Shadow Fury (2001)

 

Shadow Fury (2001)- * * 1\2

Directed by: Makato Yokoyama

Starring: Fred Williamson, Sam Bottoms, Gregory Vahanian, Bas Rutten, Cassandra Grae, Pat Morita, Alexndra Kamp, Allen Kolman, Masakasu Funaki, Jeanette McCurdy, and Taylor Lautner

When Dolly the Sheep was cloned in July of 1996, it was a very inspirational time for us all. Now everyone on earth knew we were open to a world of sheep-cloning possibilities. It was only a matter of time until we got cloned ninjas. Clearly, "clone fever" is what inspired Dr. Oh (Morita) to create Takeru (Funaki), a nigh-on unkillable super-ninja with amazing fighting and murdering capabilities. After cloning is banned, Dr. Oh sics Takeru on his former associates Dr. Forster (Kamp), Dr. Markov (Vahanian), and Dr. Hiller (Kolman), in some sort of act of revenge. So Nova Corp, the original clonemakers (which should be their slogan) hires a bounty hunter named Mitchell Madsen (Bottoms) to stop Takeru. Because Madsen has a failing liver, he thinks he can kill two ninjas with one stone and take Takeru's after he smites him down.



In order to achieve his goal, Madsen goes to see Sam (The Hammer), a sort of Machine Gun Joe character. Meanwhile, Nova Corp is developing a sort of super-teen with Martial Arts abilities named Kismet (the original tot is played by Taylor Lautner, but he grows up fast and two other people - including MMA man Bas Rutten - take on the role as well). As if all that wasn't enough, your classic Hooker With a Heart of Gold named Sasha (Grae) somehow manages to fall in love with the emotionless Takeru. But can Takeru learn to...love? And will friends become enemies and enemies become friends? Who has the ultimate SHADOW FURY?



While it opens with a bang, and the idea of cloned ninjas is a fairly cool one, we suspect that this is the type of production that really, really hoped it would become a cult movie but never did. As we've seen countless times before, you cannot intentionally manufacture a cult movie. It just has to happen on its own. That aside, Shadow Fury seems to fall into the category of the Scanner Cop series, the Cyborg Cop series, Steel and Lace (1991), The Demolitionist (1995), or even perhaps I Come In Peace (1990). We're not even going to mention the similarities to The Terminator (1984). It's all served up with a strong Japanese twist, thanks to director Makoto Yokoyama, who worked a lot with stunts, including with the Power Rangers. That style just may come across here in the wackier side of the unrealistic, wire-type fighting.


Pat Morita's hair in the film is almost worth the price of admission alone. Maybe it was inspired by Anime characters, but who can really say? It's as over the top as some of the fight scenes. Alexandra Kamp looks a lot like Sarah Palin, at least in her role here as Dr. Forster. Fan favorite Fred Williamson doesn't do a lot. It's a glorified cameo, but we were still happy to see him. The character of Madsen (characters named Madsen and Forster? Could the writers have been deliberately referencing Tarantino-associated actors here?) was ably done by Bottoms. It seems they were going for a They Live-era Piper vibe with this character. What with the other references on show, that's probably the case.


There really are some cool ideas here, and the silliness, action and silly action will carry you relatively easily to the 90-minute mark. But something still feels missing that would make it a more satisfying viewing experience. It's hard to say what that is, exactly, but by 2001, DTV was in the doldrums. Perhaps it's that, plus the references to other things, and synthetic fight scenes - in place of a more substantial heart and soul - that would cause viewers not to totally warm to Shadow Fury.


All that being said, if you find the VHS tape at Goodwill, as we did, it's certainly worth a purchase for a dollar or two. But probably not more than that.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

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

Bloodsport 2 (1996)

 

Bloodsport 2 (1996)- * * *

Directed by: Alan Mehrez

Starring: Daniel Bernhardt, Pat Morita, James Hong, Nicolas Hill, Ron Hall, Ong Soo Han, Chad Stahelski, and Donald Gibb

Alex Cardo (Bernhardt) is what Michael Jackson might have called a "smooth criminal". He's suave with the ladies, but he travels to Thailand so he can steal an ancient and valuable sword. He gets caught and thrown in the pokey, where he makes a lot of enemies, including Demon (Ong), but he makes at least one friend: Master Sun (Hong).


Sun tells Cardo about The Kumite, and trains him mercilessly so he can enter into it. This includes teaching him The Iron Hand, a secret Martial Arts technique that is quite powerful. After all this sword business is behind him, having dealt with antiquities enthusiast David Leung (Morita), Cardo concentrates fully on The Kumite. Thanks to the charismatic Tiny (Gibb), Cardo gets in.


While there, he meets other competitors such as Sergio (Hill) and Cliff (Hall), but the toughest contender is, darn the luck, Demon. That's right, his old nemesis from Thai prison. The stage is set for the ultimate battle. Well, maybe not the ultimate battle, because both Bloodsport movies and Punchfighters continue until the present day, but you know what we mean. Who will be victorious in this, THE NEXT KUMITE?


Here we have the first appearance out of two for the Alex Cardo character in the Bloodsport series. Daniel Bernhardt was the natural choice to replace Van Damme if the series was going to continue without JCVD. They share an uncanny physical similarity and European background. Bernhardt seems very much up for the challenge as he trains his heart out and gets involved in near-constant Martial Arts fights.


Thankfully, Donald Gibb is back as Tiny from the first film, and he always adds a lot. Gibb has "It" - a magnetic screen presence that makes him watchable. This is also one of the best roles we've seen to date for James Hong. Out of his massive filmography, which is 439 credits and counting, he usually doesn't get a role this meaty, where he starts the film by narrating the tale of Alex Cardo to a Karate school filled with tots, and appearing throughout as Cardo's trusty trainer. It's a better showcase for his talents than his usual bit roles, so that was nice to see.


Sun and Cardo - and everyone else in the Thai prison - must wear pink outfits because that's the jailhouse garb. Is it possible that former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio watched Bloodsport 2? Because that's what he made is inmates wear, much to the chagrin of rapper and sometime action star DMX.


Luckily for us, Bloodsport 2 delivers all the Bloodsport 2iness that we could possibly want. While it came out in 1996, it feels more like 1990. Director Mehrez shot this entry in the series and Bloodsport III both in '96. Still, it was a cable and video store staple and easily accessible to anyone who wanted to see it.


It's well-shot and you can always see what's going on. This separates it from many Punchfighters of today, which skimp on the lighting and you can't discern who is who. Back in the 90's, not only was everything much clearer visually, but the fighters had well-defined personalities. We always use the example of the Shootfighter films, but it's equally true here. We as the audience definitely know who is going up against who in The Kumite. Of course, that's a good thing.


Unfortunately, an almost-insurmountable obstacle for any tournament fighting movie is that, at the very least, the final third of the film becomes quite repetitive. You have to show many shirtless men punching and kicking each other - over and over - so, that's what you do. But, to be fair, not all the men are shirtless. Some are in wrestling singlets.


But, presumably the reason why you sought out Bloodsport 2 is for the punching and kicking, and that's certainly what you get. Adding to the win column, there are several non-tournament action scenes that also really liven things up. So, because it's well-lit, well-shot, and features a strong cast of many favorite faces (and clocks in at a reasonable 86 minutes), Bloodsport 2 is a more than worthy follow-up to the classic original.


Released in America on VHS on the CFP video label, Bloodsport 2 is a video store classic and would make a good addition to any 90's action or Punchfighting collection.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

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

Bloodsport III (1996)

Bloodsport III (1996)- * *1\2

Directed by: Alan Mehrez

Starring: Daniel Bernhardt, Pat Morita, James Hong, David Schatz, Nicolas Oleson, Scott McElroy, and John Rhys-Davies













Alex Cardo (Bernhardt) is a Punchfighter, but he’d rather be having tender heart-to-heart talks with his classically 90’s son Jason (David Schatz). While he trains his tot in the ways of Martial Arts, he regales him with stories of the time he won the Kumite (thus eliminating any sense of suspense or drama and telegraphing a spoiler alert from the get-go). Alex recounts the tale of his time in “the Far East” when he used to frequent casinos while dressed in a white tuxedo. Jason, clearly riveted, continues to listen. Alex tells of the evil fight promoter Duvalier (Rhys-Davies), and how he murdered his mentor Master Sun (Hong). He neglects to mention why Pat Morita is only seen for about 30 seconds and for no apparent reason. 

To win the tournament, Alex goes to the countryside and begins training extensively, which is a prerequisite if you want to win. Alex soon dons his singlet and enters the ring, and proceeds to work his way through a bunch of fighters with no character development beyond their names, such as Bruce Burly (McElroy) (though why J. J. Perry had to play a guy named J. J. Tucker remains unexplained). Finally he faces off against The Beast (Oleson), an almost comically oversized meathead of the highest order. Will Alex live to tell the tale to his son? Well, yeah, of course he will.

Grown men punching and kicking each other. It can take on many wondrous and colorful forms. Apparently there’s no real limit on how many of these types of movies can be made. The original Bloodsport and Kickboxer films truly opened the floodgates during the video store era for Punchfighters for decades to come, even up to the present day. But the problem with movies like this is, during the last half-hour at least, it gets very boring and repetitive. But you have to show the Kumite, right? So on and on it goes.

Before the internet and even Pay-Per-View, renting movies like this was one of the only ways to see fighting of this kind on film. It’s easy to forget that in this day and age. So the movie gets somewhat of a pass, but it really should have bothered to do a bit more character development and maybe concentrated a little less on extended Kumite footage. 

We realize we’re talking about Bloodsport III here, but still, we think that’s a fair criticism. The first half of Bloodsport III is actually a lot of fun. It has that silly, funny, absurd vibe we love so dearly. But then it slows down and becomes more standard, unfortunately enough.

Daniel Bernhardt must have been an obvious choice to fill the shoes of Van Damme, because, let’s face it, he’s basically the same person. We’ve never seen them in the same place at the same time, have we? It must have been tough living in the shadow of JCVD. But somewhere in between Van Damme and Olivier Gruner, the Bernhardt dwells. 

At many points throughout the film, you could swear that it IS Van Damme. But Bernhardt puts forth his best “suave eyebrow” to woo the ladies, and why wouldn’t he go after Crystal Duvalier (Van Lent), with a singing voice like that? In the “white tuxedo” scene, he truly is Daniel BernBond. But the man has his own personal problems and demons as well, as he has nightmares of recycled footage that he has to contend with.

Perhaps, in the end, Bloodsport III raises more questions than it answers (what exactly is the timeline of all these Kumite matches as they relate to parts II and III? Why do deathfights to the death have a ref? And so many others...). 

But it does have a noteworthy end-credits song, “Rhythm of the Kumite” - a techno tune where you think at any moment someone will yell “Mortal Kombat!!!!!” - but they do indeed yell “Bloodsport!!!!!”, so, no harm no foul. So basically the first half is entertaining but it devolves into a slog. So watch it on YouTube and save the money on your credit Cardo.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out write-ups by our buddies, DTVC and The Action Elite!

Collision Course (1989)

Collision Course (1989)- * * *1\2

Directed by: Lewis Teague

Starring: Jay Leno, Pat Morita, Ernie Hudson, John Hancock, Chris Sarandon, Mike Starr, Soon Teck Oh, Tom Noonan, and Randall Tex Cobb












Tony Costas (Jay “Men are like this, but women are like this” Leno) is a Detroit Police Detective, as you might expect. Fujitsuka Natsuo (Morita) is a “Detective First Class” in Japan. When his chief, Kitao (Oh), sends him to Detroit to investigate the corporate intrigue behind a very special car part that could revolutionize the auto industry, he immediately thinks of Jay Leno and tells him to find him. So while, initially, according to the back of the VHS box, the two men are “as different as hot dogs and sushi”, they eventually learn to work together, despite cultural differences and Jay Leno’s annoying presence. An impressive list of excellent names orbits the wacky goings-on, including the great Noonan, Sarandon, Cobb, Hudson, Starr and others. Will Costas and Natsuo get to the bottom of the matter before being killed by the baddies? No matter what, you’re - again quoting the box - “guaranteed a lot of action. But you’re guaranteed a lot of laughs!”

Well, it finally happened. The day you knew was coming finally arrived. The ultimate action star, Jay Leno, has been set loose, has a gun, and is running around Detroit savagely murdering people. Okay, well, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but as you can clearly see above, he does indeed have a gun. And he doesn’t seem to be afraid to use it. The terms “Jay Leno” and “weaponry” should always be used together, and here they finally have a harmonious home. Naturally thanks to the greatest casting decision of all time. (Or at least since Art Garfunkel had a Short Fuse).

But really, this is your classic 80’s buddy cop/action/comedy we’ve come to be very familiar with, very much in a similar vein to Action Jackson (1988) for the automobile-related intrigue in Detroit, but also Red Heat (1988) for the “wisecracking cop teaming up with a fish out of water from another country” theme. Jay Leno probably only agreed to be in it because the subject matter involves cars. Don’t be afraid of his high-pitched squeakings; in actual fact, Collision Course is highly entertaining. It stacks one nutty scenario on top of another for pretty much the entire running time. For an action comedy that’s 80’s through and through, Collision Course definitively delivers the goods.

It’s even fascinating to watch as a time capsule, because it was set in a time when Japan was considered a major threat and rival. And because Jay Leno is a cop who plays by his own rules and occasionally flouts the law himself, and lets fly with some classic casual racism, and goes up to any woman he sees and asks for their “home number”, through the wildly PC eyes of 2013, Jay Leno would be seen as a fascist, womanizing racist. But it was all in good fun back then. Plus, at any moment you think he’s going to tell the audience it’s okay because “crunch all you want, we’ll make more.” It’s a shame Leno gave up his budding career as an action star and chose to be the host of the Jay Leno Show (not The Tonight Show. The Jay Leno Show).  What a waste.

Yet more silliness ensues when Pat Morita is onscreen and stereotypically “Asian” music plays. You want to scream “we get it, he’s Asian!!!”. And when asked his name, Natsuo says “Dwayne Johnson”, predating The Rock by many years. Also there is a missile gun, fruit cart chases, sax AND funk on the soundtrack, and not just a freeze-frame, a split freeze frame. There’s also a top-notch BYC (Black Yelling Chief), played brilliantly by John Hancock, who signs this movie with a huge signature (sorry about that, but it‘s true). 

The icing on the cake is an ad after the movie is over, informing us that if we weren’t fully entertained, we could send in our “rental receipt” and get a full refund! Now who on God’s green earth would do that? They must have been fully confident in the ability of Jay Leno to delight and amuse, even though lawsuits prevented the movie from being released on VHS for about six years (it was shot in 1986 and didn’t come out on VHS until 1992. Presumably this was strategically timed for Jay Leno to be crowned victorious in the Late Night Wars of the early 90s. Whether people thought this would help or hurt his chances in said Wars remains unclear).

So for unabashed silliness that’s a lot more entertaining than you might think, give Collision Course a try. Also, if you want to know what a “hard PG” looks like, here it is. After all, this may be your only chance to see Jay Leno brutally executing his rivals.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Also check out write-ups by: The Unknown Movies, and Explosive Action!

Desert Heat (1999)

Desert Heat (1999)- *

Directed by: John G. Avildsen

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Pat Morita, Danny Trejo, Bill Erwin, David 'Shark' Fralick, Larry Drake, Paul Koslo, Gregory Scott Cummins, Vincent Schiavelli, Jeff Kober, Jaime Pressly, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, and Ford Rainey









Eddie Lomax (Van Damme) is a mysterious stranger who comes to a dusty ol’ California town. When some local good old boys called the Hogan family, not to be confused with the delightful 80’s sitcom, assault him and leave him for dead, Eddie’s buddy, Johnny Six Toes (Trejo) nurses him back to health.

 Lomax then makes it his mission to get revenge on the Hogans, and one of his main methods of doing that is to pit a faction of other local no-good-niks against them. Lomax must be a big movie buff, because we’ve all seen that plan so many times before. He then enlists the help of Jubal Early (Morita), a nice man who annoyingly repeats all his sentences, the crotchety old man Eli Hamilton (Erwin) and the inexplicably Indian road house owner Singh (Schiavelli) to help him out. The owners of the local diner, the Reynolds family - Dottie, Rhonda, and the prerequisite Pop (Pressly, Fitzpatrick and Rainey, respectively) all love Eddie and get behind his mission quickly, and of course there’s some predictable romance between Rhonda and Eddie. Will Lomax ever turn up the DESERT HEAT?

At this point in his career, Van Damme was in a rut. After a long string of either good or successful movies, he went on to make the awful Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) and then Desert Heat, his first DTV effort after he was exiled from movie theaters. 

Despite a virtual all-star/all character actor cast, Desert Heat is a dud that’s pretty hard to sit through. The plot is yet another tired run-through of Yojimbo (1961), or, if you prefer, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), or perhaps Django (1966), Savage Dawn (1985) or the more recently-released at the time Last Man Standing (1996), or any other possible options. This movie adds nothing whatsoever to the tale, it’s just a tired rehash. At least similar DTV films like Steel Frontier (1995), Digital Man (1995), or Missionary Man (2007) tried to inject something different into the formula. Desert Heat - which based on its forebears should have been called “Desert Man” - does no such thing.

The whole outing starts on an irritating note and it’s hard to recover. It’s Van Damme spewing a bunch of nonsense as a “tilty-cam” swirls around him. It was the late 90’s after all, so there had to be things like this, and the fact that the movie is annoyingly self-aware (a character asks Dottie if she wants to go see Yojimbo in the theater...groan) hurts the final product. Desert Heat is populated with underdeveloped characters you just don’t care about, and, coupled with the movie’s lack of any originality whatsoever, makes it lose any kind of force or interest for the viewer.

 After the intro, which will unfortunately remind viewers of Bloodmatch (1991) of all things, it never seems to gain much momentum and it’s easy to see why director Avildsen took his name off the movie (even though it’s still in the end credits anyway - just another facet of the shoddy nature of the film). From Rocky (1976) to Desert Heat? Interesting career trajectory...

As far as the baddies, there are some familiar names - Larry Drake, Jeff Kober, Paul Koslo and Gregory Scott Cummins, among others. That’s one of the real shames of Desert Heat. It took a killer cast and reduced it to this crud. There are even a handful of potentially cool scenes - but if you don’t care about the characters or their plight, they don’t amount to much. 

Apparently, Van Damme’s behind the scenes meddling caused the mess we see today. Just what he wanted to change, why he thought the version after the changes was better, or how he was allowed to have that much power over the final film remain unanswered questions. But the end result is that Desert Heat is a slog and one of the weakest Van Dammes.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

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

American Ninja 5 (1993)

American Ninja 5 (1993)-*

Directed by: Bobby Gene Leonard

Starring: David Bradley, Pat Morita, Lee Reyes, Anne Dupont, Clement von Franckenstein, and James Lew

Did you know there is an American Ninja FIVE? Apparently there is, even though it was meant to be something called American Dragons and perhaps they didn’t want to confuse it with the other, better movie of the same name.

In this anti-climactic ending to the American Ninja franchise, David Bradley plays Joe Kastle (not Davidson as in prior A.N. films), a guy who lives on a boat and likes to work out. One day, Master Tetsu (Morita) pawns off his “grand-nephew” Hiro (Reyes) on Joe and leaves to go to Greece for a vacation. While Joe is learning to cope with babysitting this annoying brat, it turns out that his new girlfriend Lisa (Dupont) is kidnapped by the evil Viper (Lew) and his gang of ninjas. Viper works for the nefarious Glock (von Franckenstein), a man who is using scientists to develop an insecticide named ZB-12. Lisa’s father is a scientist but refuses to work on the potentially dangerous project. So Joe and Hiro must go through a bunch of travails in Venezuela to rescue Lisa who is kidnapped there. Along the way, Joe and Hiro forge a friendship based on the ways of the ninja.

Rather than be loyal to the fans that have followed the series through the years, Cannon pawns this juvenile, watered-down, PG-13 rated dreck on the audience like Pat Morita does his bratty relative onto David Bradley in this patience-testing exercise.

Bradley is likable enough and he looks like a young Craig Ferguson, although he is your classic action movie dum-dum. His young foil is another matter. Hiro is a precocious 12 year old whose presence in this movie is not needed. He says “whoa!” while Bradley fights the baddies, who are purple, green, and white ninjas, as if this was a video game. Speaking of which, Hiro’s Game Gear plays a surprisingly big role in this film. Hiro has a matching Miami Dolphins baseball cap/coat and, sadly, brings this movie into the current “ADD generation”.

 The movie as a whole could have been better, even if it was aiming more for the family market, but this Hiro kid gets on your nerves. Plus the whole daughter/scientist father aspect was already done in American Ninja 2 (1987). Couldn’t they come up with something new? It’s director Leonard’s only movie to date and you think he would be familiar with past entries in the series, but maybe he never watched them. That’s certainly what it seems like; he didn’t try to impress with his knowledge of past A.N.‘s, that’s for sure...which seems odd. Having American Ninja 5 be the only movie on your resume is indeed a bizarre way to enter movie history. The whole Karate Kid aspect of the film is even further enhanced by the presence of Pat Morita. Did any kid ever see this movie...ever?

The baddies are more interesting, as Glock strongly resembles Bernie Madoff and James Lew’s entrances and exits are by far the best part of this movie. It’s here that this film becomes utterly absurd. They should have gone in that direction more, if you see the movie you’ll know what we mean.

The jaunty flute music enhances the mild nature of the proceedings, and it’s unfortunate that the mighty American Ninja franchise fell victim to the old sitcom trick of “Addakid”, that is, when all the sitcom kids grow up and aren’t cute anymore, to simply add a newer, younger, cuter kid regardless of whether it makes sense plotwise. It’s an ignominious way for this beloved series to go.

Even though this movie came out in 1993, it looks and seems older, but maybe that’s because it’s pretty lame and impotent, not to mention way overlong.

You’d have to be a die-hard fan of the American Ninja films or any of the actors involved to sit through this insult to people who followed the original four films in this series.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

The Number One Girl (2005)

The Number One Girl (2005) -Zero Stars

Directed by: Luc Campeau

Starring: Tony Schiena, Lisa McAllister, Pat Morita and Vinnie Jones











The Number One Girl is the front runner for worst movie of the year. I can't hate this movie more if I tried.

Joey Scalini (Schiena) is asked to be a judge in a beauty pageant run by his old friend Dragos Molnar (Jones) who is also a gangster. Joey eventually falls for the title character Tatiana (Lisa McAllister). But Dragos doesn't like that and he goes insane. He closes down the pageant after party and turns it into a fighting ring. Now Joey has to fight Dragos and his bodyguards to the death!



Everything about this movie is absolutely terrible: 

You would think with that plot description this would be a lot better than it actually is. Tony Schiena  shows no talent or charisma. Vinnie Jones is at his weakest here.  The pacing and directing: The movie is less than 90 minutes but it feels like an eternity. The directing is filled with static shots of nothing happening. In the pageant scene the director is not even trying to cover up the fact that the contestants aren't singing.

The fighting: The fight scenes are downright awful. Every move is cut too fast so you can't see what's going on. Seagal's stunt doubles are better than these fighters.

In the end, trust me, you never want to see this... ever!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty