less, unlikable Jalal Merhi. He looks like a Balki-era Bronson Pinchot crossed with Night of the Wilding-era Erik Estrada. One of the biggest plot flaws is why Cynthia Rothrock is in love with him. And the scene in which he must use his awesome martial arts prowess to “save” Cynthia Rothrock is just preposterous. It should have been the other way around.

We like Evan Lurie, especially after American Kickboxer 2 (1993), and he was a good choice for one of the villains. He is charismatic and perhaps a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia. How his illegal gun shipment has to do with a “secret passage” and a mystical prisoner (Lee) cannot be explained. Han Soo Ong, who we’ve seen in Last to Surrender (1999) and King of the Kickboxers (1990), we believe is Korean, so why is he the crime boss here?

The presumed Punchfighting sequences are just cash-ins for video games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, and are just silly and nonsensical. Additionally, the film is filled with funny continuity errors and has that Canadian feel. And while Merhi isn’t quite as sucky as he was in Talons of the Eagle (1992) (which was written by director Maunder, as was TC 2000 (1993), as well as the other Tiger Claws movies and other Merhi vehicles - he must have really believed in the “Tiger Claws” concept, as well as Jalal Merhi, so his judgment is certainly in question), he’s no prince here either. Even Rothrock, who we love, can’t save this one.

Also check out our buddy DTVC's review! 

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Talons Of The Eagle (1992)

Talons Of The Eagle (1992)-* * *

Directed by: Michael Kennedy

Starring: Billy Blanks, Jalal Merhi, Priscilla Barnes, Master Pan Quing Fu, James Hong, Eric Lee, Gary "Si-Jo" Foo, and Matthias Hues



"When You're Fighting Crime, Killing is a Way of Life."








Tyler Wilson (Blanks) is a tough New York City cop who is also proficient in martial arts. Because he is such a "loose cannon", he is shipped off to Toronto to team up with Michael Reeds (Merhi) because he is dubbed a "loose cannon" as well. This police chief is quite a matchmaker. It seems a Mr. Li (Hong) has his hands in drugs, prostitution, gambling, and the like, and, as we've seen before, Li is taping Councilmen and other government officials indulging in these vices, and the corruption goes...wait for it...all the way to the top! But wait, there's more! Li also holds punchfighting competitions to find new recruits for his organization. When the dynamic duo of Reeds and Wilson foil a plot to assassinate Li, Li hires them to be his personal bodyguards. Now they're on the inside, and they team up with Cassandra (Barnes) to bring down the evil empire. They must do so before Li can annex the evil Fong Wai Hut (Foo) and his gang.

Additionally, since Master Pan (Quing Fu as himself) is a noble monk who won't take bribes from Li, and they are at odds, Wilson and Reeds go through rigorous training sessions at Pan's monastery. Here they learn the secret of the "Eagle Claw", which is not to be confused with the "Tiger Claw" from the other Blanks/Merhi production TC 2000 (1993). Master Pan commands an army of bald, white, mustachioed monks that really help out Wilson and Reeds. They're going to have to train hard to defeat Li's henchmen Khan (Hues) and Eric Lee (credited only as "bodyguard").

You've gotta love Billy Blanks' wide-eyed, childlike delivery of his lines. He has some great martial arts moves in the film as well - doesn't everyone kickbox with a white collared shirt buttoned all the way up? - luckily Blanks makes his trademark funny faces and sounds. Just look at the above picture. Gaze upon Blanks' facial expression for 10 seconds and try not to laugh. And that's just a still shot from the poster!

As far as Jalal Merhi (whose hair appears painted on, so we started calling him the Painted On Hair Guy), try to imagine a cross between Steven Seagal and comedian Nick DiPaolo. His "loose cannon" status mentioned earlier is clearly evident in his ponytail and leather outfit. As seen in Tough and Deadly (1995) Reeds loves hockey (this is Canada, don't forget) and Beethoven, and Wilson loves beer and urban R&B music.Will they ever be able to get along? Painted On Hair Guy is smarmy and unlikable, and his fighting is somewhat lackluster. Wilson even calls him, and I quote, a "Bubblehead". Does anyone know if he's related to PM's Joseph Merhi? It couldn't be a coincidence that there are two men named Merhi in the direct to video world, could it?

Matthias Hues as Khan snaps his fingers and commands a kung-fu army. With this one snap, he displays ten times the charm of Painted On Hair Guy and we remember why we love Hues. Seeing as the film is set in Toronto, they don't have to hide the fact that it actually is Toronto. That seems like a wise move. The extended (read: most of the movie) training sequences strongly recall the other Blanks vehicle Balance of Power (1996), especially the beach scenes.

For a professionally-made production featuring some familiar faces and, to quote the VideoHound book, "Featuring the most advanced fighting techniques ever filmed", and with a memorable title song by Jonas J. Patricko, do check out the silly fun of Talons of the Eagle.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty